fray-adjacent

Previous years: 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

Vids I made in 2017

Electric Lady (Steven Universe, premiered at VidUKon in June)
Airplane (Xena, September)
Partition (Buffy theVampire Slayer, November)

Favourite

Partition — I enjoy re-watching it, and it’s a different sort of vid, with a different take on Buffy, than I have done in the past.

Least Favourite

Airplane — it’s a fine vid, but it’s my weakest Xena vid IMO. I had a lot of trouble getting something that went with the music like I wanted on the bridge. And I struggled a little with conceptualising it — at first it really was a Gabrielle vs Horses vid, but that was too narrow a concept for an entire vid so it became about the discomforts of travel, but I’m not sure how well the second half connects to the first half.

Most Successful

Partition, I think, in that I saw a few people reccing it. Electric Lady in terms of comments though — I got some really lovely comments on it on DW and at VidUKon.

Most Underappreciated by the Universe

I secretly hoped Electric Lady would take off on youtube because I think it’s better than a lot of the Steven Universe vids I’ve seen out there. (Not all of them of course! Becca’s SU vid, for example, still blows my mind every time I watch it.) Alas, that didn’t happen.

Most Fun to Make

Electric Lady, before my laptop was stolen (see below).

Hardest Vid to Make

Electric Lady, because I was about halfway finished with it when my laptop was stolen. I’d had Premiere installed on my laptop from my previous job, but when I bought my new laptop I couldn’t get it back. I ended up remaking Electric Lady in Lightworks. Now, I’m sure Lightworks is a lovely program, and it’s fantastic that it’s free. But as someone who was just trying to (re) make a vid and wasn’t actually interested in learning new software, it was very frustrating in some ways. It wasn’t just small differences along the lines of those I discovered when I switched from Final Cut Pro 7 to Premiere, but major differences in the workflow that I really struggled with.

Not long after I finished, I decided to splurge on a subscription to Adobe CC even though the cost and subscription program piss me off. I get the educational discount because I work at a university, and I do use Illustrator for work so I can kinda justify it on those grounds. So the work I’d done on Airplane and Partition — both of which I had started in 2015! — was mostly not lost, thanks to my backups.

Also Partition because the process of making it made me so angry at the source that I almost lost all motivation, when it was 90% finished.

The Things I Learned This Year

Back up my vid projects! Keep my laptop upstairs and not where thieves can see them (only helps with middle of the night robberies, but still).

Also, put more effort into vids. Resist the urge to just post it because I’m sick of working on it. It’s the difference between having a vid I rewatch for years to come and almost never rewatching it. This isn’t good advice for perfectionists, but I am definitely not one of those.

Planning for Next Year

My goal is three vids again this year. I managed it last year, which I’m so pleased about because I only made one vid in 2016 and two in 2015. But two of the three vids I made in 2017 (Airplane and Partition) had significant work done on them in previous years. So making three vids again this year is still a step up in productivity.

Also, Xena Warrior Podcast has inspired me to  return to my Xena vid plans, and has also given me courage to go ahead and make one or two of the darker Xena vids I’ve thought about. Not all vids need to appeal to everyone. More than any other fandom, I vid Xena so I can have the kind of vids I want to watch, and sometimes I want to watch a vid that explores the sad and difficult parts of that show.