Freakish overachiever

[gwyn]

Flummery once called me that because I made so many vids one year, and I feel that way with these four Vividcon premieres. Making the vids themselves, I think, is easy, but the capturing and encoding and crap... that's the hard part. All these links go to the same place right now, my main vids site page.

From the premieres show
I Remember
streaming here
Fandom: Charlie Jade
Artist: REM (I Remember California)
File: QT Divx 38MB
Three worlds, one hope... except he can't get there from here.

From the challenge show for the theme: faith
Well Well Well
Fandom: Firefly
Artist: Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama
File: QT Divx 20MB
Faith isn't always belief.

From Club Vivid, the dance vids show
Ready Steady Go
streaming here
Fandom: Multimedia
Artist: Paul Oakenfold
File: QT Divx 36MB
Street legal.

Flash Dance
streaming here
Fandom: La Femme Nikita
Artist: Deep Dish
File: QT Divx 33MB
He's the kind of guy who thinks he's smart.


The site is still password protected. User: gwyn PW: cymru

It should go without saying, but somehow vidders still need to say it: ANY kind of feedback gratefully received.

I sincerely doubt anyone's interested in exposition on the Charlie Jade vid (two years in the making! sort of!), but if you are, I can write up a bit about it than is in my previous posts about the series.

Comments

[wistfuljane.livejournal.com]

I really enjoy your and mlyn's vid, Ready Steady Go. It's one of those vids where it's so obvious, why hasn't anyone done this before? But still wonderfully executed, fun and fast-paced.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

heee... yeah, I thought it was obvious, too, and in fact i looked to see if anyone had! There was a vid to the song two years ago, but it was for Blade Runner, so I figured we were safe.

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

I am going to watch them all, but at this point have seen Flash Dance and Ready, Steady, Go - Good God! They are fantastic! I watched RSG first, and was absolutely transported - in a trance - it was amazing. Of course I noted with happiness the inclusion of the Pros - particularly Bodie flying over the Capri... Then LFN - Wow. Incredible how you've captured and reduced the footage to bring out the strong true flavour. The zinging down and dirty heat, the extreme attract and equally extreme repel, the undeniable *gorgeousness* of the two of them. Love your vids, love love love them. Thank you!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you! They were a lot of fun to make, especially Ready Steady because M'lyn and I could get our car jones out and just really play with it. And it's always fun for me to vid LFN, even if I know the audience is really small. I just never get tired of looking at Michael...

[charmax.livejournal.com]

"I Remember" is incredible! I am confused as hell now but I found it visually stunning. It's a sensory overload towards the end with the tunnel into various times/places. I am intrigued enough to go watch the whole of Charlie Jade.

Thanks.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you! That is high praise coming from you! Jo and I pretty much accepted that no one would know what the hell was going on, so we just hoped for enough intrigue from the shiny source that people would seek it out to figure it out!

I don't believe you'd be disappointed if you do seek it out. I haven't yet met anyone who didn't think it was a spectacular series when they watched it. Also, there are hot men and women, so you kind of can't go wrong there.

[mackiemesser.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed "Well Well Well" because Book is rarely featured so prominently in Firefly vids. I also thought the pacing fit very well with the music and you did a great job of putting together the TV clips and the movie ones (I've noticed people working with two formats like that have mentioned how tricky it is to make them look the same when one is widescreen and the other full, so to have it be so seamless is really impressive). A really nice mood on this one.

As for "Ready Steady Go"...Dude! You've got The Driver! ( I don't think he was ever called anything else, was he?) Those were excellent short films, and now that you've done it, I find myself surprised I haven't seen him around before. I really enjoyed how you had such a variety of sources--I was thinking at the very beginning "I wonder if they'll have Bullitt in this?" and then there it was. Awesome. The way the shots were matched up was excellent, too.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about Book -- I have this thing I want to do, which is probably silly, but I really do want to make a vid for every character in the series, and Book is one of the characters a lot of people feel doesn't have enough to make a vid about. that made it kind of a special challenge to me -- I'm really fascinated, and disappointed, by his story. I wanted to know so much more of what he was, and was becoming. He meant a lot to me as a character, particularly because i don't really have any faith, per se, and exploring him a little was very meaningful to me.

And yay, the Driver! I have wanted for so long to do a vid for him, even if i feared the "they're commercials!" criticism. I was undaunted!! My love of Clive and cars is boundless. We had sooo much fun choosing clips and fandoms for the vid. It was hard work, but fun. I've actually been asked by a couple people what "Clive Owen movie that was" so maybe, who knows... a fandom of more than one?

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Nice use of clips.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Bitch.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I’ve only just managed to watch I Remember so this comment will be slightly incoherent with wow. But wow! And I must have that source. And aside from the pretty, (the very, very pretty) I love how it draws you into the main character’s experience because I began watching the vid being interested and curious and trying to figure out what was going on but by the point where the paper folding acts as a metaphor for the universes (and I absolutely adore the juxtapositon of such a trivial action with the end of all worlds) collapsing I was caught up emotionally, running through the endless tunnels with him and the SFX of the universes blending had become less shiny than terrifying.

Oh and I’d just begun to figure out the ubiquity of water in all the imagery when it ended with that single drop. I can see I need to watch this many more times.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I admit, I had low expectations that enough story would come through, and all I was hoping for was that maybe people would be intrigued by the imagery at the very least. And I've found that what people saw way exceeded my expectations, which will teach me that I shouldn't think that way. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

i really like the femme nikita vid, and i've never even seen the show. but the song was awesome, the energy to the vid was great, and i absolutely got a sense of the characters' dynamic. really great to watch. thanks -- tally

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Hi, Tally! I'm so glad you liked the LFN vid! That's the great thing about making vids for Club Vivid -- it inspires making things easily accessible, since they're playing while people are dancing.

[alchemise]

Wow, I've never even heard of Charlie Jade, but now I absolutely have to watch it as soon as possible. The vid is incredibly intriguing, with fantastic editing and amazing use of beautiful visuals.

Now I can't wait to learn the context for everything. *g*

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It's an incredible show -- though I thought it would be foolproof "everyone will love this" but apparently I am wrong, as I've seen at least one person who said she wasn't liking it that much. Still, most of the folks I've met are pretty wowed by it. Our vid only touched on the most surface of things, believe it or not!!

[zabira.livejournal.com]

these are all great (i even like the ones for fandoms i don't even RECOGNIZE, with is awesome), but i wanted to say something specific about 'ready steady go': it's an extremely exhilarating vid. the music is perfect for the subject, and the pacing is very, very well-executed. it makes me feel as if i'm watching teh WORLD'S BEST CAR CHASE SCENE. which is exactly what it IS.

i also like the fact that it focuses on action, instead of emotion. not that i have anything against emotion, my god, but sometimes a balancing palate-cleanser is the perfect thing. also, it's a good reminder that grrl-fans don't just want aww-hearts-and-flowers, which hollywood seems to think we do.

okay, now i'm rambling. thanks for the vid, it perks me right up. i'm going to go watch it again.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It is!! It is the world's best car chase scene! I want to call it that now forever. It was such a ridiculous blast to work in that we got to just go nuts with all those chases and crashes and stuff, which we just adore. Stuff blowed up real good!

[topaz119.livejournal.com]

::waves:: My kids (teen boys) are very familiar with vids for anime shows, but they didn't think the same idea would work for live action shows. Your Ready, Steady, Go vid really had them going though. (And yes, my stock rose, because hey, I knew all the clips as fast as they did.) So, yes, I liked it, but I think they were the tougher crowd and you won in a walk.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, this makes me so happy! (You can also tell them live action vidding has been around longer, but they probably won't believe it ;-).) I feel like I should retire now, if we managed to win over some teens!

::brushes knuckles on chest::

[talitha78.livejournal.com]

I loved "Ready Steady Go." It was one of the highlights of Club Vivid for me. So much fun!

[voleuse.livejournal.com]

Even though I don't know the source for "I Remember," it's an extremely compelling vid. I think I shall attempt to find the source, now. *g*

The LFN vid is gorgeous, and the song is wonderful. It makes me want to rewatch the entire series.

I love "Ready Steady Go," and yay! Cars! Going really fast! Whee! Awesome.

And the Firefly vid is just beautiful. Book rarely gets the spotlight, but he has such a fascinating arc. Thank you.

[heresluck]

I have just finished downloading Charlie Jade because of "I Remember" -- it's been a long time since a vid based on new-to-me source gave me such a complete and immediate jolt of "Wow, I have to see that show NOW."

I need to rewatch the vid again (several times) to be able to better articulate why it's working so beautifully for me, but I wanted to go ahead and leave not-terribly-articulate feedback right now. You had me at the song (god I love that song), and then the vid itself is such a great match for the song -- the postapocalyptic lyrics fill in a lot of the story blanks for me, and the starkly beautiful visuals are such a terrific match with the music, spare and darkly lush by turns, all ominous bassline and jangling guitars and weird harmonies. Those first three clips give me enough of the basic premise of the show to make general sense of the rest of the vid even where I didn't know enough to parse specific details. I just... I feel like I'm completely flailing here, so, in conclusion: WOW.

I also wanted to say again how much I enjoyed "Digging in the Dirt" -- that's another one I want to rewatch and be more detailed about, but just to reiterate: I love how that vid manages both to sink us into Baltar's (self-involved, unreliable) psyche and yet to offer a sort of implied outside commentary on his self-involvement and unreliability. It makes me sort of sympathize with him and want to smack him at the same time. Baltar is not one of my favorite characters on the show, and for the length of the vid you make him absolutely compelling to me.

I confess that I was so burned out by the challenge show that I don't remember much about "Well Well Well" besides "Book! Yay!", and I was dancing too hard during CV (especially during "Ready Steady Go"! so much love for that song!) to catch more than a few frames of vids, so I can't speak to those yet, but I hope to have some time after school starts to watch properly.

In the meantime, thank you so much for making and sharing the other two. They will definitely be going in my already-overdue "Vids That Wowed Me at VVC post."

[heresluck]

...and, wow, could my syntax in some of those sentences be any more tangled? To read makes our speaking English good! Yes. ::facepalm::

[libitina]

I've never even heard of that first show, but it looks amazing from your vid. Where would I look to find anyone proselytizing for it?

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I don't know how many people have been pimping it, but I wrote about it a little bit a few weeks ago when I was working on the vid, here http://gwyn-r.livejournal.com/210538.html

I found out about the series when it was airing in Canada from Macha, who's the brains behind the Tea at the Ford site (there's a link on my LJ to the Tea site). I think you might be able to find at least a few posts relating to it, unless I'm completely misremembering.

There is an official site, as well, but that was last updated when it was still airing. Only about five countries originally aired it, but a fan recently mentioned to me that it would start showing on a British cable station, and I think it may still be airing again in Canada, but I'm not sure if it's had its run or not.

It sounds like a lot of fans have been getting dLs off a site called Bite Me or something like that (bit me?), but I don't know much about torrenting. We initially got the eps off a torrent site but they were in pretty bad shape, and I think these days people are getting them from the Japanese discs, which is what I have (it was totally worth the money, even if it took me a while to figure out the menus!).

[keiko-kirin.livejournal.com]

Yay! I borrowed a VVC DVD and got to see "I Remember" today! Wow, beautiful! Great vid! I loved how you summarized the series and kept the focus. I think this is a terrific recruiter vid, and everything I've heard from the con seems to back that up. Very cool. Yay!

More commenty stuff

[keiko-kirin.livejournal.com]

Okay, watched "I Remember" yet again and watched the other vids, Miss Overachiever Vidder of 2007... *g* And WOW! They are all awesome.

"I Remember" is so good for Charlie (poor Charlie!). I love the way you wove the water and ice elements through the whole story. The clips for "history" and "sweet conspiracies" are just *pow* absolutely perfect! And it's such a beautiful vid... I think I said that before, but it is, so I'll say it again.

"Flash Dance" -- How can I forget how freakin' sexy Michael and Nikita are?? And yet sometimes I do, and then a vid like this comes along! I love the sex, the violence, the *them* being so *them*. I love how you used so much motion and kept it going, and then certain clips were gut-punch punctuation points. Cool, sexy, beautiful, terrific!

"Ready Steady Go" -- OMG, so fun! I love this. There needs to be more sexy guys in fast cars blowing shit up vids made to danceable songs. Or well, maybe there doesn't need to be because this one is PERFECT! Love. It. (And the first guy we see -- that's totally Satoshi Tsumabuki, isn't it? OMG. I love you and M'Lyn for making this vid.)

"Well Well Well" -- Excellent song choice! I love that it's a vid about Book. This was so moving, and I thought Firefly was pretty much dead to me, but Book...! Still gets me verklempt. This was beautiful and powerful.

And yeesh! If I'd known you were going to have 4 great vids at VVC this year, I would've asked someone to buy me a DVD set. Next year, tip me off, okay?! *g*

Re: More commenty stuff

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Eeee!!! Yaaaaayyy! Your opinion really matters to me, especially in regard to Charlie. It's such a rare chance when we're into something together and i'm so glad you enjoyed it. I'm hoping that between us, we can get enough people interested that a few other things might come out of it. (Mlyn thinks I'm poisoning the well, though -- that it would be bad if it were a bigger fandom. I just want stuff!)

Did you notice our little homage to Street Cafe in Ready Steady? We had so much fun. We HAD to put Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift in there not just for the driving style but the pretty Japanese boys. Yum.

I feel like Firefly's kind of dead to me (well, mostly because of Wash in the movie) sometimes, and then I see good vids for the fandom and it suddenly feels so important to me again. I guess that no matter what the movie did to me spiritually, it's still always going to be my show.

I can make you a disc of everything!

[obsessive24.livejournal.com]

Somehow I managed to completely miss the Charlie Jade vid until I got my DVDs yesterday and I did a complete comb-through, and... WHOA. The vid... the music... the visuals... it all came out and hit me in the gut. It's gorgeous and I really need to watch this show now. So I think as a pimp vid it definitely achieved its goal most admirably. :D Thank you for sharing!

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

I can't seem to view the streaming version of the Charlie Jade vid, so I've just downloaded it. (Hearing about how it was getting other people interested in the show, though they'd never seen it, prompted me to pay more attention to the reruns on Space. Although it seems I only ever get around to it when they're nearing the end of the season.) I should think Charlie Jade must present its own kind of vidding challenges, since they use so many editing tricks throughout the series already.

Off to watch the vid now. :-)

[darlulu.livejournal.com]

The source for I Remember was completely unfamiliar to me, and yet that vid ended up being one of my favorites of the whole con. The editing was just incredible; you made the vid *move* in the coolest of ways. Great job!

The man who stole the water will swim forevermore

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

For Well, Well, Well:
The quiet, steady progression of the vid is comforting even while it makes you reconsider aspects of characters. It's almost like a sick lullaby about faith.

Re: The man who stole the water will swim forevermore

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I love that -- a sick lullaby about faith. I'm almost tempted to put that on the blurb!

[samertia.livejournal.com]

Downloaded "I Remember" a couple of weeks ago, and never commented to say how totally awesome it is. Commenting now to say "Damn you!"/"Thank you!" for giving both me and my mother a brand new fandom :) We're currently up to episode 8 :D So, thank you so much for making this incredibly beautiful vid!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying such nice things! I love hearing that more people are seeing the show and getting the chance to share in this world. It's really the most amazing thing I've seen in years, and I am just so glad to share the miserylove!

Lemons, limes and tangerines

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Re: I Remember

My god, the visuals are so striking and stark against each other. The music promotes this mood, which you push further with the footage. I can't believe I haven't watched this series. It's so harshly beautiful. There's so much information that you get across in the vid and there's so many strings that you pull through without being too confusing. The way you use the water have to be my favorite pieces of the vid.

Re: Lemons, limes and tangerines

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Honestly, you're not alone in not having seen the series -- poor show, it never got the love from the rest of the world that it deserved. I have decided it must be my life's quest to find more fans for it.

[abby82]

I know that this is probably way out of left field, but do you still have a copy of your LFN fanvid? The link to your site is inactive and it's not on your YouTube page.

I looked up the song and I loved the beat of it and the idea of a Michael/Nikita vid set to it makes me go weak in the knees. I was just starting to watch fanvids around that time, so I'm not surprised that I missed it when it made the rounds. I'm just bummed that I did.

[gwyn]

I do have a copy, my main problem is that a lot of the vids are off my hard drive because back then I had space limitations, and my newer bigger computers don't have hard drives, so I'm scared to see what they might look like on the discs if there's disc rot or something. But I can put Flash Dance and Atom Bomb on my dropbox and send you a private link through DMs here if you want.

I also have a playable DVD of my old VCR/early computer era vids that I can probably figure out how to get a new one burned for. I could mail it to you if you want--it's also got my X-Files vids and my most famous one at the time which was a Nikita/Scully/Buffy vid, so it's not all LFN, but it's fun to watch the old ones again sometimes. I kept my ancient iMac so I could still play those discs, but it's been a while since I've burned any discs so I'll have to see how it goes.

Let me know and I'll try to do that later on this week--I have a nasty deadline I'm racing to meet right now.