Happy New Year!

I was vidding at midnight, which I hope will be an omen for the coming year, and I woke up this morning with pink-eye, which I hope will not.

Yuletide
My wonderful writers were the mysterious white hart for The Forest (The Decemberists' Hazards of Love) and the hard-working yhlee for Thousand Voices, One Fight (Janelle Monae's Metropolis: The Chase Suite). Yoon also made me a music video!!!! I am so overwhelmed.

I wrote The Certainties (The Decemberists' Hazards of Love; some Childe ballads also sneaked in, but you can't really tell them from the rest of the album unless you're looking). Unbeta'd, sadly, because my three potential betas fell through, but that is always a risk with pinch hits, as is ambition too grand for the time to write it in. The recipient was very gracious, though, and I was happy to see she had a bunch of full-size stories from people who'd been inspired by her prompts on the pinch hit list.

Festivids
If you need a Festivids beta, I'm available through the deadline. Email me at thuviaptarth at gmail dot com.

Vidding: Background reading (1/2)

Happy new year!

Last year, I was complaining to laurashapiro about not having a vidding syllabus. "I dislike this piecemeal learning!" I told her. "It is haphazard and uncomprehensive. I want courses! I want background reading! I want a series of set texts that cover the basics from a variety of different perspectives. Why are there no books on vidding to make things easy for me?"

"There are books on vidding," Laura said in surprise. "Just read books on film editing."

"Oh," I said, and then I did.

Since there seemed to be a lot of anxiety around authenticity and status earlier in the year (okay, every year), I should probably say explicitly that I don't think you need to read books on film, be interested in film theory, or take an academic approach to learning to be a good vidder. I read a bunch of books on editing and other film topics because (a) I had very little knowledge of basic film descriptive terms, theory, or criticism; (b) I like structured learning; (c) I had a lot of free time. I picked books partly based on recommendations from friends and acquaintances and partly based on what my library and local Barnes & Noble had available. (Note: If you are looking for books on film, it's useful if your local B&N is across the street from a film school.)

( Film on film )

( Editing technique )

That took longer than I expected, so I will save the comments on books on color theory and on the software I use (Premiere Pro and After Effects CS3) for tomorrow.