Seeking Ferret

My Vids for 2024

סיפור הגולם The Golem and the Jinni - Festivid
Ken Sucks Barbie- Festivid
Luminous Beings Star Wars
Burning Down the House Grey's Anatomy

Only 4 vids, the least I've made in a year since I started doing this meme, and this is my tenth year filling out this meme! But it's been quite a year, so my lack of vidding productivity is not surprising. And also סיפור הגולם was quite a consuming project.

Favorite

"Luminous Beings" was a vid I needed to make. The creative experience was one of the most powerful vidding processes I've ever had. At first, every time I rewatched a draft I was crying, and by the end of the process I'd healed enough to not be crying constantly anymore.

Least Favorite

"Ken Sucks" was fun to make but pretty inconsequential? Always my least favorite question of the year. Actually, I guess I always try to answer based on the vids I posted, but I only post the vids I like. I have several vid drafts in some kind of progress that I am not happy with.

Most Successful

Gratifyingly, סיפור הגולם, which was such a personal project that I'm surprised people were moved or impressed by it. So many of the comments were "I haven't read the book, but I still liked this," and that is such a weirdly enjoyable thing to see, that even though I made this with a tiny audience in mind, I did so with sufficient conviction that it was appealing to people outside the target audience.

Most Underappreciated by the Universe
Yeah, I dunno. Maybe "Burning Down the House"? I don't feel tapped into Grey's fandom, wherever it might be, so my Grey's fannishness is always a little awkward.

Most Fun to Make
"Burning Down the House" was a really joyful vidding process, the song was fun and let me build really good motion stuff. It's funny, I always dread vidding Grey's because of how much of it there is, and then I always really like doing it.

Hardest Vid to Make

Obviously סיפור הגולם, but in a satisfying way? Every time I had a problem, I figured out a way to get around the problem. I think a lot of stuff I did last year for Bicycle Race and The Spinning Plates Reel turned out in surprising ways to suggest editing techniques that were useful for constructed reality stuff.

The Things I Learned This Year

Lots of new DVR tricks. This might be the first year I didn't do any vidding in Kdenlive, though I was thinking of going back to it for some quick things coming up. DVR is just so much more flexible and powerful once you get comfortable.

My Goals from Last Year

Target vids for 2025:


-At least 1 Festivid
-At least 1 Equinox vid
-an MCU vid, but I dunno, last year I deferred my MCU vid until Cap4 comes out and now Cap4 isn't coming out until next year, so...
-a TSCC vid, possibly the Coldplay Suite?
-a The Good Place vid

I made a Festivid, but I skipped Equinox because I didn't really like the theme. I continued to defer my MCU vid but Cap4 will be out soon! I did some work on the Good Place vid but need to get back to that. I did not return to the Coldplay Suite except in the sense that the Coldplay Suite is very much The Vid About My Job and so some part of my brain is constantly working on it. So I think there's going to be some repeat goals, I didn't make a lot of progress on my more ambitious goals this year.

Planning for Next Year

Target vids for 2024:

-At least 1 Festivid
-At least 1 Equinox vid
-My Captain Americas vid.
-A The Good Place vid (FroYo)
-My Miranda Bailey vid

Also I really want to get an NAS and get it set up to help organize vidding and other file storage this year. That's probably the real goal.

My Vids for 2022


My Metrocard (MCU)
Killing Our Heroes (Star Wars)
Gracie (Star Wars)
Hella Good(Star Wars)
Mystery Tour (The Afterparty)
Home (Space Sweepers)


Six vids total. A low number compared to recent years (10 in 2021, 7 + Vexercises in 2010, 13 in 2019), but a major reason for that is that I've been making multiple festivids for the past few years to pad out my total, but last year I was busy with Hunt and barely made a single Festivid. So technically this is the knock-on effects of an unproductive 2021, not a result of actual lack of productivity this year. The other reason is I've had some significant false starts, as well as vid projects that are taking more time. I spent a bunch of time this spring/summer on two MCU vids that so far haven't been working, and might not work until Captain America 4 comes out. And I've spent a good deal of time on a Vid Big Bang project that's nearly done but I won't be posting until next year.

Favorite

I think it's "Gracie". It's one of those alchemical lyric matches that just worked out perfectly, and it let me roll around in Star Wars feels. Anytime I can stick a bunch of literally's into the lyrics, I'm happy. "You can't fool me, I literally saw you when you came out"!

Least Favorite

"Hella Good" is a dumb vid. I mean, I'm proud of it, but it's a really dumb vid. I made it on a challenge from vidding discord to vid Gwen Stefani and it just seemed like a good match for the song, but no, it's an insupportably silly vid idea that I wouldn't have made otherwise.

Most Successful

By AO3 hits, "Hella Good". By kudos, "Home". I'm not sure how else to evaluate. I think all of the vids work well as vids.

Most Underappreciated by the Universe

"Mystery Tour". I wanted it to be a recruiter for a fandom that would entice people into the show, and I think it intrigued a few people at Miniworks but overall doesn't seem to have left much of a mark.

Most Fun to Make

"Killing Our Heroes". I started making this vid right after I saw The Rise of Skywalker, but I got bogged down. With the breath of new inspiration from watching Obi Wan, I jumped back in and it was just so much clearer what I was trying to say and how I should say it. It was accompanied by a rewatch of the first six movies and I just really got deep in my Star Wars feelings and I feel like I made a vid that says something interesting about Star Wars that you could either find emotional or funny depending on your perspective, and I really like that dynamic.

Hardest Vid to Make

It's funny, some people were speculating that "My Metrocard" was hard because it required source from so many movies, but I've vidded most of those movies multiple times now, I know where things are. Source searching for that vid was not that hard. The actual hardest vid to make was probably one of the MCU vids I haven't finished. I spent a lot of time this year working on my Steve and Sam vid and it just never came together- in particular, I spent a lot of time searching for source that would say things about Sam that I firmly believe and think are supported by canon, but just don't exist visually in the MCU yet.

The Things I Learned This Year

I learned some shortcuts for moving quickly through source. I'm so grateful in particular for whoever mentioned the JKL shortcut, it makes so many things easier.

Oh, and "Mystery Tour" with its terrible aspect ratios ended up being a blessing because I figured out a new workflow for source material from multiple aspect ratios that worked really well, and which I have ended up adapting in different ways for other vids both with multiple aspect ratios and without multiple aspect ratios. The trick is to have multiple timeline tracks set at different zooms, and then I can drag clips from one track to another to change the zoom between several preset levels.

My Goals from Last Year

I didn't have any., because I made this post last year two weeks before Hunt. So I didn't fail! I think my goal was just to get back into vidding and thanks largely to Star Wars I managed that.

Planning for Next Year

Target vids for 2023:

My Superstore big bang vid is close to finished, amazingly, clocking in at over nine minutes.

I will be making a number of Festivids somewhere between 0 and 20.

I don't think either of the MCU vids I worked on this year will be finished next year, but I'd expect to finish some MCU project.

And I've said it the past few years and then fallen short, but I'd like to make another Fringe vid and another TSCC vid.

More ambitiously, source collection for a potential third Jews Dancing vid is continuing but I don't have a vidsong yet. I'm open to suggestions, give me your danciest Charedi Pop.

My Vids for 2020

Full length vids
Speeding Rover (Mars Rover RPF)
The Sequel (Jews Dancing multifandom)
Orayta (Hasodot/The Secrets)
Balloons (Community [Paintball episodes])
Odds Are (Grey's Anatomy)
Al Kol Eleh (The Women's Balcony)
Someday (MCU)

Vexercises (All Grey's Anatomy vidlets)
Pechakucha 1 - Rusalka
Pechakucha 2- Make Them Gold
Save Me
The Scientists
Supercup
Don't Leave
Teamwork
Dr. Grey's Laboratory
It Was A Funny Little Thing

So depending on how you count, 7 or 16 vids. I think I'm fine with counting the vidlets.

Favorite

I mean, The Sequel, duh. Not exactly a vid I expected to make after I finished WMLTMD, but it came out so well and was absolutely worth the effort. I particularly enjoyed playing it at Vidukon as part of my curated playlist of vids in which Jews dance... in a context, I thought it really sparkled.

Least Favorite

I'm not totally happy with Orayta, which had a questionable source rip and some issues clipping around subtitles I was never able to completely resolve, but all my vids are my babies and I hate this question every single year.

Most Successful

The Sequel. It was really amazing to get to watch people react to it in Discord at Con-solation, Vidukon, and Fanworks. I wish we could have all danced to it at Sparkle Motion, but oh well, hopefully in the future. I feel like in this question I should also note another success- my 2019 Vidukon premiere, the Carmen Sandiego vid "I Walk Alone", somehow caught the fancy of a Youtube Algorithm this summer and just recently became my first vid to top 10,000 hits. I don't think it's my best work, but eh, fairly popular still-airing fandom with not that big a vidmaking fandom FTW! It's nice for the ego that people are actually watching my vid in those kinds of numbers.

Most Underappreciated by the Universe

Not a lot of people know The Women's Balcony, and not a lot of people are tickled by the idea of punk rock covers of Naomi Shemer, and so "Al Kol Eleh" didn't get a lot of attention. But the people who got it really appreciated it so I'll take that.

Most Fun to Make

"Balloons" was an absolute blast to make and I spent a lot of process just laughing at how clever I was being. Putting all the rainbow stuff in was pure joy. The moment when I remembered that there's a balloon episode of Community that I could add was an amazing brainstorm.

Hardest Vid to Make

Objectively The Sequel was the most effort, but subjectively I think Odds Are felt like it took more. Grey's Anatomy just has such a big canon to wrap your head around, and at least with the Sequel even though it involved more source I didn't have to actually understand all the source in order to use it for a dance vid. Making something that coherently felt like it spanned all of the emotional narrative of Grey's Anatomy took a lot of thought and trial and error, and a lot of good work with my betas.

The Things I Learned This Year

"Al Kol Eleh" was the first vid I made in Da Vinci Resolve... I have since made several more vids in Kdenlive, it doesn't look like I'm going to shift fulltime yet because my Desktop has video card compatibility issues with Resolve and my Desktop is a much better setup for vids that are more overall effort because I don't like vidding for too long on my laptop. But I expect to keep doing movie vids in Resolve and if I continue to like it maybe I'll invest in a graphics card upgrade to get Resolve working on the Desktop. I love that Resolve has Fusion integration, I like its overall workflow, I'm excited to try to figure out how to use its color grading tools, and there's just a number of things that Kdenlive can do fine but Resolve makes easier. It was a relief to see that the learning curve to using the new program, to at least a basic level, was not tremendous.

Also, Vexercises was amazing for getting to think about new kinds of vidding techniques. I've used match cuts before, but the match cut exercise "Save Me" gave me a whole bunch of new tools for spotting places where a match cut might be effective, and I've noticed that I've been making more interesting use of match cuts in my latest vids. Using dialogue in "The Scientists" gave me useful insights on when dialogue can be appropriate, too, and "Don't Leave Me" was an interesting exercise in defining vid POV.

Also, Con-Solation! I ran a vidshow, got submissions, worked with vidderkidder to use his Viddercon software to run! That was not really a huge effort but it was a great learning experience of the more organizational side of vidding fandom.

My Goals from Last Year

-At least 1 Festivid
-At least 1 Equinox vid
-At least one con premiere
-The Jews Dancing Sequel
-A Fringe vid or a Sarah Connor Chronicles vid
-An MCU vid
-A Grey's Anatomy vid (it remains deeply weird that I am fannish about this show now, but since it happened, I may as well vid.)

I made a Festivid, I did a vid for Spring Equinox, I premiered a couple vids at fanworks, I finished The Sequel, I made an MCU vid, and I made a Grey's Anatomy vid. My only misses were the Fringe/TSCC vid... I have an excellent first twenty seconds of a Peter Bishop vid to Tom Waits but I lost steam on it somehow. Maybe I should use Fringe for the next round of Vexercises.

Planning for Next Year

Target vids for 2021:
-At least 1 Festivid
-At least 1 Equinox vid
-At least one con premiere
-A vid to a Hebrew vidsong
-A Fringe vid or a Sarah Connor Chronicles vid

My Vids for 2018


The Mystery Cat American Vandal - Festivid
Powers Sky High - Festivid
The Upload Terminator series - Wiscon Vid Party Premiere
Mayn Kindershe yorn X-Men movies
Hook Peter Pan - Vividcon Also Premiering
Deeper Existenz/Tom Clancy's Net Force - Vividcon Vid Roulette party Premiere
Nightswimming Fringe - Vividcon Premiere
Ein HaNamer Jewish Athlete RPF - Vividcon Club Vivid Premiere
Bulletproof Solo: A Star Wars Story/ Pitch Perfect
Power Crisis - Monsters Inc. - Fall Equinox
Cosmos Redux Monsters Inc. - Fall Equinox

Wow, that's a lot.

Favorite

"Nightswimming". I'm so glad I finally got the guts to premiere a vid at the VVC main Premieres show, in its last edition. I am incredibly proud of this vid, which I think is one of my most subtle and well-executed and emotional vids, and which returns to the first fandom I completed a vid for. I love how I mix fast cuts with slow cuts, I love how I used motion to develop a visual flow, and I love how I got to show the version of Olivia Dunham that I love.

Least Favorite

I hate this question. It always forces me to choose between a crackvid that I am very amused by but doesn't reflect a lot of effort or thought on my part, this year "Bulletproof"... or a vid I slaved over and which is probably fine, but which the process of slaving over made me second-guess, this year "The Upload". In both cases, don't let the fact that I consider them in this category imply I have anything less than deep affection for both. I love "Bulletproof" and "The Upload" but in their own ways they are the most flawed of my vids this year.

Most Successful
"The Mystery Cat", which got some appreciation when it first came out, then got a flood of youtube hits when Season 2 came out because of how few American Vandal vids there are. It is the vid of mine with the most hits on youtube, which is shocking since it's a weird experimental thing about a secondary character to a spoken TS Eliot poem. Youtube is a funny place.

Also, when I talk about success, I want to talk about Vid Roulette, which was a unique thing I did this year. Even though we only got two vids submitted and the party only had a half dozen people, I consider it a big success, because both of those vids are so delightful and weird and surprising in exactly the ways I was hoping that they would when I came up with the idea of randomly distributing DVDs of bad movies to vidders. I feel like Vid Roulette was a one off thing, but I want to do more things like Vid Roulette that combine vidders put in creative situations with the social element.

Most Underappreciated by the Universe
I never really expected much of an audience for "Mayn Kindershe Yorn", because its success as a vid is intricately linked to its use of the Yiddish lyrics, and sure enough!

Most Fun to Make
"Hook". That was a blast to make, a purely visual, movement oriented piece to a goofy Blues Traveler song.

Hardest Vid to Make

"Ein HaNamer", because of source collection, competes with "The Upload", because of everything involved in the AU construction, and the length and scope of the song, and the effects used, and color balancing the added source, and the gender politics and the.... Okay, fine, "The Upload" wins. That was a really complicated project.

The Things I Learned This Year

Matching motion from clip to clip can do cool things. Credits are part of the vid and can do more than just advertise who made the vid, they can help tell the vid's story. If I make a vid to a spoken word piece, I also have to vid an instrumental. Sometimes it makes sense to throw out a lot of work rather than sticking to an idea that isn't working. And when it comes to vidding, it is possible to be too subtle.

I also think I learned that my creative impulse for fic and my creative impulse for vidding seem to come from the same well. As vidding has occupied more of my time and energy and enthusiasm, I have been writing less fic, and feeling less comfortable and inspired to write fic, even though I still have plenty of ideas for fic that I would like to write. It's not something I'm necessarily unhappy about, because I'm really proud of the vids I've made this year, but part of me wishes I could reach a balance that involved more writing.

My Goals from Last Year

So, target vids for 2018:

-My Festivid
-My Vid Roulette vid
-My Fringe vid
-My Terminator vid
-An Equinox vid
-Wild card... I'd still like to do a third consecutive Club Vivid vid to a third Israeli dance song, but haven't found the song yet. Maybe something else will appear to inspire me in the coming months.

Okay... I managed 2 Festivids, I managed my VVC goals of the Vid Roulette vid, Fringe vid, and Israeli CVV vid. I did two Equinox vids in the fall, none in the Spring. I premiered the Terminator vid at Wiscon. So... All specific vid goals achieved! And significantly exceeded the general target of 6 vids, with a total of 11.

Planning for Next Year

Target vids for 2019:

-At least 1 Festivid
-At least 1 Equinox vid
-A Tony Stark vid
-Figure out what to do with Migldi Magldi (this might be the Tony Stark vid)
-Vid Big Bang project
-Two more wild cards, including one con premiere, exact con TBD

My Vids for 2016

Ex Libris (Storylords)
Joker (Battlestar Galactica)
Circles (Ma'Agalim) (West Wing)
Blonde Redhead (Fringe)
Getting Ready to Get Down (Moses und Aron)


Favorite
I'm pretty fond of them all. Part of me wants to say "Joker", even though it is a total shitvid, because I executes its single idea perfectly, and as a person more inclined to the glorious failure, I admire its precision. But I think "Getting Ready to Get Down" is the best combination of effort and result and art. I think it's the vid I made this year that does the most things and I'm really proud of it. And it's a fandom really dear to my heart that I'm glad I got to celebrate.

Least Favorite
"Blonde Redhead"... I wish that vid were so much more than it is, I wish I could have really finished it rather than just dumped it out to the world part-finished, but really I just hit the end of the road with that timeline.

Most Successful
Dunno, I don't think any of my vids this year were particularly successful in terms of getting attention. I guess by default "Circles" had the biggest audience since it played for the whole Vividcon crowd. That was a really awesome experience, in general, for the first time seeing people at a con respond to my vid as it aired.

Most Underappreciated by the Universe
"Ex Libris". For some reason, not a lot of people are into 1980s Wisconsin educational TV shows. For that matter, I am not really one of them, but I'm proud of the vid anyway for making clever use of the source material and actually telling an effective story.

Most Fun to Make
"Joker". So many giggles as I put that together.

Hardest Vid to Make
"Getting Ready to Get Down". I needed to figure out a whole new vidding vocabulary somewhere halfway between a live action vid and a comics vid, in order to deal with how static the source material is. I think a lot of the choices I made work.


The Things I Learned This Year
How to deal with lots and lots of technical nonsense, as I endured a lot of encoding issues. Vidding is the worst hobby. Other than that, I mostly have been trying to teach myself how to cut faster, with some occasional moderate success.

Planning for Next Year

Well, I have made a festivid, and maybe I will try to make a treat. Probably not- the next few weeks shaping up to be crazy.

Mostly, though, I have been working on a massively multifandom vid that has been filling me with joy for the past couple months. And I will be continuing to work on it for a few months more, but it's started coming together and that makes me very happy.

I should also mention the Neoconservative Tony Stark vid and the Big Bang Theory/Heather Dale vid I mentioned in last year's "Planning for Next Year" section as things that sometime in the future I would still like to make.

Apparently I made five vids in 2015, and five in 2016, so it'd be nice to make five in 2017.