the carnival of you and me

Is anyone vidding with a new version of Vegas? I'm thinking of upgrading from Vegas Pro 9, and just wondering how you're finding it.

One of the reasons my vidding dropped off, other than perennial issues with my arms, is that my current version has trouble handling the newer file formats, especially mp4 and mkv. I'm assuming the more recent versions are better? Anyone?

...where you make a small change to your draft and suddenly have a block of five empty bars on your timeline.

tahi. I've been offline a lot lately, because arms, and one of the genius ideas I had was that instead of writing, I could scour through source material in preparation for making a vid. So now I've prepped and I'm ready to get vidding and I really should not because arms. *facepalm* Also, the combination of source and song mean that chances are pretty high no one will ever watch this vid, which oh well. Takes the pressure off? I amuse myself, anyway.

rua. There was an article on the Scientific American site recently about how walking through doorways resets your brain (at least somewhat), and it occurs to me that this is extremely useful when dealing with brain weasels. Like, lying in bed being assailed by pointless doubts and misgivings is Just No Fun, and you can't fight them off because they're weasels, but if you get up and go into a different room, nine times out of ten the weasels get bored and go off in search of other prey. Or, well, it works for me (often facilitated by crosswording). Anyone else?

toru. Cool thing I learned yesterday: type the following into MS Word:

=lorem(x,y)
=rand(x,y)
=rand.old(x,y)

Where x is the number of paragraphs, and y is the number of sentences per paragraph.

wha. In case anyone missed it yesterday, mergatrude and I made a new comm for Sam/Steve fanworks: mcu_onyourleft. Despite the name, it's for all Sam/Steve-centric works -- comics and MCU. Feel free to link to old fanworks as well as new ones.

Okay, so at the moment my vidding process starts:

1. I have a song and a vague idea.
2. I print out the lyrics and make a few notes.
3. I begin clipping, working through dozens of episodes, building up a library of soft clips (ie, I don't save them as separate files, I just throw them onto the timeline, usually organised by episode, occasionally sorted onto different tracks by theme/content).

The actual vid construction happens like a found poem or an unstructured patchwork quilt, sifting through the clip library and patching sections of the vid together in a non-linear way.

What this means is that I tend to clip everything about the main character(s) of my vid (including a million reaction shots, whyyyy?) and then try to cram all the best bits into the vid. This works well for some kinds of vids, especially fluffy pairing ones, but sometimes it results in vids that feel claustrophobic and over-crowded at the same time.

( More about this, and a plea for advice. )

The festivid treat is not going to happen. I had a song, and I spent a week and a half clipping, and then I realised that the vid in my head -- the one I'd been clipping for -- did not actually fit the song. Doh! I spent another week or so ransacking iTunes, youtube and the internet in general for a new song, but it's just not happening. I've made peace with that.

I suspect it's me, actually. I'm reducing my steroids, so everything's a bit flat, and my creative isn't sparking. It's like one of those Zippo-in-a-high-wind-desperately-trying-to-light-a-cigarette scenes in a movie. It keeps nearly catching, but no sweet headrush. I miss the headrush. Otoh, yay for reducing steroids! In the long run, this is a Very Good Thing.

( Introspective ramble -- life and fandom. )

Today is weirdly misty. It's supposed to be summer!

All the talk about gun control and a conversation with a friend yesterday have combined to make me finally start reading The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett (who sound like a country duo, but are actually social scientists) -- because while I think gun control is extremely important, I suspect it's only part of the answer. I'm sure I'll have more to say once I'm done.

Last night we began a re-watch of The Wire.

I have a second draft of my festivid, and my partner assures me it doesn't suck. \o/ My relief cannot be textually rendered. Now I want to make a treat. Oh self! At least finish your assignment properly first!

Today's SMBC comic may be my favourite to date.

Because why should yuletiders have all the fun? *g* I've only done festivids for the last two years, but I've made four vids.

( My festivids for the last two years. )

I stayed up last night downloading random codecs and all sorts of nonsense, trying to claw my way over the technical vidding hurdles that have been boxing me in. Eventually, in despair, I went to see if anyone had any bright ideas on vidpub, and of course I instantly found a solution which actually seems to have worked (convert AVIs to MPEG-2s using Prism). *dances*

Now I have files that behave themselves and aren't outrageously huge! With audio! And the source looks so much better without the AVI glitches and pixellation. Even songless, this vidding thing now feels possible. Success story!

Also, yesterday's blustery weather has blown itself out, and today is glorious and sunny and perfect. Might not last more than an hour or two, but I'll take the win.

*beams serenely, despite the bleary eyes*

*starts clipping*

I can no longer pretend it's not December. November was a whirl of writing, largely thanks to the lasting effects of ficfinishing and the daily awesome of the wrisomifu crowd. I wrote 1 fic for run_the_con, 2 for fan_flashworks and 9 other prompt fics, and I finished and posted my epic rewrite of White Collar 4.10. \o/ \o/ \o/

I have four prompts left, but it's December now and I need to knuckle down and start my festivid. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to it except for how I still haven't found a song BEARS BEARS BEARS. It's just that old problem of transitioning from writing to vidding, rewiring my brain, etc. So yeah, I do not know if I'm going to get the other four prompts written. Sorry!

ION, we've started Homeland. Only two episodes in, and I'm all squirmy and tense, but also filled with O HAI THAR VECCHIO!! *hearts* (Don't tell me anything! I am ridiculous about spoilers!) Also two episodes into SPN season 2 (ditto), and dabbling in various other things.

HAI!

I should be working on my ficfinishing goal fics, but instead I'm trying to vid a documentary. IDEK. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing the whole vidding thing wrong, all of it, and my brain is made of coleslaw -- unlikely, since I no longer eat cabbage or other brassicas, and you are what you eat, yadda yadda. Other times I think, well, I'm making it up, but at least I occasionally finish something.

( Not sure this is going to be one of the things I finish. Brief rambly digression about using lightweight external source with serious subject matter. )