![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Festivids vidder reveals and vid nattering
In a generally unsurprising plot twist, all three of the Babylon 5 vids in this year's Festivids were by me. I haven't gotten around to properly reposting them to my signed vid account, but for now the signed vids are uploaded to the anonymous account and they can also be downloaded by clicking through to Vimeo as an interim measure until I get them properly posted for download.
I also added them to my Sholio Vids collection.
Some random notes on this year's vidding under the cut.
I was completely delighted to get someone requesting B5 for my assignment (though I'd offered several other things). My first idea was what ended up becoming the Marching On vid. This was actually a song I'd had in mind to vid for the show since last March, when I was still in the middle of watching it. This was back when I was doing all the driving back and forth between Wasilla and here, often listening to music on those long drives, and that song came on and just instantly clicked. I already knew I wanted to vid the show when I was done, and that song felt perfect, even though I was only about halfway through the show at that point.
So I started making that vid, but got stuck after the first verse with the sheer overwhelming amount of material there was. I was planning to be gone for most of December, and the deadline is in early January, so I was starting to think it might be a much better idea to switch to a shorter song that wasn't going to require vidding the entire epic sweep of the show.
With that in mind, I switched over to Atlantic City for my actual gift vid. I had some doubt when I started out that the down-to-earth/blue-collar vibe of Bruce Springsteen's music would actually work for a show like this, but I had instantly put together in my head both of the "everything that dies someday comes back" chorus sequences. It had occurred to me that whether it was a literal death/trip to the underworld like Sheridan and Londo have, or a metaphorical death and rebirth like Delenn and G'Kar have, reflecting those against each other would be an easy way to get at least half the vid to click into place, and then it was just a matter of vidding the lyrics in between - rather than doing the entire thing more or less linearly as in "Marching On," I did the first sequence with the Earth & Shadow conflict leading into the Delenn/Sheridan clips, then the second sequence with the Narn/Centauri conflict leading into the Londo/G'Kar clips, and then the final sequence with the goodbyes and their actual deaths. ("Everything that dies someday comes back" can refer to hope and love as well, not just literal death.)
This also has the distinction of being the first vid I think I've ever made that made me cry while I was vidding it. It was just impossible to watch some of these episodes, and those clips, especially set to that music, without crying.
... However, technically, it wasn't the first one I did. The actual first vid I completed was the Cartagia vid - with some doubts about how long it would take me to do the more complex ones, I wanted something easy and simple that only covered a few episodes of the show, that I could actually finish. So I did that one first, and then worked on the Atlantic City vid, and actually did get those done before leaving for Hawaii in December. The Cartagia vid would've been an emergency backup gift if I hadn't managed to finish anything else, but the Atlantic City one was actually intended for my recipient - like, tailored to their tastes as much as I could - so I gave them that, and gifted the Cartagia one to the other person requesting B5 in the exchange, whose likes included that they enjoy vids about side characters. (FWIW I had some nervousness about gifting anyone anything with "Bitch" in the title, and the vid itself is a bit - polarizing, I think. I also kicked around the idea of simply posting it to AO3 generally, and if I had it to do over again, maybe I would. But I wanted to give them something!)
Anyway, though, I did ultimately get a burst of vidding energy in January and went ahead and finished the "Marching On" vid, the one I really wanted to do. If I'd done it back in December it would have been my recipient's sole gift, but as it was, I gifted it to both of the B5 requesters.
I figured it would going to be INCREDIBLY obvious that all of the B5 vids were by the same person - I tried to obfuscate it a bit by formatting the "Marching On" one a bit differently than I normally do, but let's face it, subtle I wasn't. I would have liked to do a treat in some other fandom if I could've found the time, but really didn't find the time, or any particular inspiration for something I really wanted to do. (In past Festivids I've generally vidded fairly obscure - or at least rarely vidded - fandoms, 80s movies and the like, and I would have enjoyed doing something like that here too, but it just was not to be.) But I had a good time with the ones I did, and got some really lovely comments!
I also added them to my Sholio Vids collection.
Some random notes on this year's vidding under the cut.
I was completely delighted to get someone requesting B5 for my assignment (though I'd offered several other things). My first idea was what ended up becoming the Marching On vid. This was actually a song I'd had in mind to vid for the show since last March, when I was still in the middle of watching it. This was back when I was doing all the driving back and forth between Wasilla and here, often listening to music on those long drives, and that song came on and just instantly clicked. I already knew I wanted to vid the show when I was done, and that song felt perfect, even though I was only about halfway through the show at that point.
So I started making that vid, but got stuck after the first verse with the sheer overwhelming amount of material there was. I was planning to be gone for most of December, and the deadline is in early January, so I was starting to think it might be a much better idea to switch to a shorter song that wasn't going to require vidding the entire epic sweep of the show.
With that in mind, I switched over to Atlantic City for my actual gift vid. I had some doubt when I started out that the down-to-earth/blue-collar vibe of Bruce Springsteen's music would actually work for a show like this, but I had instantly put together in my head both of the "everything that dies someday comes back" chorus sequences. It had occurred to me that whether it was a literal death/trip to the underworld like Sheridan and Londo have, or a metaphorical death and rebirth like Delenn and G'Kar have, reflecting those against each other would be an easy way to get at least half the vid to click into place, and then it was just a matter of vidding the lyrics in between - rather than doing the entire thing more or less linearly as in "Marching On," I did the first sequence with the Earth & Shadow conflict leading into the Delenn/Sheridan clips, then the second sequence with the Narn/Centauri conflict leading into the Londo/G'Kar clips, and then the final sequence with the goodbyes and their actual deaths. ("Everything that dies someday comes back" can refer to hope and love as well, not just literal death.)
This also has the distinction of being the first vid I think I've ever made that made me cry while I was vidding it. It was just impossible to watch some of these episodes, and those clips, especially set to that music, without crying.
... However, technically, it wasn't the first one I did. The actual first vid I completed was the Cartagia vid - with some doubts about how long it would take me to do the more complex ones, I wanted something easy and simple that only covered a few episodes of the show, that I could actually finish. So I did that one first, and then worked on the Atlantic City vid, and actually did get those done before leaving for Hawaii in December. The Cartagia vid would've been an emergency backup gift if I hadn't managed to finish anything else, but the Atlantic City one was actually intended for my recipient - like, tailored to their tastes as much as I could - so I gave them that, and gifted the Cartagia one to the other person requesting B5 in the exchange, whose likes included that they enjoy vids about side characters. (FWIW I had some nervousness about gifting anyone anything with "Bitch" in the title, and the vid itself is a bit - polarizing, I think. I also kicked around the idea of simply posting it to AO3 generally, and if I had it to do over again, maybe I would. But I wanted to give them something!)
Anyway, though, I did ultimately get a burst of vidding energy in January and went ahead and finished the "Marching On" vid, the one I really wanted to do. If I'd done it back in December it would have been my recipient's sole gift, but as it was, I gifted it to both of the B5 requesters.
I figured it would going to be INCREDIBLY obvious that all of the B5 vids were by the same person - I tried to obfuscate it a bit by formatting the "Marching On" one a bit differently than I normally do, but let's face it, subtle I wasn't. I would have liked to do a treat in some other fandom if I could've found the time, but really didn't find the time, or any particular inspiration for something I really wanted to do. (In past Festivids I've generally vidded fairly obscure - or at least rarely vidded - fandoms, 80s movies and the like, and I would have enjoyed doing something like that here too, but it just was not to be.) But I had a good time with the ones I did, and got some really lovely comments!
no subject
Really interesting to hear how they came about! Especially that "Atlantic City" started with the "everything that dies someday comes back".
And I think your Cartagia vid is perfect for Cartagia :D
no subject
And thank you!