I'm finalising the list for vvc's Pure Imagination vidshow, which will contain animated vids of every shape and size. If you have any animated vids you think good or have any favourites, please let me know via the submissions form.
All animation types are accepted - disney, anime, 3D, claymation, video game, anything.
Also, if you've been itching to make a vid with an animated source, especially a rare-ish one, how about having it as a premiere?
- Last call for animated vid suggestions
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1)
absolutedestiny- April 1st, 15:43
- Korra
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- absolutedestiny
- March 18th, 12:02
Just saw the first episode. Really really good. I love her so much.
Can't wait until April for this show to start.
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- LlamaEnc2 on Mac
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- absolutedestiny
- February 17th, 17:23
Could be this:
mysterious download link
but I'd need someone with a mac to confirm. Anyone out there wanting to give it a try?
In the zip there should be an app that will... just.. run. Maybe. Version of OSX depending. Probably needs an Intel CPU. Might need Snow Leopard. I dont know.
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- New guides on vidtech.info
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- absolutedestiny
- February 16th, 22:03
Today I added two new guides to the Vidding Tech Wiki!
The first is Fixing Common Problems with Submitted Files which will hopefully help other folks who make dvds for conventions like we do at vividcon.
The second guide is about how to, with as few steps as I could manage, install Linux on a virtual machine so that you can run LlamaEnc on any operating system where you can install VirtualBox (such as OSX).
Both of them relate somewhat to the beta test of LlamaEnc and Llamamatic which if you are a vidder hoping to use these tools on the last day of vid submissions for Vividcon then you should be testing them right now! Currently I don't even know if they install on other people's machines let alone do what they are designed to do so please go and test them.
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- Exciting developments
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- absolutedestiny
- February 13th, 23:49
( Well, I think it's exciting )
So what does it mean? Well, three things. 1) There's a new version of LlamaEnc where the GUI has been written from the ground up because I lost the original source code a billion years ago. 2) This will now actually run on windows 7, including 64 bit machines. 3) This version also runs on ubuntu via Wine, which means it probably also runs on OSX via Wine too.
LlamaEnc on a Mac? Looks possible. Worst case, I could maybe distribute a linux virtual machine with it pre-installed and have folks run it in Virtualbox or whathaveyou.
Oh and there's another GUI I've made too but I'll tell folks about that later.
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- Festivds madness
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- absolutedestiny
- February 4th, 14:56
So the Festivids list has been posted (all the awesome thanks in the world to![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jetpack_monkey and laura47 for my vids!!!) so as you can find out, I made 7 vids this year!
Rather than spamming my flist with posts I figured I'd made this one meta-post linking to them. If you were a recipient of any of these vids, I strongly recommend downloading a copy because the streaming web versions are not (especially on vimeo) synced as accurately as I think they should be. Basically the download versions are better.
The vids I made in order of creation are:
- You Made Me Feel So Young (to Mary Poppins, for stephantom) [My assigment]
- Doomsday (to Independence Day for fan_eunice) [treat]
- Livin' On A Prayer (to Rocky and Rocky III for sisabet) [treat]
- Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (to Maru for giandujakiss)[treat]
- Ballroom Blitz (to Ghostbusters for sdwolfpup) [treat]
- Jailbreak (to Star Wars the original trilogy for colls) [Pinch Hit]
- Livin' In The Sunlight, Lovin' In The Moonlight (to Batman for sweetestdrain) [treat]
No lie, this is a lot of vids. Like, I've not made this many vids in so short a time span in years. Possibly ever. I do have to apologise to my recipients: because I was vidding so fast the vids might not all be as polished as I'd like, though I think on the whole they turned out fairly well.
This year, I decided to take a slightly different approach for Festivids. Last year, I nominated a *ton* of sources thinking, mostly, 'oh yeah I've seen that movie once I could probably vid it at a stretch' and other such fallacies. This year, I asked myself the following questions:- Do I love this source?
- Would it be awesome if there was a vid that I made to this source?
- Would I be thrilled to get this source as an assignment?
The next major decision was that this year I would not spend weeks and weeks and weeks looking for that perfect all-encompassing vidsong. I did that last year and more often than not, that vid song just doesn't exist. Instead, I had to accept that even though I was unlikely to vid this source again the fact that I couldn't find a song that represented every single one of my feelings about the source should not stop me just making a damn vid already. I basically concluded that if the song worked well enough, I could pretty much make a decent enough vid and that that was fine.
So that's what I did. What I found was that I could do this a lot: once I had a vidsong that had a basic hook I could churn out a fairly enjoyable vid fairly fast. They weren't deep vids but they were fun and that's precisely what festivids is about!
tl;dr I let go a little and made a ton of vids that I'm pretty happy with. They're worth a watch, I think.
P.S. I'd like to thank everyone who left comments on my vids while they were anonymous, it meant a lot to me that you enjoyed the vids! This entry has been crossposted to my Dreamwidth account, and it currently hasreplies there. Comment on whichever site you prefer.
- Festivids 2011 vid #7: Livin' In the Sunlight, Lovin' In The Moonlight (to Batman for sweetestdrain)
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- absolutedestiny
- January 27th, 0:18
For a long while I thought I wasn't going to be able to make a 7th treat. I'd been looking around for vidsongs to a lot of different sources (Contact, Clueless, While You Were Sleeping, Dellamorte Dellamore) but none of them were grabbing me or at least presenting me with a frictionless vid idea that I could just churn out. While looking at the Dear Festividder letters again, this idea just pops right in there. It's not what
sweetestdrain asked for (who the hell would ask for this) so while I felt bad that I wasn't giving her the kickass Catwoman vid she deserves I figured it would be worth a giggle or two to have Nicholson's joker prancing around disturbingly to Tiny Tim.
Thankfully, Nicholson prances around a lot in this movie (usually to Prince) so there was enough footage for this little ditty. It's hideously infectious though, so be warned.Livin' In The Sunlight, Lovin' In The Moonlight by AbsoluteDestiny
Things that bother you, never bother me!
Footage: Batman (1989)
( Streaming )
Audio: Livin' In The Sunlight, Lovin' In The Moonlight by Tiny Tim
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- Festivids 2011 vid #6: Jailbreak (to the original Star Wars trilogy, for colls)
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- absolutedestiny
- January 26th, 23:53
Making all these vids over my Christmas vacation was so much fun that I didn't want to stop. So when I saw the last round of pinch hits go up, I knew I wanted to grab this one.
Colls had suggested 70s or 80s but was worried about it being cheesy but was happy for something fun and actiony. 'I can do that', I thought to myself. Now, I actually have some major major issues with Star Wars or more to the point with George Lucas' repeated screwing over of my childhood. Star Wars was, without a doubt, by first fandom. I LOVED STAR WARS. So much. Figures, stickers, the Empire Strikes Back bedspread and matching PJs. It was happy hi-jinx and adventure time. What I didn't like was 1997 and everything that followed. The Special Edition was a travesty - the new CG was hideous, goofy and made the whole thing look so incredibly dated and needlessly so. The art design and special effects on the original trilogy were pioneering and internally perfectly consistent. The new stuff was garish and laughable. Then you had every revison after that - Greedo shooting (screw who shot first, Greedo never shot ever), replacement Anakins ('who the fuck is that guy' thought Luke) and finally the total desecration of Vader in his origin story. God damn you, Lucas.
So, if I were to vid Star Wars, it would be to the Star Wars of my youth and without Lucas' modern retcon bullshit. So, first rule was that there would be no special edition footage. No new Death Star explosions, no new cloud city, no new blue snow on Hoth, no new pink lightsabers, no new dead Jedi, no new creepy ewok eyes. Thankfully, fan restoration projects are plentiful and Harmy had recently completed his really excellent De-specialisation project where High Def footage was used where available and Laserdisc or GOUT-sourced footage was used for the scenes as they should be. The next major decision was to exclude Vader and any overt use of the force. In focusing on the getaways and the rebels as scrappy underdogs there wasn't really any place for the father-son story. So I figured since Vader had been so thoroughly defanged by Lucas, I'd just remove him altogether in this vid. I think it was for the best. Lots of Han, Leia, Luke and Lando with a fair share of Chewie, R2, 3PO, Obi Wan, Wedge and Ackbar.Jailbreak by AbsoluteDestiny
The criminal hi-jinx of the rebel scum.
Footage: Star Wars (1977), Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983) and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
( Streaming )
Audio: Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy
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- Festivids 2011 vid #5: Ballroom Blitz (to Ghostbusters for SDWolfpup)
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- absolutedestiny
- January 26th, 23:44
So by this point, I'm starting to feel pretty good about my Festivids vids. I was happy with my assignment and I'd done three treats! But there I was, on New Year's Eve 2011 thinking to myself "There's still time for more vids". So I go back to the Dear Festividder letters and look over the sources. I'm not sure precisely how it happened, all I know is that I read Ghostbusters and then I went to my music library and was browsing through stuff and it was right there staring me in the face.
After some slight song editing (removing the naming of the band because I wanted to maintain the chronology and at that point there were only 3 busters) I dove right in. Thankfully,sdwolfpup shared my feelings about Ghostbusters 2 (in that 'not really invested, haven't seen it in decades' way) so I was able to just go ahead and have fun with the first movie I remember seeing at the cinema way back when.Ballroom Blitz by AbsoluteDestiny
Footage: Ghostbusters (1984)
( Streaming )
Audio: The Ballroom Blitz by The Sweet
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- Festivids 2011 vid #4: Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (to Maru for Gianduja Kiss)
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- absolutedestiny
- January 26th, 23:33
Continuing the "wouldn't it be a shame if" theme, I was delighted to see that the internet's favourite kitty had been requested for Festivids but, I thought to myself, what if nobody makes a Maru vid! Of course, my fears were unfounded as unknown to me a very very excellent, vid with humour love and tenderness was being made in the form of Outside the Box.
Anyway, I decided that I would try and put together a super-quick, super-fun Maru vid. Yeah, this was the year where I decided that literalism was *exactly* what festivids needed.Papa's Got A Brand New Bag by AbsoluteDestiny
Footage: Maru (まる) (2011)
( Streaming )
Audio: Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (pt 1) by James Brown
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- Festivids 2011 vid #3: Livin' On A Prayer (to Rocky and Rocky II for sisabet)
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- absolutedestiny
- January 26th, 23:16
Next up on my "it would be a real shame if there wasn't" list was for
sisabet but it wasn't to this song. Originally I really really really wanted to do the Apollo/Rocky slash vid she asked for because damn that training montage footage is about the best thing ever put to film. So there I am listening for vidsongs when I ask braver_creature what her favourite over-wrought love song was. "The One" by Elton John, she replied. She played it for me (I wasn't familiar with it) while I was playing said training montage on youtube and OMFG. So the idea crystallised... but braver_creature wanted to make it. Badly.
OK OK, I said. Well, how about you make that from Apollo's POV and I do one from Rocky's? So I go looking for other vidsongs and come up with a few good ideas (Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark) but as she was getting more and more into the idea it was pretty clear that The One was going to have a POV switch. So I figured I'd leave all the slashy goodness to her and think of something else.
I'm not going to lie, I think this song is totally perfect for the Rocky movies. The thing that wasn't perfect? The footage that wasn't boxing or training and the fact that the I would need to conflate the first two movies into one emotional arc. Oh and the fact that the song is entirely penultimate and they are never more than half way there. I'd have to ignore that. In all other respects though, the song is perfect :P
I'm actually really please with this vid - it came out a lot better than I thought it was going to when I started making it. Of all the festivids vids, this was the hardest one to put together.Livin' On A Prayer by AbsoluteDestiny
You live for the fight when it's all that you got.
Footage: Rocky (1976) and Rocky II (1979)
( Streaming )
Audio: Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi
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- Festivids 2011 vid #2: Doomsday (to Independance Day for fan_eunice)
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- absolutedestiny
- January 26th, 23:05
My rationale for treat-making this year was simple. 1) I would actually make treats this year. 2) They would exist because it would be a shame if they didn't. The reason for this treat was almost entirely due to
fan_eunice's Dear Festividder letter where she mentioned Will Smith punching an alien in the face. I thought to myself "but what if she doesn't get a vid where that happens?!". So I made one for her.
Now, I actually find the song kinda hilarious. The opening is so so over the top. I was mostly just happy to be vidding something fairly mindless and where my entire creative energy would be in the minutia of editing and making sure the energy of the song was being represented. I think it came out pretty well. Thanks go tojarrow for being a great beta.Doomsday by AbsoluteDestiny
Footage: Independence Day (1996)
( Streaming )
Audio: Doomsday by Nero
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- Festivids 2011 vid #1: You Make Me Feel So Young (to Mary Poppins for stephantom)
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- absolutedestiny
- January 26th, 22:53
For Festivids this year, I was very conservative in the sources that I nominated. I wanted to make sure that whatever show or movie I was matched on, I would know it really well, would be emotionally invested in and would be able to do fun or interesting things with. When I was matched on Mary Poppins I was delighted. I mean, what a great movie. Plenty of colour and movement and fun too.
stephantom was pretty open to ideas but specifically asked for something focussed on Burt or Burt/Mary. I felt kinda bad, in a way, because her other sources were awesome things like The Wire and Mad Men but they were far too intimidating. After a *lot* of song searching (and thanks to elynross and fan_eunice) I finally went with Sinatra and the vid basically fell together. I hope you like it.You Make Me Feel So Young by AbsoluteDestiny
Footage: Mary Poppins (1964)
( Streaming )
Audio: You Make Me Feel So Young by Frank Sinatra
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- Festivids!
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- absolutedestiny
- January 22nd, 11:29
Festivids is upon us and it's filled with awesome!
I received two great vids - a totally tripped out and stunning Jigoku vid and a totally charming, sweet and fun Venture Bros vid. Woohoo!
Big long recs list will have to come later but first up is an awesome Festivids vid you've not seen yet. You must correct that immediately.
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- On telling people what you think
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- absolutedestiny
- November 13th, 2011
Before you make that post or that comment, think to yourself:
"I probably don't have the full context for this, do I?"
and with that in mind, try asking questions instead of ranting or venting based on unknowns or assumptions. I know ranting and venting are good but think about this - when someone comments on *your* post or comment, they wont have the full context either.
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- Dear 2010/2011 Festividder!
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- absolutedestiny
- October 16th, 2011
During Festivids last year I was pretty conservative about my requests and I had at least a few fandoms that I knew a lot of vidders loved, such as Dirty Dancing. This year, I'm sad to say, it's going to be slim pickins as I've nominated some fairly unexpected things.
If you are my assigned festividder then you will have this information already but should any of you be interested in what I've offered and wish to make treats, please take a peek!
( What I requested )
Brave Festividder, if you have been matched with me and you instantly had the thought "dammit I knew I shouldn't have said I'd vid that" then you have my deepest sympathies because it's possible that you haven't seen any of the other fandoms. If you are disparing over your assignment and want to know which fandom would best suit your vidding style, simply follow this handy flowchart!
( Flowchart! )
If, however, you are excited about the source you were matched on then AWESOME - go vid! You don't need any suggestions for me, just make it!
Good luck and have fun!
- Vidding Tech Guide Requests
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- absolutedestiny
- September 3rd, 2011
So, I'm going to get back into the guide writing side of fan video making participation and I'm looking for requests.
There's no promises in this but I'd like to try and make some stuff to go on the web for people to use so if there are particular things about vid making that you wish you had a guide on or you are just interested in one aspect of what I do then I'd like to collect those here.
The guides I currently have planned are:- How I prepare my sources for editing
- How I use virtualbox for editing in Premiere 6.5 on windows 7 64bit
- How I prepare high def footage for editing
- How I make web-streamable h264 mp4 files
- How I do various vividcon stuff
- How I put together club vivid
- How I put together karaoke and do subtitling
- How I fix common problems in submitted vid files
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- "Up" vid: May I Suggest (Vividcon 2011 Premieres)
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- absolutedestiny
- August 14th, 2011
The hows and whys of this vid will really need a post of its own. So instead, I will just leave this here. Many thanks to tzikeh for the song.
May I Suggest by AbsoluteDestiny
The best part of your life.
Footage: Up (2009)
( Streaming )
Audio: May I Suggest by Susan Werner
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- I'll never forget.
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- absolutedestiny
- July 19th, 2011
Sandy didn't just change my life, she shook it. She was a force, full of joy and passion. She had such self-knowledge and such self-assurance that she shone, intimidating to some and brilliant to others and to me. She was an amazing woman. Sandy's love of fandom and love of her friends was as true and important as anything anyone can experience in this world.
I'm so grateful for the moments I shared with Sandy. I felt her loss the one year of vividcon she couldn't come and the thought that she will never again be there with us is too cruel to bear.
What we all have is our memories of her and we must share these. I know that Sandy's incredible personality and force will live on with all of us. I want to hear every last one of your stories about her.
I wish I believed in an afterlife. I really do. What we do with the time we have is so important. A life well lived, to me, is about a life shared. I'm forever reminded at how fortunate I've been to make the friends I've made and had all the precious moments we've shared together. Those days in august over the last six years are among the happiest days of my life and so many of you are a part of that. Sandy was part of those moments too and I will never forget those days. They are a part of who I am now and the thing that holds back the grief and anger and sadness and loss I feel over Sandy's death is knowing how vibrantly she lived and how truly changed we all are by that and how we will all be able to share with each other and to everyone we meet a part of the incredible joy and awesomeness that Sandy Herrold gave to all of us just by being Sandy.
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- Copyright Counter-notice: Do it Right
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- absolutedestiny
- July 12th, 2011
Many of you will have read my previous post where I was afraid to make a Copyright Counter-notification to defend one of my youtube vids.
I'm glad to report that I went ahead and made the counter-claim and today youtube restored the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVyJq6Y_vdc
My counter claim was based on my interpretation of Fair Use as it applies to the DMCA. I stated the following:This video is fair use under U.S. copyright law because it is 1) non-commercial, 2) vastly transformative in nature, 3) uses small amounts of this and other works, as necessary for the video's message, and 4) does not compete with the original work and could have no negative affect on it's market.
Now, when I say small amounts here, I really mean small amounts. The copyright claimant was Shin-ei animation. Of the many anime in my vid, the only one I could think of that was a Shin-Ei owned show was Jungle Wa Itsumo Hare Notchi Guu. The footage from that show amounts to 4 seconds of footage and of that footage most of the frames are looped. In addition to those 4 seconds, there are about 16 rotoscoped frames that I take from the show and put on a swirly background. That's it. In the whole video. 4 and half seconds of footage from an entire animated tv show.
What astonishes me is that either someone from Shin-Ei watched the video or the just saw the show listed in the tags and filed a counter-claim based on that. If it's the latter, and if they didn't really watch the video, then I see that as copyright trolling plain and simple.
It's possible that I was wrong and that they also own the copyright on other shows I used but as youtube didn't tell me the details of the copyright claim I had to guess. Also interesting is the point that while Shin-Ei did a claim on the whole video, prior to that the audio had been removed due to ownership by WMG. The result of my counter-notification has restored both parts of the work. I assumed that the copyright cliam would have been for the video only and that my counter-claim was to that claim alone (I specified the video in the counter-claim).
This leaves many unanswered questions. Did Shin-Ei falsely make a claim on the both video and audio? Did youtube send my counter-notification to both Shin-Ei and WMG?
To me, it seems like we have copyright owners throwing copyright claims on anything to looks vaguely infringing in the hope that people wont counter-claim, youtube fulfilling the legal right to counter-claim by sending the notification to the claimant who will then just ignore it because it's not worth their time or effort to analyse the claim any closer and finally youtube switching videos back on after the mandatory 14 days of no reply, regardless of whether both video and audio have been sufficiently covered by a counter-notification!
On one hand, I'm much more encouraged to make a counter-claim against Studio Ghibli who have blocked the youtube version of With One Accord (which is a not-for-profit parody of an Evangelion episode). I think most counter-claims would just happen by default as I really don't think most of the copyright holders are taking the time to properly assess the claims made.
If anyone has any questions about this, please ask. My advice on this to be cautious but consider favourably doing counter-notifications for situations like mine. Oh and talk to the OTW because they helped me get my thoughts together and they have very smart folks who know a lot about this stuff.
Also, share your experiences, good or bad. It's important for vidders and other creators of derivative media to understand what it normal and what has worked and what hasn't. There are risks but I think with more examples we can get a better feeling for those risks and not feel so bullied by the process, like I did at first.
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