Not a virgin anymore

[gwyn]

At least with Final Cut Express: finished my La Femme Nikita vid last night. Or at least, finished in the sense of "I put enough clips to get from the beginning of the song to the end of the song." But it's not finished in terms of looking like what I thought it would look like or fixing the problem spots. There is still an entire segment in the middle that I don't understand how to make look like what I want it to (especially since, I suspect, it involves mathy things and that falls under the category of Never Gonna Happen), and I can't understand how to fade out the final clip to black (I do not get why such a sophisticated program doesn't have a simple fade in/ fade out effect, the way stupid little iMovie does -- it's a perfectly useful and valid thing to have, yet the only thing you can get close to it with is the fade in and out transition, but this isn't a transition). sdwolfpup, that pewling whiny sound you hear under all the wind and rain is me going, "I don't geeeet it."

I doubt I will ever be able to do much with this program, not the kinds of things I see my friends do. But I found at least one thing I liked -- I can mess around with clips in the different levels of video timelines, and match them up to the space where I already had a clip I wasn't sure about, and see which one I like better. That's cool. I just haven't figured out how to make everything not go wonky in timing when I swap things around, though. The worst part is the generators -- I am completely stumped by the text generators for making a title. I'm obviously missing something, I keep reading and re-reading it, but I don't understand and I can't seem to make even a simple title over black work.

Overall I like the vid. It's not great, but it's very bleak (no! the people who've seen most of my vids say) in some ways, darker than I was expecting it to be -- but I think it would be perceived that way mostly by people who know a little of the show. I will have to test it out on people to see if the story makes any kind of sense, though. I just wish I could figure out how to make a decent copy -- so far the copies of QT movies I've made have looked abysmal. (morgandawn, get ready for that phone call.) I haven't figured out yet whether I want to stick with FCE for making the next vid, which would be a very simple, perky Wonderfalls vid that wouldn't necessarily require the abilities of FCE. It's hard to say. I suppose like most people after their first times, I'm not sure yet what I think of the whole experience. It's been a change of pace being able to be pissed and miserable over something besides my sister's death, but I'm not sure if I want to be confronted with my stupidity and inabilities on a constant basis. And it's been easier to vid, for some reason, than it has been to write, something I can't seem to make myself do.

I feel a HUGE rant coming on about the enormous tech proficiencies being demanded of vidders these days, but I'm pretty sure no one would want to hear it, especially from an old-timer like me who has never quite fitted herself into the computer vidding world.

It hasn't helped that work has been rotten this week -- first there was the fixation and morbid one-upmanship at coming up with death headlines for Terri Schiavo's case, and then now it's the pope death-o-rama. Wed nights are just really hard, too -- I keep thinking of my sister waking up and asking me "Is it nine o'clock?" when she saw that Alias was on. So when I watch Alias now I have a tough time dissociating it from her. (Though, last week's, I think it was, with the guy who used to work with Nadia -- where has Cesar's actor been my whole life? Does anyone know anything about him? Phwoar!) And a co-worker has been really snotty to me all week, challenging and belitting and quibbling. I'm not used to it, she's normally really kind, so something else must be going on, but it's wearing me down a lot.

I guess that's always the good thing about doing La Femme Nikita vids: Nikita and Michael's lives were just infinitely more miserable than yours could ever be, so you are always reminded that things could be worse. You could work for Section One.

Comments

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It's not somuch about the effects and things, but about the technical knowledge of computers and codecs and software proficiencies. I mean, effects and things are in there, definitely, but one of the things I've noticed a lot lately is that the fannish help network seems to be by and large disappearing, and there's a prevailing attitude of "do it yourself/learn it yourself" and that not only discourages people like me from seeking help when they need it (so the creative product might never be made), but it also is a huge shift in how fandom has always interacted since generations ago, and it means that the onus of an extreme amount of technological know-how is now completely on the producer, with no one there to help them or back them up. So we expect this one segment of fandom -- the vidder -- to be as technically proficient as an IT expert, as a hardware manufacurer, as a developer of software -- as well as for them to spend thousands of dollars in costs associated to create the fannish product and distribute it, free of charge, to anyone who asks.

And the demans are increasing all the time. I just saw someone anguishing about not having the video codecs for lazy Windows users becuase she works on a Mac and how she was going to all these lengths to try to appease some asshat who won't DL her vids because they're too crappy to get the right player. Why? Becuase we now expect the vidder to not only provide us with the vids, to spend all that $$ to make the vids and use their time and energy, but to also have all the bases covered technically so that lazy, crappy people don't have to do any work.

To me, this is an enormous disparity and I think the unfairness of vidding has reached almost comical proportions. Whenever I get criticized for having a password on my site, or when people bitch at me because QT files won't load on their computer, or whatever, I'm like... when did this become my responsibility to make everything easy for you? And part of that is that most of these folks might not know anyone who can help them (I can't) and woe betide the person who asks becuase all they'll get is a link from someone for something they may not understand or be able to use; or they may be just those fans I hate who think they are entitled to everything and you are their fucking fannish product slave.

Vidders used to be a pretty small group, and there was an appreciation in the audience for the expense and effort people went to. Now it's this "you better understand every tech aspect of vidding, don't fucking ask anyone to help you if you can't understand/do it yourself, and give it to me now free of charge in the way I demand it." I am frustrated by the expectations placed on vidders (especially those of us who want to submit to cons, which are becoming increasingly hostile to the low-tech vidder) and the level of knowledge being demanded of them, when they're already struggling to produce some art. Writers don't get asked this level of expense and knowledge. Why are vidders -- and for so little reward, since almost no one supports them the way they suport fic?