a vintage year for scoundrels

- I went to Nine Worlds! Like a month ago. What even is time. Anyway, it was great, highlights this year included... well, basically the entire Star Trek track, but especially pictionary and the worldbuilding panel. :D On Thursday night such_heights and I ran a Star Trek vidshow: here is the playlist, as well as the playlist for such_heights's excellent Friday night vidshow. On Friday I cosplayed Regency Wonder Woman (based on this fanart); on Saturday I cosplayed Fairytale Stephanie Brown, from the last issue of her Batgirl run (Timehop helpfully informed me that exactly a year earlier I'd also been cosplaying Steph); and on Sunday I was Deanna Troi, not Trio as autocorrect would have it, in a knitted Starfleet uniform. (I did not do the hair, as my hair will not do that. My hair has Firm Opinions on what it will and will not do.)

- Fic rec! happydork wrote basically the perfect Wanda Maximoff fic, Pour Back The Ocean. It is wonderful. ♥

- Question for people who know how to vid games: if I wanted to capture a little bit of footage from a game I'm playing on my PC, what's the easiest way to do that? It's for a multifandom vid, so I only need a few seconds. (I know I could probably find a playthrough on youtube, but this is the first game I've played on my own as a grownup, so I am quite keen to capture some of my own authentically inept gameplay if possible.)

aka VidUKon recs post. SO MANY GOOD VIDS. :D

( premiering vids )

( older vids )

...plus probably like a million other vids, but these are the ones that I loved enough that I remembered about them without even opening the con programme, and this post is on the long side already, so I should probably stop here for now. ;) But I definitely recommend checking out the other vids shown: oodles of great things there! (I'd especially rec watching the Brief History of the World show in order if you get a chance...)

(Also: behind on answering comments, behind on leaving comments, sorry, will get there eventually, probably! ♥)

Title: New Romantics
Fandom: Young Justice
Characters: S1 ensemble
Music: Taylor Swift
Content notes: One bright (camera) flash
Summary: "I'm about to play my ace."
Notes: Premiered at vidukon_cardiff 2015!
Download: here (3'42 minutes, 159MB) or here (68MB) | subtitle .srt
Also available from: AO3 | Tumblr

( streaming and lyrics under the cut )

Title: Head Over Heels
Fandom: Supergirl
Music: ABBA
Summary: "Some people like it, others tend to go wild."
Content notes: none
Notes: Shush, this was an excellent use of my evening.
Download: here (0:47 minutes, 35MB) | subtitle .srt (NB subtitle playback is not working for me in VLC at the moment so I haven't been able to test these, let me know if there are any problems! I think I fixed it? Again, let me know if they're not working!)
Also available from: Youtube | AO3 | Tumblr

( streaming and lyrics under the cut )

Title: Trouble
Fandom: St Trinian's
Character/Pairing: Ensemble
Music: P!nk
Content notes: none
Summary: "OK, girls, swimming pool rules: no running, no shoving, no heavy petting."
Notes: Festivid for gwenfrankenstien!
Download: here (3'14 minutes, 142MB) | subtitle .srt
Also at: AO3 | Tumblr

( streaming and lyrics under the cut )

(I did not get round to posting this on Friday like I said I was going to! But I have a really good reason, of course. You see, what happened was LOOK OVER THERE A DRAGON *runs away*)

frayadjacent asked Vidding with Lightworks: the good, the bad, the hairpulling?

This whole post comes with the caveat that the only other program I've used is Windows Movie Maker, so that's my only basis for comparison!

The most frustrating thing that I've encountered about Lightworks is the updates. Which seems counterintuitive but there's no way to put off updating and there's no way to go back to an older version so if, say, an update BREAKS EVERYTHING you're stuck until someone on the forums works out how to fix it. This is the major reason why I'm planning to look into alternatives: the fear that another update could come along and mess things up again. :/

(Though, having mentioned the forums, they are definitely one of the good things about using Lightworks: there's a lot of knowledge and helpfulness on there. Once I've worked out the technical vocabulary to describe what it is I want to know, I can usually find an answer.)

The other thing I don't like about Lightworks is how counterintuitive bits of it feel - I tend to learn by trial and error, so this is really tricky for me! I spend a fair bit of time yelling "why did you do that, I didn't want you to do that" at it. Also, I've been using it for over a year and I still try and use CTRL+Z to undo. /o\ Plus, there isn't really any information on how to use it: just the forums and a few video tutorials on the basics. (And video tutorials make me want to bite things in frustration. Stop explaining how to open the program and tell me what I actually want to know!)

But onto the good stuff! The best thing about Lightworks is just how much you can do with just the free version. I've still only really scratched the surface of the effects package (and have barely touched any user created plugins) but pretty much everything I've wanted to do I've been able to. Transitions, lots of colouring stuff, zooming in on clips because the character I want is in the background (I'm also considering using this feature to deal with source that's in different aspect ratios, rather than faffing about cropping stuff at the clipping stage), speeding up and slowing down (to be fair to the most recent update, this has just got a lot easier), adding motion to still images... I don't really understand about masking yet but it looks like there are plenty of options for that too.

Also, NON-LINEAR EDITING. :D I couldn't go back to linear editing now if you paid me. (Well, maybe if you paid me. How much are you going to pay me?) Obviously this isn't a Lightworks specific thing but I am so glad it's something Lightworks offers: it's the one thing I HAVE to have in a vidding programme.

Those are my feelings about Lightworks! I don't recommend it wholeheartedly, but I do like it most of the time. (If anyone's thinking about trying it out and wants a guide to the basics of using it, I'd be happy to try and put one together, with the caveat that it would probably contain a lot of "there is probably a better way of doing this" and "I don't know why this works", and so on. ;))

Title: Salute
Fandom: DC animated (see below for full source list)
Characters: Many! See below for complete list in order of appearance.
Music: Little Mix
Content notes: some fast cuts and bright flashes
Summary: "Athena knows the League could use more female members."
Notes: Thanks to silly_cleo for betaing!
Spoilers: Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman
Download: here (3:58 minutes, 172MB) | subtitle .srt
Also available from: Youtube | AO3 | Tumblr

Remastered April 2015, mostly to add in the one character I missed.

( streaming and lyrics under the cut )

( List of sources )

( List of characters in order of appearance )

chaila gave me:

12. What’s the best vidding advice you’ve ever come across?
13. What’s the worst vidding advice you’ve ever come across?

and I am going to answer them together, because I can't really identify any bad vidding advice I've come across other than advice that contradicts my answer to #12! For me, the best vidding advice I've come across is just to make the vid you want to make, the way you want to make it. I was thinking that this wouldn't necessarily work for everyone, because some people are more interested in making vids that will challenge them technically or intellectually, or making vids that will get a good response, but then I realised that actually, no, that's all covered by "make the vid you want to make in the way you want to make it". For me, though, it means "make the vid of your heart, even if no-one else will watch it, and make it in a way that will make you happy, whatever rules it breaks". So, for example, I do try and avoid talkyface in my vids unless I'm using it for a specific purpose or there's really no other option, but not because it's wrong but because I personally find it a bit distracting - I automatically try and make the shapes that the characters' mouths are making match the words I'm hearing. (Similarly, I also find it distracting when gifs are subtitled with words that the person in the gif isn't actually saying.) But on the other hand I don't really care that much about source quality or whether it's watermarked or whatever, so I'll happily just use whatever I've got as long as the quality's good enough to actually see what's going on in the clip. And I would never judge someone else for caring about source quality or not caring about talkyface just because the latter bothers me and the former doesn't. I find this a very freeing way to vid, because as a general rule I AM the sort of person who worries a lot about what other people think, so it's really helpful to be able to give myself permission not to do that.

(Whenever I post about vidding the random icon button on Dreamwidth seems to give me "experiencing technical difficulties". IT KNOWS.)

It's SDCC this weekend! Marvel will be announcing some more films! What if they are all about white dudes again! I will probably cry! (I am actually going to be at home this weekend, which is out of character for me at the moment. I was going to say "I'm not busy" but given it's two weeks til Nine Worlds and my costumes are NOT DONE, that would be a lie. Also, I have unexpectedly been swallowed by a vid idea. HELP.)

Some recs:

- Master's Thesis by auronlu: a really good, plotty Fifth Doctor story, featuring Tegan, Turlough, and older Nyssa as per Big Finish canon. I knew I was going to like it when Nyssa casually told Tegan, "Oh, by the way, other genders are more visible here than on Earth or Traken. The TARDIS should translate, but you may hear a few unfamiliar pronouns", and it's also just really well plotted and characterised. Long, but totally worth it.

- Things by raven. Star Trek daemon AU, perfect perfect perfect. It is basically a fundamental truth of the universe that fanworks by raven + Star Trek = feelings everywhere.

- Watershed, a Wonder Woman vid by chaila. THIS VID. So powerful and moving. DIANA.

Some things I am cranky about:

- I don't understand why the new Batgirl costume is getting so much praise. I mean, it's totally fine as a costume, but it's both less practical and less professional than what Babs was wearing before. D: It would be great for Misfit, or fine for Steph or Harper if we hadn't already seen their future costumes in Batman #28, and I'd totally take it as Cass's new costume if it meant we could just get her BACK, but for Babs? She's not a teenager, she's an experienced vigilante in her own right. Why would she swap Kevlar for a leather jacket? It might fit with the tone of the book, but it doesn't fit with Babs herself, and it'll make her look like a rookie when she's lined up next to the rest of the Batfam. DISAPPROVE.

- Search engines that try and second guess what you're searching for are THE WORST. Also frustrating: the way Chrome prioritises things it thinks you might be searching for over web pages you've already visited when you start typing in the address bar. STOP THAT.

- I've been pretty disappointed in The Mary Sue post-Geekosystem merger. So much content now, but so much of it so shallow and thoughtless, and it really feels like their woman centric perspective has got a bit lost. There is still some good content on there (I enjoyed these two posts on princess tropes: part one and part two - nothing hugely new, but a nice clear analysis) but overall, bah. It was never perfect, but I feel like the things they did do well at have rather fallen by the wayside. D:

Title: The Light and the Sea
Fandom: DC Animated (Wonder Woman, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Young Justice)
Character: Wonder Woman
Music: Dar Williams
Content notes: None
Summary: "Keep faith. Trust to love. Fight with honour. But fight to win."
Notes: Premiered at vidukon_cardiff 2014. Thanks to silly_cleo for betaing and suggesting the song! ♥
Download: big (3:39 minutes, 164MB) | smaller (81MB) | subtitle .srt
Also posted at: Youtube | AO3 | Tumblr

( streaming and lyrics under the cut )