Something like a report

[gwyn]

First off is that I had a great time overall. I arrived earlier than last year (I was so sure I wasn’t going to have fun last year that I shortened my time in Chicago deliberately!), which gave me a chance to go out for the afternoon and evening with my oldest friend in the world. She took me to see Millennium Park and the bean (the bean is so cool!), where we were caught in a horrid downpour and I got soaked through all my clothes and everything I had with me was drenched in rain, even with little umbrellas. She took me to this trendy restaurant at the park that had to be one of the worst-run places I’ve ever been to, then we took the El for the famous Chicago Loop, which I’ve always wanted to do, and went to the train station so I could see where they filmed the steps sequence in The Untouchables. Saw some more landmarks, went to the really awful Billy Goat tavern (which inspired the cheeseborger skit on Saturday Night Live, apparently), and then got stuck in the underground parking garage because my friend lost her ticket. Which gave me a chance to call the sis, so that was good. A lot of my weekend was informed by when I could call evil twin, and constantly being worried about her status, but people were very nice about understanding that that was my first priority. (If I can remember LJ names off the top of my head, I’ll use them, if not, I’m using the regular names, and even some of these LJ names I know will be wrong. And after that, I’m sticking to regular names else it looks crazy.)

I was rooming with morgandawn this year, and we chatted and caught up with each other when I got there. Up, as usual, bright and disgustingly early, since I can’t sleep in hotels. I usually like to take a swim in the mornings when it’s empty, but the hotel never opens the pool when they say they will, and I always have to go up into the lobby and humiliate myself in my swimsuit and make them open the freaking pool. I really do not have a lot of good things to say about the hotel staff, who are mostly rude and thoughtless and seem to enjoy being difficult. Hung out with people at breakfast and got to see everyone I hadn’t connected with the previous day, lots of hugging all round. The thing I wanted most was to get to the grocery store, so I latched on to merryish when she said she was going home to grab some things. I wanted to see where she and tzikeh lived, anyway, so it was a good excuse for an excursion. Little did I know she would take me on a two-hour Gilligan tour of Chicago and environs! We got a little lost, so to speak. Everyone I called couldn’t help me figure out how to get back, including the stupid hotel staff who demanded I tell them the cross street, when there were no identifiable cross streets. Grrrr.

But we made it back in time for the first show, the WayBack Machine. I love seeing old vids, but what was great about his one was having the chance to see some vids I’ve heard about for years but never seen -- especially Hotel California for the Prisoner, by Judy Chien. Definitely worth the wait, and it was also great to see Cybel Harper’s Patterns for the X-Files, one of my all-time fave vids. barkley’s Audio Rarities show was fantastic, with a lot of great, unusual choices. I was awestruck by Magpie’s Beloved for the X-Men in this show, which was cool and gorgeous and mesmerizing. It was also really fun to see a vid I’d worked on years ago in an audience again, Tender Comrade, and to see alvafan’s classic Deteriorata with an audience (both are Professionals). I enjoyed Hanks’ Farscape vid Enormous Penis quite a bit. feochadn’s Master Class panel was really cool and fun on its own, but was made more memorable when, as Jo explained about how she learned to edit film back in the day when they used mini guillotine-like cutters, then took the strips of film for that segment, tagged them, and hung them on racks, leaving pieces to fall on the floor, sisabet’s hands flew to her head and she exclaimed, “Oh my god! The cutting room floor! That’s what it is!” It’s rare when you get to see someone have an epiphany and the room erupted in laughter.

Nearly New was an interesting mix of premiering vids and vids I’ve seen in the past year, and also an interesting mix of good and bad. There were some painful clunkers in this show, ones where I wished someone would put me out of my misery (the Hornblower vid to a showtune was especially agonizing, but at least some folks got laughs out of it), but fortunately they were easily swept away under the good vids. I loved Zen’s cute little Speed Racer vid for The Fast and the Furious (duh!), and Juliette Torres’s Shot in the Head for Touching Evil was wonderfully cool and mysterious. I liked Wolfling’s Someday a lot more than I thought I oculd (when I saw the word Nickelback, I was expecting the worst) for Angel and Wes, and of course, as always, anything killabeez does is great, but her Jeremiah vid Because I Told You So was wonderful. I also hadn’t seen Barkley’s So Are You To Me for X-Files before, so that was just delightful to see a Mulder and Scully vid and made my old XF heart very happy. But the highlight of the show, and maybe the whole con, for me was heres_luck’s Window of Opportunity for Wonderfalls. Not only did this capture so fantastically everything about the show that made it great, it was superbly edited and the song was unreally charming -- I can’t wait to get my hands on this in larger screen format so I can watch it again and again.

Friday night klia, thevetia, terrio, and keiko_kirin went out to dinner with me at the house of meat, and it was the first meal I’d had in three days, so I tucked into a large steak with more gusto than was seemly. We had a great time rehasing everything we’d seen and also trashing the vids we hated (hey, it’s fun), and it was off to Club Vivid. Last year I remember thinking it had to be the dumbest idea I’d heard of since...well, since I first heard about songvids and thought they sounded horribly stupid and embarrassing. But I had a blast last year, and this year was even better with the addition of Glo-sticks (glo-sticks save lives!) and even more vids. I even dressed up this year in sparkly.

Saturday morning’s Unexpected Levels vidshow was excellent, and highlighted by seeing the meta-vid Pressure, done by the Cali Crew folks years ago and showing what it was like to make vids by tape and stopwatch back in the days when shows often ended their seasons just before MediaWest, and people were rushing to make their vids before the con. Sisabet had also included the wonderful Sahara by whatssnoo, which I’ve heard of for years but never seen, and Vrya’s incredible, stunning Spike vid to Tool’s Schism (there need to be more Tool and Perfect Circle vids, I always say). But the highlight of this was the closer, a “vid” about trying to learn to vid by someone who is into Cowboy Bebop, calling themselves Big Big Truck, and it was utterly brilliant and funny, and a perfect take on the whole “Hey, I can be a vidder” mindset so many people start out with without really having any clue what they’re doing. I adored this vid. “Render!”

I also enjoyed the Illustrating Relationships show, but was nervous about my upcoming show and panel (Literalism vs Metaphor), so had a hard time focusing. I really loved my show! I know that sounds weird, but I did! I had only quickly seen some of the vids I wanted in it for research purposes, and had never seen them large-screen, so it was a treat to catch thatfangirl’s Contact vid Are You Out There? bigger, and to see talking_sock and sherrold’s Someone You Might Have Been on a big screen again (I haven’t seen it in quite some time). I adored the huge happyreaction for alexfandra’s It’s All Been Done, the Highlander meta vid about how much HIghlander vidding repeats itself by nature.

I think my panel went off okay, though I am ashamed at how much I babble and how lamely I express myself, especially when I’m going really fast. Sandy seemed to have better focus in her panel on Breaking the Rules, and she had a lot of fun things to say about ideas that are rules, ideas that are suggestions, and beliefs that are really strong suggestions. A large group of us went out following this to get dinner at the hotel next door’s restaurant, but criminy, what a disaster. I'm starting to think I bring a food jinx with me that poor astolat has to endure whenever we are in the same general vicinity and food is involved. At least this time there was no Carl’s Jr. We made it back just in time for the premier show, which is always the big highlight of the con. As I mentioned earlier, I was too tense to really enjoy things, but fortunately it settled down a few songs after my vid was shown. Merry’s kickass Smallville vid I Just Wanna Take You Home started the show, and was an excellent kicker-offer. Such great editing and clip choice from a person who always says she’s not a vidder!

The highlights for me: Barkley’s Stargate vid Can’t Find My Way Home, which I thought was nicely creepy in some respects, and a good look at Jack’s mindset. Seah and Margie’s What It’s Really About and Big Red Boat, both for Joan of Arcadia, excelled. I’ve watched a handful of eps but the show didn’t jazz me, yet both these vids did, totally. Big Red Boat could not have been a more perfect closer to the show with its bouncy song and upbeat message, and once again the flummery girls knocked the audience’s socks off. I would just like to remind you both once again that you were wrong! I loved przed’s Equilibrium vid to an Annie Lennox song I’ve usually hated, but this had the right feel to it and made a perfect match for the theme of the movie. Kitze’s Elevation was a fun vid -- I find the two guys on the American Queer as Folk almost intolerably unattractive, but this sexy vid overcame that for me with its fabulous editing and sense of fun. God, it was great to see sockkpuppett’s Serenity, for Firefly on the big screen -- even more powerful and exciting and gorgeous. Killa’s Blue on Black for Deadwood might be my favorite of the show -- haunting and as always gorgeously edited and put together, perfectly conveying a difficult show that many people will not have seen (or rejected because it’s a western). I looooove this vid. Or maybe melina123 and Shalott’s The Mountain, a look at the separate journeys Frodo and Aragorn have to make in Lord of the Rings. I’ve had such a hard time finding vids in this fandom I can watch, and this goes a step beyond to be not just one of the few good ones in this fandom, but one I will treasure for years.

Sisabet’s Two Words I hope put to rest her fears that this wasn’t the right place for this song -- it worked perfectly to sum up Angel as a series, and the editing was, as always, tight and amazing and her music choices never fail to blow me away. Shalott’s Jig of Life (Kate Bush) was incredible -- a rare Witchblade vid that really helps people understand the show and Pez as character. Everyone discussed its motion in the review panel the next day, but what I really thought it was was tempo -- the song has so many weird shifts that matching its pace through movement and timing is tough, yet Shalott nailed it perfectly. I was glad to see people didn’t freak out too much about Jo’s and my Streets on Fire. Kathy, Kay and Jill’s Boys Keep Swinging made me laugh out loud constantly -- it was such a refreshing change of pace and such a great take on the never-ending picture of Daniel the girly little flower. Just a total hoot.

I adored Snoo and Tzikeh’s fabulous Blue Skies for Everyone to Dead Like Me -- I've wanted to vid this song for years but have never found the right fandom, and this was just dead-on perfect, delightful, and sweet. Zen really knows how to give a girl a come-on by intro’ing her Rough Boys multimedia vid with “Contains graphic violence and hot boys.” Yeah, baby! Here’s Luck’s Thistledown Tears just hit every single great thing about Firefly, showed off her fantastic editing and vidmaking abilities, and just filled me with love for the show all over again. And then laurashapiro and Killa’s exquisite Scully vid Not Only Human came on and made me want to cry, it was so gorgeous and perfect and filled me with Scully love like I haven’t felt in years. A rare perfect vid. Just perfect. Morgan Dawn’s The Highway was such an asskicking Jeremiah vid that I hope people might seek out this terrific show -- it certainly reminded me that I had catching up to do, and in fact I am right now watching Jeremiah so I can identify some of the fantastic clips she used. Excellent timing and editing on this one. As well, also on Ordinary, the Willow and Xander vid by pipsqueaky that absolutely broke my heart and so perfectly conveyed who Willow is that I just ached for her. What a fantastic vid. Then destina’s Stargate vid Did You to Hoobastank knocked everyone’s socks off -- those last 30 seconds were absolutely incredible. As always, Jill and Kathy can do no wrong in my book, and their Touching Evil (USA) vid to Sigur Ros’s Untitled 6 left me gobsmacked -- exquisite effects, weird and freaky story and images, absolutely haunting and breathtaking. (The closer, Big Red Boat, I’ve mentioned above.)

Overall I thought there were more clunkers this year than last, and some of those clunkers, unlike last year, were just really, really clunky and painful. I’m bewildered by why it’s so impossible to get a decent West Wing vid, and the one in this show made me want to scream “Make. It. Stop.” It wasn’t just awful, it also had badly capture source that pixelized and jerked and stalled, so it was painful all around. Some of the other clunkers just didn’t work for me or I wished they were over, but I just intensely disliked a vid that many others seemed to enjoy, Closer to Fine for Six Feet Under. I tried really hard to understand what people saw in it at the review panel, but I never got it -- for me, it was sloppy and painfully overly literal. I also thought the reaction to soappocrates’s Smallville vid ‘Til the Day I Die was a little more intensely negative than I thought it deserved -- while I didn’t get the use of the picture in picture effect that she used throughout, it didn’t seem to merit the flaying they gave her (boy, would I have saved the flaying for a couple of other vids) for using it. I guess I must just be out of step with everyone else, because I didn’t think it was that hateful, and I thought the SFU vid was much worse than everyone else did. A couple vids I just didn’t connect to, though I thought they were lovely, such as Mad Poetess’s utterly beautiful vid to one of my all-time fave songs by October Project, Bury My Lovely, for the movie The Others. Part of it is that I haven’t seen the movie yet, I’m sure, so I’ll give it a try and then see if I can connect more to the vid, because it was truly beautiful to look at.

The World Domination villains, scoundrels and masterminds show was a total riot the next morning and took the edge off my weepiness at having to repack to go home. Great vid choices and it was so great to see Sandy and wickedwords’s Can’t Keep A Good Man Down vid for Wiseguy, that uses a song from Cop Rock that is so perfect it’s scary. Can never really hate Cop Rock because it gave them that song. Then it was the challenge show, and I was nervous all over again. The challenge theme was luck, and wow, did people do a great job. It opened with Barkley’s Stargate vid Lucky One, which some people had trouble grasping, but it made sense to me. Or at least, I thought it made sense! permetaform is apparently the owner of the vid that blew everyone away to The Ring (Lucky You by the Deftones), which was so evocative and creepy and excellently made that it’s one of those vids that make you wish to never vid again. I thought the HItchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy vid for Clint Black’s Good Run of Bad Luck was charming, but I didn’t really get it, sorry to say. And I loved the SOS Farscape vid, but I don’t know who made it -- it was really cool, mixing an old gospel song and a newer Richard Ashcroft song, and the vid was every bit as good as the song choices. And people didn’t seem to think my Firefly vid Through Your Hands was too treacly, so yay.

The auction vids made me a little nervous, I confess. I kept wondering how collaborations like that could turn out, but they were great, and the one everyone was afraid of, the vid Angel made for tiashome, was a freaking riot. I kept telling people that I knew Tia very well and that she would not really have someone do I Will Always Love You for Angel the series with anything less than tongue in cheek, and I was right. Sisabet did astounding things with Thelonious Monk and the Roots, and Luminosity came up with a really incredible Smallville vid for O Come O Come Emmanuel.

Over the weekend I was thrilled to see all my old friends, to spend more time with newer friends such as kassrachel, and to meet new people such as just_eunice, coffee_and_ink, sdwolfpup, _par_avion, justacat, and boniblithe, among the tons of people I met and spent time with. Though maygra was very missed this year, and Zoe, I’m sorry I never got the the chance to look at your vid draft!

And then after the dead dog wrap-up, it was time to depart. I almost missed my plane when they changed gates on me without any signage while I was grabbing something to eat -- how can you change gates without telling people who have boarding passes saying a different gate? I had to sprint all the way from one end of United’s O’Hare terminal to the other with less then five minutes till boarding. I got home and the puss was relatively happy to see me, and all I wanted was to have copies of the vids from the show and esepcially a disc of my own Literalism vs. Metaphor show so I could see all that good stuff again. It struck me as very odd, waiting for my ride, that Seattle at ten at night was warmer than Chicago in the day -- but I didn’t mind the cooler weather there because last year nearly killed me. I was really sad about coming back to my mundane life where so many people I know don’t get why I waste my time on this crazy hobby, and think vids are weird. But Killa stocked me up with Jeremiah discs and Deadwood and now I’m mainlining the shows thanks to her generosity and will probably have more vids being added to my already filled plate.

I will be trying to get the new vids uploaded soon -- but to be honest, most of these look better on TV than small, so please do contact me offlist if you’d like DVDs. (Valentine Heart is in fact now up.) The Firefly vid especially loses so much when it’s small -- no stars in the ending, etc. And it will take some time because these are large files, and I have dialup. I came home with a (cough, cough) copy of a program that should allow me to smallify the file sizes, but the problem is that I am stupid and learning a program with no manual will be a challenge for me that I don’t know if I can succeed. I will try though, so I can minimize these huge file sizes and possibly brighten them up a bit (Angel is such a dark show to work with). DVDs rule! And Morgan’s already put her Jeremiah vid up, I see -- go watch -- and she still has my dance vid entry, Atom Bomb for La Femme Nikita, up at her site.

Cuz, you know, it's not like we're not all vidded out.