laurashapiro

It's been a bad editing day.

You know the kind. When every clip you place is like pushing a boulder uphill. When you're plagued with tech problems because you thought you'd be clever and try a different rip-n-clip method this time. When you spend five hours vidding at the end of which you have 3 seconds you really like and everything else is destined for the trash bin by draft 2.

And when you can only vid at strictly limited times (stupid 9-5 job), for a handful of hours at a stretch (stupid sciatica), you REALLY feel the impact of a bad editing day.

I think I'm going to chuck it all for now and go stir-fry some beef and asparagus. As long as I manage not to have a bad cooking day as well, I should be fine.

See you all at 9pm for the mad rush!

I got my shiny new computer yesterday. I briefly considered not setting it up last night, as I was tired and headachy and menstrual and I thought I might not have the energy for it. P. was all "OMGWTF IT'S SO SHINY MUST SET UP NOW!!!" But in a nice way. (: So I let him talk me into it.

There were the usual interesting challenges, like when we thought that Apple sent me the wrong adapter for my (non-Apple) monitor, and the even more fun part when we thought that we couldn't do the data migration from the old iMac. Both of these problems were resolved -- by P. I hasten to say -- but the worst was yet to come.

I ejected both my externals from my old machine so that I could power them down and then attach them to the new machine. TARDIS ejected and powered down happily enough. CAPTAIN JACK ejected, but when I pressed the power button it started blinking at me. With an ominous clicking noise.

CAPTAIN JACK has been down for the count before, occasionally wigging out as though I had disconnected without ejecting him, which I would never ever do. But he's always come back, just like his namesake. And he's never clicked at me before. It was such a...mechanical sound. I was scared.

CAPTAIN JACK and TARDIS have been receiving dual backups for a couple of years now, so much of what's on CAPTAIN JACK is safe on TARDIS as well. But CAPTAIN JACK is a lot bigger than TARDIS (I know, I know, but I got TARDIS first), so I've been using the extra space on him for things that I want to keep, really rather a lot, but are replaceable.

Like ripped VOB files for full seasons of Doctor Who, Angel, BSG, Buffy, Firefly...not to mention all the clips for my VVC Premiere vid this year.

I did all the usual stuff, rebooting, checking connections, swapping cords, nothing worked, and CAPTAIN JACK kept clicking and blinking away and refusing to mount (I know, I know, I can't imagine a Captain Jack who won't mount, either). I spent half an hour on the phone this morning (and $25, grr) with an iOmega support guy who knew less than I did -- and nothing at all about Macs. He told me a blinking light meant drive failure and I should give it up and buy a new one. I was beginning to get sweaty and hysterical. I gave up, took a shower, and got dressed.

Just before leaving for work, I thought I'd just shut everything off since I'm going to be out tonight. I ejected TARDIS, powered down both computers, and pushed the blinking and clicking power button on CAPTAIN JACK.

With a grand and familiar whooshing noise, he came to life.

Now sweaty for different reasons, I turned everything back on and plugged CAPTAIN JACK into my new Mac Pro. And he mounted like a dream! (Yes, yes, that's what he/she/the potted plant said.)

In conclusion: I named that drive CAPTAIN JACK because I wanted him to be unkillable. Turns out he is even more aptly named than I thought: you can kill him, and he'll just get right back up again. Sometimes he stays down long enough to scare you, but after a little while, he will get up on his feet and save the day.

Maybe he wasn't clicking and blinking. Maybe he was winking at me.

2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

Vids I Made This Year (by release date)

August
They Don't Know
Mothership
I Want Candy (collaboration with vagabondage
Hard Sun (collaboration with bradcpu

November
God Bless the Child

Ordinarily I would be cross with myself for not having released any vids until August, but considering that "They Don't Know" took me over a year to make, I'm not sweating it too seriously. I have definitely learned, though, that releasing a vid at a con I'm actually attending is by far the most rewarding way for me. Since VVC is the only con I attended last year, I suppose this schedule isn't too surprising.

And I made five vids! That's more than usual.

This was my second (and final) year of fluff. I enjoyed making several vids that were fun to watch and not very deep to think about, but I feel kind of done with that now. It was nice to break up the VVC squee-fest with the more thoughtful tone of "Hard Sun", and "God Bless the Child" felt like returning to my roots as a vidder.

Last year, I wanted "More collaborations, more squee, a mood vid, some constructed reality (I hope I hope), and some scary effects with Motion". I didn't get the constructed reality done, but I'm working on it now. The scary effects weren't done in Motion, but they turned out all right. (:

Last year, I also said "I want to try for a balance between Big Idea vids and Big Emotion vids, a balance between heavy effects and straight cutting, a balance between new fandoms and old. And I hope to continue to make vids about PoC, although given my current to-vid list, I'm not totally optimistic about that. Meanwhile, Wonder of Birds is long overdue for remastering, and I should put out a DVD this year."

All of these were accomplished! Although I can't claim credit for remastering "Wonder of Birds". pharis did that all by herself, and I'm exceedingly grateful.

( Year-end Vid Meme )

I noticed there's a Vidding Love Meme going around, and I just wanted to say that I adore the vids of everybody who's participating, and I don't tell any of you that often enough.

I am sadly way too busy with my OMG New Job Overwhelm(TM) and my one remaining freelance client to give each of you individually the love you deserve. But I am thinking of you and relishing your vids in my mind right now!

In conclusion: ♥

I don't know about you, but I love Yuletide. It's always a treat to dig through the hundreds of new stories over the winter break, and find the rare fandoms of your heart.

But a lot of us vidders don't read much fic; some don't read any. Many of us don't write fic, either. We make vids.

Have you ever wished there was a Yuletide for vidders? Well, now there is!

festivids is a vidding gift exchange focusing on small fandoms, and fandom nominations are now open! Please join the fun and help make this squee-a-thon a success.

Or so halcyon_shift informs me.

I want to thank all of the people who have beta'ed for me over the years, both my vids and my fanfiction. Guys, you all rock. Everything I've made is better because you helped. You pointed out errors glaring and subtle, insisted that I know what I wanted to say and made sure that I said it, and polished everything to a high shine. You argued with me. You stuck to your guns. You wouldn't let me get away with laziness. And you always knew when to step back, because you respected my vision even when you disagreed with me.

So to destina, jarrow, elynross, bradcpu, absolutedestiny, sweetestdrain, greensilver, sdwolfpup, lim, dualbunny, renenet, heresluck, pipsqueaky, morgandawn, obsessive24, permetaform, lierdumoa, rubberneck, rydra_wong, cesperanza, astolat, flummery, kormantic, spike21, thete1, prillalar, probably lots of other people I'm forgetting right now, and of course, P.:

THANK YOU. I owe you all bigtime.

In reference to my previous post, I want to clear up a misconception some people took away -- which was entirely my fault, because I expressed myself badly.

Based on what I said so badly, I can totally understand why people would feel that I am hostile to new vidders, unaware of other vidding communities, or believe that only vidders should attend Vividcon.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and regular readers of my journal know this, but unfortunately I didn't talk about that there. I was trying to describe why I felt uncomfortable and not doing a very good job of identifying it. In actuality, I am delighted to see new vidders, vid fans, and those from other vidding traditions at Vividcon and elsewhere. I appreciate and enjoy the exchange of ideas and creativity that results.

This stuff is difficult to define, as many threads on bop_radar's post will attest, but what I should have said is that I, like many people I know with roots in the traditional vidding community, feel a great love for our historically women-dominated fannish spaces and a great anxiety when it seems as though those spaces are changing.

It's not that I don't want men to attend the con. It just means that I don't want the community culture I've become so passionate about to disappear.

There aren't easy answers to these things. It's an ongoing conversation, and I hope that we'll continue to talk civilly about the ways to navigate the changes as new people and new ideas come to Vividcon -- something for which I fervently hope.

I'm turning off comments for this, because I am totally exhausted and would like to move on to vid recs and squee. (:

Henry Jenkins contacted me this week about a documentary being made, The People vs. George Lucas, about Lucas' ambivalent relationship with his fans.

Being Henry, and loving us like he does, he suggested to the documentarians that they interview vidders for this project, and they are interested in doing so. Henry says they seem housebroken. (:

If you're interested in being interviewed/possibly having excerpts of your SW vid(s) shown in this documentary, please drop me a comment with your email address and link to your vids, and I'll forward it on.

Some of you have already seen the LA Times article about the Buffy vs. Edward video, and there's been some quite reasonable complaint about the fact that yet another white guy is getting sorta-famous while we languish in unjustified obscurity.

I wanted to direct your attention to Jonathan's guest post at Women In News & Media, in which he talks in detail not only about his feminist goals in creating the video, but the debt he owes to vidders and other women critics of popular culture.