I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas and is enjoying the holidays. I had a lot of fun with my family and the food was delicious, so I'm currently chilling out on the couch and I'm slightly bored. Therefore meme stolen from lady_eilthana:

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:
( Questions )

002 | send me a ship and I will tell you:
( Questions )

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you:
( Questions )

Artist/Song Title: Lamb - Butterfly Effect
Subject: The X Files, Scully PoV, Scully/Mulder, Vid-Challenge Season5 + Fight the Future: Recovery
Summary: 'And we'll take a trip to hell exponentially.' We just had a near-life experience! (Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club)
Length: 03:41 | Size: 47 MB | Format: 720x400 - AVI - zip
Links: mediafire, permanent link

( Streaming and notes )

My first tutorial on post-processing with Avisynth is almost four years old and while a lot of stuff still holds true, ( I think it is time for an update on some things.  )

I am part of this year's round of vidding interviews over at vid_commentary and I did manage to write 11k words on vidding, because obviously I'm a sucker for punishment details. So anyone interested in reading up on my whole vidding history and tech can do it here.

Day 30 – Do you have a favorite vid you've made? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link!

Clear the Area, My Skin and To be a Ghost are my favorites and I won't chose between them. These are my carefully crafted character love letters, unashamed and self-indulgent. This is a look into how my brain works and connects things. This is why I love Scully, Cordelia and Dean spelled out in pretty pictures and fast cuts. These are the reasons why I adore them, why I am moved by their arcs and how they did win my heart. Besides I had so much fun making them, even when I stumbled into a block or some crazy bullshit.

So I hope I didn't bore everybody on my flist to tears with this meme. It was cool to think about this stuff and for once write it down.

Day 27 – Where is your favorite place to vid? Where would be your perfect vidding spot?

In my living room in my armchair with the laptop in my lap, five hard drives on the floor beside me and my cats using me as a pillow. It's a pretty perfect spot for me.

Day 25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you rip source? Do you listen to your vid song immediately before vidding, months before vidding, or just while working on it?

I was always interested in the technical aspect of vidding. The whole backlog of stuff you have to do right, a lot of things even before you open Premiere. And then after you close it and can enhance your final encode. I mean I'm still easily distracted and lose hours hunting down information, especially when Xandra let me come near avisynth-filters. It's fascinating. It's also stuff an average watcher won't notice, besides thinking shiny and there is still so much possibilities out there, I could try and yeah, I love this part of vidding. I have preparing my footage down to a science, in the way I want it and which works best for me.

But I don't really like the actual prep work that comes with vidding, when I don't have the tools to further improve it or I have an inspiration I want to start on fucking now. I mean having to rip 5 seasons AtS and 7 BtVS for a vid, can make you question your commitment to your idea - hard. Or 9 seasons and two movies. This is my main reason, why I don't understand people, who clip their source - It's so much work and you have to do it again and again. Besides I absolutely need the whole season/show on my hands so that I can decide on a whim, preferable neatly packed as season-avs. I tend to do prep work when I don't feel very inspired to actually vid, to get it out of the way. So 2009 was a pretty good year for that kind of task and I could still pretend I would do some important chore for vidding, while perfecting my system. Luckily now I'm in the position that I have most of my sources ready to go and thanks to the Multifandom vids plenty I haven't even vidded solo yet or potential shows, just because I could run ripping and indexing on the background while reading fics.

I have done all mentioned options with music. I have songs I would love to vid, but haven't found the right fandom yet. 'Hey Pretty' was on the backburner for years, till SPN came along and made it a perfect fit. I have listened to songs on repeat for (a) week(s) to play around with ideas. 'Walk the walk', 'Feeling Good', 'Haunted' and 'Wood and Nails' - pretty much every song when I came back after a one year hiatus in 2006. Following my last hiatus in 2009/most of 2010 I have changed my way of approaching music in and for vidding. I have searched for hours for songs to vid a specific theme I want to explore, music became more canvas than painting. I think the best way to explain this would be that I'm now working with a more open framework, I don't need twenty support beams to hold up the vid.

I did give up on the idea that only the most perfect song can be vidded for characters/pairings. Because back then I just ended up listening to music for months and throwing away good enough ideas instead of vidding. This need for precision/an unique twist did drag me down, so now I take what seems like a good enough fit. What surprised me by this approach is the way, it feels different to form the narrative. I own the vid more, because the idea was before the song and so the structure is clearer. I do tend to need an hour or two with the song on the background to get used to the mood(swings), rhythm, beats and narrative. It still doesn't thump the feeling when you stumble over a song that transforms into perfection, but I take what I get till then.

Day 24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your vid? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?

I'm still eternally grateful for my early betas, who had to sit through some appalling shit and had the patience to explain, where I failed and where I succeeded. In detail. But the thing is, now I vid to get the vid I want to see. If there are flaws in a vid, I own them. Vidding is all about excitement and passion for me. I don't need someone to walk me through a vid, but I'm in the lucky position to have someone, who shares my brain.

I love vidding with Xandra on IM, it's inspirational competition. It gives us the opportunity to ask the rare 'What ep was this scene in?'-question, which on two or three occasions leaded to the very disappointing answer, 'A fanfic' or 'Just in your head'. And also important conversations going something like this, 'Damn, I need her/him looking sad. But not sad sad, more happy sad with a glint of manic depression.' - '2x04 around 34 minutes in.' - 'Yes, but I need the expression as night shot preferable with blue police lights flashing.' - 'How about 1x15?' - 'Perfect.'

IMing regularly leads to various degrees of 'Spin the ship' and the always fun game of, 'S/he is ready to rip his clothes off to shut him/her up' aka UST pumped up while scrolling through the eps without audio. Xandra and I indulge in rewatch marathons and we sometimes lose nights to random 'Arrested Development' or 'Better off Ted' cravings. We pressure each other into shows one likes like 'Deadwood', 'Game of Thrones', 'True Blood' or 'Firefly', which frequently results in even more vids. Xandra has a knack for alternate plot lines and back stories to spice things up. Reasons like Veronica being married to Lem make their relationship this much richer and interactions even funnier. Most importantly we crack each other up, get tropes and vibes.

We know each other and our tastes and differences so fucking well. Our vidding styles are completely different, but I trust her implicitly to tell me when I'm in the wrong head space for a vid or push me through a block and drag me through a slump. Even kicking and screaming in utter frustration. We also share our technical knowledge and boy, were there some things she taught me I wished I knew earlier. In return I dumped her in the beauty of avisynth-filters and ignored her curses. The instant gratification of seeing her react to a draft and telling me to stop fussing with a perfectly good section and 'Really? Do you need that eight frame shot? Because most people will miss the meaning.'

So exposure to new fandoms, shows and music and being a constant inspiration, makes Xandra my dream beta.

Day 22 – Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you've thought about doing? And if not, why not?

I did a pinch hit for festivids this year 48 hours before the deadline approached, which is kinda hilarious because my main reason for I not signing up was the deadline. I was worried that I would hit a dry spell and/or wouldn't be able to pull off the requests in a satisfied manner for the recipient. So it was very gratifying to surprise someone with a vid on such short notice. I love the idea behind festivids to make someone happy and it's awesome to browse through the masterlist and spend days watching vids for small fandoms that are almost forgotten. I won't sign up this year, but I'll definitely want to keep an eye on the pinch hits earlier and not solely relay on giandujakiss for all my fandom information.

So I'm coming home from a birthday party and Xandra demands that I post my meme drunk. I love my life. Heh.

Day 19 – When you have vid ideas, do you sit down and start vidding right away, or do you write down the idea for further exploration later?

I used to write down detailed scenes with time tables and everything, the first year I vidded. Nowadays I get the lyrics, have a hard look at them, while the song is on repeat and I strategize the key elements in my head. Depending on free time, I organize my video folder, get the track on Premiere and start nonlinear. Or how Xandra calls these early stages, the 'random-ass(ness) clip show'. I like to pretend it's a 'rough, rough draft'. I just pull clips I want to use, scenes that strike me as beautiful and unexpected results while scrolling though my whole-season-avs. And then I shape them into a resemblance of order and flow.

The reason I stopped writing out storyboards was the way I keep overthrowing them, when I discovered a scene that fitted better with what I had in mind or when scenes that worked fine in my head, looked terrible out of place on the timeline. Vidding is part memory game and it's easier to joggle your memory while working with the source. Besides you won't forget the scenes that made you think the song was a good fit in the first place and it is better to compare the feel of scenes, when you have different equally valid choices to pick from on the timeline. Especially long running series like TXF, BtVS, SPN and AtS will touch on certain character developments several times. The characters are growing up in a sense. For 'Matches to Paper Dolls' the line 'If you're asking, I can't say no' was Scully's response to Mulder's crazy plans in pretty much every ep, so that leaves you with around hundred legitimate alternatives.

Besides I'm really a mood vidder when it comes down to it. My projects often lead in a completely unexpected direction, then the one I anticipated and if it benefits the vid I won't stop the flow of consciousness. It gets me places I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.