Vid, yay! Compression, boo!

[gwyn]

The Life on Mars vid I've been nattering about is finished and now posted to my site. I'm Immortal (dudes! Stop flailing! It says I'M Immortal, not MY Immortal -- geez Louise, don't you know me better than that?) is largely Sam-focused, even though I think it started out in my mind originally as very Sam and Gene-centric. If anyone's even remotely interested, I could put process notes up later.

It's not beta'd. I normally am all over beta and critique for everything I do, but sometimes, like with Santa Monica, I just am having too much fun and liking what I've done, and I don't want anyone harshing my glow or killing my buzz. It might mean a less successful vid (and people are always, always welcome to send me critique about the vid -- not about me, though), but right now I'm just basking in my new fannish love glow. Except...

This is my first time working from .avi files taken off the Intarwebs, and I think the visual quality in compression has really suffered for it in a way I couldn't see initially. Everything looks loverly in the full quality movie file on large screen, but when I use the same codec and compression settings as I always (successfully) do for a web file, it's becoming highly pixelated in spots that didn't pixelate before.

But! If you view the window at half size, it looks dandy. I'll keep futzing with it. Increasing the size doesn't seem to have a noticeable impact, but I will keep bumping the numbers up and see -- though I'm afraid I might have a 50MB+ file by the time it looks any better. For now, I guess I'd just say, get a DVD from me of our latest disc ;-) or view it in a postage-stamp sized window. Sigh. I can't win at this game, I swear. Maybe I should just -- shudder -- remake the whole vid with a friend's R2 dvds... brrrr. My apologies for being such a technical putz. ETA:I've made a file that's about 10 more MB in size that seems to have smoothed out a lot of the pixelization. I'm sorry for the huge size. Right now I have both options, but the larger one looks a lot better.

I'm Immortal
Artist: The Trash Can Sinatras
File: QT Divx avi, 38 MB
There could be worse things than living in 1973. You could be dead in 2006.

Comments

[trelkez.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Yay! I cannot wait to watch this when I get home. You have no idea how excited I was to hear that you were vidding LoM. *g*

[movies-michelle.livejournal.com]

Whee! Can't wait to see it!

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Oh, i like this a lot. you keep omn returning to the accident which makes sense since there's no one-directional progression with time travel. i like the faster scenes, esp. the first time with Sam and Gene paralleling, but the Sam focus is at the heart, which makes sense for the song. I love the various scenes where he faces death, esp. toward the end, and now I want to watch all the eps again!!! Thank you!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you, sweetie. I'm really glad someone enjoyed it. And yea, I really wanted to keep the accident sort of in there, and save the actual being hit for the kind of "money" note there, because I think it really affects his own interactions in different ways. It was fun to play with it that way, even though I think the logical choice might have been to have it all set up at the beginning.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

No, I thought it made perfect sense to come back to it again and again just like sam has to...and yes, I enjoyed indeed :D (though Im' lacking a nice Sam icon to go with that :-)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

That was wonderful. I’m really missing this show and the sequel isn’t until next year.

I loved the song and the way you used the slightly different tone of the verses (gentle, playful and ever so slightly bewildered) and the two instrumental bridges (a little harsher, more active, almost sinister) to highlight different aspects of the show. I loved all the Professionals shots to the first bridge and the ‘into the woods’ to the second. And I adored the ending, with the beginning all saved up until last and the acceptance and all the hands reaching and holding. The hands make me leave the vid with a big smile.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I want to d/l this, because gwyn_r vid! Yay!

On the other hand, I'm starting to think I should actually hunt down and watch the source material first....

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

This is weird, I did *not* see this entry at the time, and I am caught up on LJ. WTF LJ?

Will DL when I get home. Yay vids.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you! I wasn't sure if using different types of clips on the bridges would work and I got the impression from Jo that maybe it didn't, but I kind of liked playing with it a bit more. OTOH, that meant there were tons of cool cop clips I didn't get to use! I'm glad you liked the ending -- I wasn't sure if it would be treacly or not, but I felt like that is what's keeping him immortal -- the connection to others no matter how tenuous.

Question about your LoM vid:

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I have only seen the pilot ep of this show. I intend to watch the rest (I hope before VVC!), but I haven't yet, so I'm wondering if you think I will grok your vid at all without source context. Should I watch it now? Should I wait? You tell me!

Either way, very much looking forward to it.

Re: Question about your LoM vid:

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

You know, I honestly don't know if it's something that's easier to watch after you've seen the show. I would imagine so -- the basic premise is more complicated than I think many American shows are... but I haven't really had a chance to talk to anyone about it, so I don't know what the reaction is like except for the couple comments above. And those are definitely from folks who know the show. I would probably say that more would come out of it (or at least, I hope I have made a vid that will offer more out of it) if you do get a chance to see the series first. But I just have no clear sense of how the vid looks to others, especially if someone's not familiar with the series.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I finally got a chance to download this. I love it! Nice peaceful song but with some hidden emotions, and the vid feels very hopeful and relaxed, which is a nice counterpoint to the tension of the show. I wish I had more than one episode's worth of knowledge about this show because I'm sure a lot of meaning was lost, but I like it anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

The ending felt earned, that connection theme was something I really liked on the show. Maybe I'm just a sap but I think having that very dark stuff about his father in the second bridge got things serious enough to need the catharsis of a happy ending. I wish I was better at giving more specific comment, the vid is working its way into my brain and I keep remembering odd scenes like the one of Gene's awful shoes getting out of the car and singing along to the I'm immortal refrain.

Re: Question about your LoM vid:

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

Not that it will help you catch up in time for VVC, but I'm happy to report that starting in July, BBC America will be airing Life on Mars!

Re: Question about your LoM vid:

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! Except I don't get BBC America any longer. :/

It's okay. I have a source. I just haven't had time to watch yet!

Re: Question about your LoM vid:

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Well, I think now that Doctor Who's season is ending, I'll go ahead and download the rest of LoM and mainline it this month. And then gobble up your vid. (:

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you -- hopefully we can get together sometime in the near future and watch more eps. I'm *always* up for watching more eps. ;-) I feel like LoM the way I felt for Now and Again, in many ways -- it's very special to me, very unusual and has that emotional resonance and humor and darkness and sweetness that were such hallmarks of N&A. It kind of defies categorization, too. I haven't felt this strong about a show for a long, long time.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I should be down next Friday, so if I stay some extra days in the weekend I'll let you know. Yay for tv watching again!

[leela-cat.livejournal.com]

I was going to d/l this but realised that I've managed to mislay the password. Can you send it to me? leela_cat at livejournal works or my other email address.

[fenris_wolf0]

I was too ashamed to admit I have lost the password to your vids page -I believe I had actually asked for it years ago- so I had resigned myself to not being able to see your new vid, but since I'm not the only one... any chance of sending it again? My email is fenris_wolf0 at yahoo.com (which is unlikely to be the email or alias I was using at the time, BTW).

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

user:gwyn
PW: cymru

[ficbyzee.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I can't believe I haven't given you feedback for this. *sucks*

This vid is so lovely. There's a real feeling of *light* to the whole thing, and I'm not sure if you deliberately messed with the colors of the clips to get that, or if it's the quality of the music, or what. This also feels very bittersweet and wistful, kind of... subduded, which is such a great contrast to the more acid-trippy and frenetic parts of the show. Awww, Sam. *hugs him*

[anoel.livejournal.com]

Ooh yes, I love this vid. You really captured the sense of Sam accepting both his past and present and how he's between them. The song choice is perfect, I really liked the circling clip you used on the immortal chorus and the pacing of it, how it sets up his understanding of where he is. And I liked how at the change of music you had Same and Gene working together (*love* the desk jump). There were a lot of subtle moments that I really liked throughout the vid. And Gene's shoes for the shoes lyric was great, thats the kind of literal use I enjoy. Loved the editing for the next fast music part with the crazy type shots. The cute and funny moments at the end were wonderful, really fit the tone of the song and intermixing his father and the gun and Sam at the top of the building made it more poignant. I love the acceptance at the end, perfect ending clip. Love this vid!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much! It is really kind of you to go back and look at all these. What a great pressie! (I think this one surprised people in not being either period music or fast and peppy, so it's really cool to hear when someone enjoyed the song -- sometimes breaking away from the standard is good, other times it freaks people out!)

[zabira.livejournal.com]

Thank you SO MUCH for making my day in three different ways:

1) Hooray for Life on Mars vids! The more, the better, IMHO.

2) This vid is wonderful, I really like the somewhat quiet emotional feel of it. Many of the LoM are more frenetic, and this is a nice change.

AND 3) I LOVE YOU for vidding to a song by my FAVORITE BAND OF ALL THE WORLD. I've never seen anyone vid to them, and it's great that you did. I almost died of happiness when I realized what the song was.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to hear from someone who loves Trashcan Sinatras. I just don't understand why there aren't tons of vids for their songs to hundreds of fandoms. They are so wonderful. And they fit so perfectly for LoM.

I'm so glad you liked it!

[zabira.livejournal.com]

i am always so curious why that band isn't well, EVERYWHERE: everyone that i know who has ever heard them has LOVED them.

i don't vid, or really do much of anything, but maybe we could bribe folks? or perhaps get a challenge going around trashcan sinatras songs?

anyway, thanks for making my day with your vid...i really did make undignified noises of disbelief and happiness when i saw the song title. :)