Update

[lierdumoa]

permetaform came to visit after class last night. Apparently boniblithe finally convinced her that she should have seen all of Firefly -- yesterday. She had only a few hours to spare, but we got in two episodes -- "Jaynestown" and "Ariel." Of course, then came the inevitable, "Why was this show cancelled?!?"

permetaform had the insight that Inara is like Lana Lang if only Lana Lang were done well, instead of being a travesty against nature.

She brought Shawshank Redemption! I ripped it to my computer this morning. Now that all my source is in place, I can defrag.



Today, yhlee made a post detailing her vidding process step-by-step. I figured I'd make a post of my own, in case anyone's curious.

1) I get an idea. This happens multiple ways. Usually I hear a song and try to think of what fandom/character it fits best. Sometimes I'll think of a character and then try to look for a song. Sometimes song and subject pop into my head simultaneously.

2) I come up with a rudimentary outline. Sometimes this is as simple as "start the vid at the beginning of the movie, end it at the end." In a narrative (read: plot driven) vid I'll usually look at all the different sections of the song and decide what event/time period is going to be represented in each. In a non-narrative or mood-driven vid (I've only made, like, one of these), I'll decide what quality/characteristic of a character/relationship/whatever is going to represented in each section of a song. I may or may not write down my outlines depending on how complicated they are. I do hunt down the lyrics online, then make sure the lyrics I got online are correct by listening to the song. Occasionally, I will write in on the lyrics where instrumentals fall and how long the instrumentals are.

3) I get my source onto my computer, either by ripping DVD's or downloading episodes or dragging it off my co-op's server (god bless illegal ethernet databases).

4) I re-watch the source. Sometimes I skip this step. For example, I didn't bother re-watching Firefly for Simon!vid, but just went straight to clipping. Usually if I'm vidding a movie I'll re-watch it because hey -- it's the only time I can watch a movie and claim I'm being productive. I doubt I'll be re-watching all my source for my Seth/Ryan vid (The OC) because I just don't have 20+ hrs to spare.

5) Clipping. Sometimes I skip this step. If I'm vidding a movie, I won't bother doing clipping. Thanks to the beauty that is avisynth, I can just import the whole movie into Premiere and go. Back when I was using Windows Movie Maker I never did any clipping -- I'd just import 20-30 episodes wholesale into the program (which probably explains why it crashed every 3 minutes). If I have over 1 movie's worth of source, I'll do clipping, or what amounts to clipping in avisynth. I'll basically pull my source into VirtualDub sans sound and skim through, picking out scenes that I want.

6) Audio. I used to straight up import it. Now, thanks to avisynth and 24 vs. 23.976 fps I have a few more highly technical steps that I won't bother going into here. If there's something I want to edit out/ edit into my vid audio, I'll do that in this free program I downloaded called Audacity.

7) I'll start vidding. I work very linearly, so I start with the beginning and go section by section until I reach the end. Occasionally I'll sit back after a week of vidding and realize I haven't listened to the last half of the song since I started working. Every time I finish a section, I go back and revise the section just before it -- two steps forward one step back kinda thing, to make sure everything looks consistent. I don't really do a rough cut. I may only have 20 second of a vid done, but those 20 seconds will look pretty much finished in terms of clip choice, timing, effects, etc. I'll periodically export what I have and watch it the whole way through to make sure it flows on a macro level and make notes of things I want to change.

I figure out what my style theme is (i.e. effects I'm using, the kind of cutting I'm using, how I expect the vid to move rhythmically, etc.) during the vid's intro. I then figure out variations on that theme to go with different sections of the song as I get to them, i.e. the choruses will be cut similarly to each other, the verses will be cut similarly to each other, any repeating instrumentals, etc. I'll usually do something unique for the intro, bridge, and finale each, still going along with the style theme I figured out when I started the vid. This is an oversimplification, of course. Not every vid is organized the same way. Generally the more flashy a vid is, the more rigidly structured the style theme is -- that way I can keep flashy effects under control by making them part of a strict pattern. For my vividcon premiere vid to Gia I actually typed up my style scheme in an outline format.

8) Avoidance. This step is repeated multiple times throughout the editing process, and it involves everything from writing "meta" (which is really very lengthy and in depth and somewhat informative complaining of why my vid project is so haaaaard) to downloading vids obsessively off vidding to reading assloads of fic, etc. I know a lot of vidders don't like watching other people's vids while they're working. I think I probably watch other people's vids more when I'm vidding then when I'm not. Then again, when am I ever not? I vid in my head constantly. As far as I can tell, watching other people's vids has never really affected whatever current project I'm working on, though sometimes I get ideas for future projects. I often get songs that are not my vidsong stuck in my head while I'm vidding. I think it's my brain's defense mechanism for when I get too sick of listening to my vidsong. I get a lot of new vid ideas while I'm in avoidance mode.

9) Once my rough draft is finished, I'll round up beta's. I'll try to get two people at minimum -- someone familiar with the source, and someone unfamiliar with it. permetaform usually sees everything I make multiple times since she lives two blocks away. If I'm working with a deadline, my beta's are sometimes whichever vidders happen to be on instant messenger when I finish. After I get initial reactions from beta's, if there was something I was trying to get across and failed, I'll tell my beta's what it was and ask them how they think I could convey that better.

10) I'll revise and export. If I'm still not sure about something, I'll go back to step 8 with rough draft #2.

11) Post processing. I'll make a large, high quality Xvid version. I try to keep my vids under 30 MB. sometimes that's not possible. I'll make a wmv, and may or may not uploade it depending on how satisfied I am with how the wmv looks. I just downloaded a new wmv encoder, so I'll be trying that out when I get around to uploading my vividcon vids. Supposedly it will allow me to encode higher quality audio then I could from just importing my Xvid into Windows Movie Maker and making my wmv that way. Probably the thing I hate most about wmv's is the crappy sounding audio, far more than the mediocre video quality.

12) Screencapping. I always try to write a "making of" post for my vids. I'll screencap my entire editing timeline as well as any new effects I tried out making the vid. The instant I finish all my screencapping I delete my source files, as I'm often working directly with DVD source, and it takes up a ton of harddrive space.

14) I'll write up the making of post wherein I describe my vid's subject, structure, etc. Occasionally I'll link back to my whiny posts from step 8 in my making of post, as they occasionally include in depth looks at problems as well as descriptions of how I solved those problems. I'll also upload whatever screencaps I took and include explanations as to what the screencaps mean.

15) I'll post everything. I will link to my making of post from my vid post, so that anyone who wants to check out my production notes after they see my vid can do so. Then I'll go to my e-mail inbox and click the refresh button obsessively waiting for feedback.

16) Sleep. Sleep like the dead.

Comments

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

She loved it! Of course.