On terça-feira, julho 28, 2009
Originally posted in May 21, 2009 on my blog at The X Filing
WARNING: This can be a long, difficult and disturbing trip into a vidder's mind in her darkest hour. And I really meant LONG.
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I'm not the type of vidder who likes to talk about the work behind a vid. It’s not a matter of “I-wont-reveal-my-techniques” thing, but just a matter of “I-don’t-know-my-own-technique” thing. I mean, of course I know the basics of it (at least regarding Sony Vegas 7.0 and Ulead) but I don’t really *know* it. I’m always clicking on big red buttons to know what will happen – and thankfully the “undo” button exist! But I’m definitely always finding new things on Sony Vegas (which is the software I’m using), especially when I have a difficult video as ‘Don’t leave home’.
Regarding the video plot/purpose/whatever, I try to be as clear as possible on the video itself, because I think that's the whole point of it. I don’t like to write that kind of long, narrative comments like other vidders do (no offence intended here, it’s just me). Maybe that's the reason why I like so much opening credits and promos - can you be CLEARER than that?
But the point is: I don't usually talk about _my_ vids specifically. I can talk about vidding in general, but not specifically. But this time I *need* to talk. After *four* months of interruptions, broken computers, identity crisis, lack of XF clips and whatnot, I HAVE to talk. And trust me, I *WILL* talk. A lot.
As this blog post is named "making of" I should talk about all that stuff everyone talks about on a making of. I could tell you how the idea came to me, and then proceed talking about the day-by-day of making this vid, including the special effects I used on it. I could even talk about how my crashed computer contributed to it, or how I overcome weariness, bad quality episodes, college exams and moral defeat to finish this one.
Sure I could talk about all of that. And I will, at least about some of it. But I'm afraid I'll wear you out with my whining about colouring effects. And the lack of XF clips, as always. And the little watermark on the top right corner. Oh, and the which-plot-should-I-follow dilemma. Did I mention colouring effects?
Honestly, I think I've never spend so much time in only one video, and that happened not because I love the song or because this is a special video to me - nossir, it's just because I got COMPLETELY obsessed in getting the right colouring on the XF clips to fit Dido's.
But let’s start from the first problem, which is The Plot.
You see, I’ve never worked with a music video clip like that before. I’d only get the song and make my vid based on what the lyrics said. But now it was different. I had to put together XF clips and the original video clip. And at first I was kind of lost. I didn’t know whether I should follow the lyrics and make the XF part looks ‘outside’ the travelling Dido (???) or if I should follow her leading through highways, dark forests, abyss and beaches… As you see, I chose the latter. And I’ll never know if things would’ve been easier if I had chosen the other option.
So here we go. I started making the video based on that plotline – Dido following Moose and Squirrel, and then Moose and Squirrel tracking her down.
And then I stumbled (again) on the fact that I didn't have many XF episodes. I'm slowly (and illegally) recovering my XF library, but that ain't easy for a poor girl like me, and, well, I have my life to live. Actually, this not-having-enough-XF-clips was the main reason I began making this video. I thought to myself: "well, if I don't have all the episodes I want – and need – it's better if I work on something where I can use some other material". And the music videoclip thing came to me. I thought if I didn't have the clip I needed to a specific part, I'd just throw in there the original clip of the music video.
I've never been so wrong in my whole life. (Kids, jump the next paragraph. Bad word ahead)
I'm telling you, make all this XF stuff fit with Dido's videoclip was HELL. More than hell, it was C.G.B. FUCKING SPENDER COMING BACK TO LIFE TO BE MY ROOMATE! Or Diana Fowley kissing Fox Mulder. Or Agent Doggett not being on XF3. Or Frohike in his underwear. Pick your worst nightmare and make it real.
Anyway. The fact is that exactly because the music video has very specific clips (road / forest / abyss / FRIGGIN’ BEACH!) it became tremendously difficult to find XF clips to fit there. That is the part where you start banging your head repeatedly on the keyboard asking "WHY ME?! WHY ME?!" (Let’s take a trip down memory lane and watch just the ending credits of my “The Lights are probably nothing” video).
Ah, but I was wrong (AGAIN) about this being my worst nightmare. No, sir. I can overcome lack of clips. I can make them *look like* they belong there, or at the very least count on the imagination and good will of fellow vidders and viewers to accept that little discrepancy on the vid (let’s just pretend, just for a few minutes, that the pueblos of the Anasazi Indians is located on a beach, ok? XD).
As I was saying, I’d find out that my worst nightmare wasn’t related to the XF clips. It was related to Dido’s. I mean, I go through *HELL* to find XF clips that fit, and in the middle of the way I realise they’ll NEVER really fit if they are so DIFFERENT from Dido’s grey-green-blue dreamy mood. And that is the part where you go to your bedroom and tries to drown yourself on the fish tank.
No such luck.
I got *so* pissed off that I decided to finish it anyway, no matter what. I’ve always been a little freaked out about colour pattern in all my videos, but this one takes the cake. I don’t think I have ever made an XF video without using the color corrector tool or color curves. I personally think that keeping a pattern throughout your video is the best way to establish the mood of it. Right?
So. That decision made me spend one whole month fishing out clips that could remotely make sense – and changing them hundreds of times –, working like crazy on getting the right colouring to the XF clips – which makes you go insane with a difference of 0,022 on the amount of green – and praying to god that I wouldn’t hate Dido after this (I’d have dreams of stalking her and then jumping on her and screaming “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME??? HOW???”). I particularly used the B&W effect to smoothen down the original colour of the XF clips, but I couldn’t just apply it to the whole layer, because, among other things, Dido’s clips had to be on the same layer because of the transition effects. So there goes that magic button that you click and applies one effect to the whole thing…
And let me just add here that my computer is prehistoric. And it is veeeeery slow. Not anyone has the patience I have to edit a video on it.
Anyway, after innumerable tests, I finally discover the right colouring/glow/black&whiteness to each part and… My computer dies on me. I repeat: it *DIES* on *ME*. Do you understand how TRAGIC this can be to the evolving of a vid? I do. First hand experience here.
You know, it wears me out only writing about it. Remembering all that late hours in front of the computer, changing tiny numbers that would made the whole difference, wondering where the hell would I get a damn clip of Scully on the beach (trust me, Biogenesis/Sixth Extinction don’t have all that material, unless you want her at NIGHT on a beach holding a VERY LARGE knife)… Having nightmares about vidding. A big computer screen floating in front of your eyes, the Sony Vegas 7.0 mocking of you, running away from you with your unfinished work on it…
Anyway, after TWO months or so, my PC is FINALLY back. And I dove right in again. Honestly, I think if my computer didn’t have crashed, I’d have given up on that video. I was fed up with it. It was beyond reason, it was becoming a true obsession… A paradoxical obsession, by the way, because I was getting to a point where I’d only think about that vid, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to listen to that song anymore. Crazy, hun?
And then, about four days ago, after changing (AGAIN) 1/3 of the original vid, I had finished. With everything. XF clips. Colouring. Transitions. Layers. Done. Zip. Nothing else for me to do.
Release. Or at least that’s what I thought.
But I was wrong ONCE MORE… And I was getting tired of being wrong all the time. I think that’s pretty much the feeling Scully must’ve felt after two or three years with Mulder.
Just before I rendered it I realised the little logo mark problem on the top right corner. I mean, of course throughout the making of the video I noticed it. I even added my own logo to it at least to show it wasn’t the original music video. What I didn’t realise at first was the inconstancy of it. I mean, on the XF clips it wasn’t there, on Dido’s clips it was there. It gets visually annoying that thing popping in and out of screen all the time, so I had to add it to every single XF clip and make it look like a constant mark, and that is not easy, especially on the transitions. Another little hell, but I was able to survive to it – I think after everything that happened I got kind of immune.
And so here it is, the final product of a two-month work (with a forced vacation of another two months).
Enjoy (or not. And if that’s the case, trust me, this time – only this time - it won’t mean that much for me. I’m just too happy to have finished it). Honestly, I don’t think it came out that good. I’ve been partially defeated by fatigue. It could have been better.
But don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a LOT with this video. But, you know, now I’m tired of learning a lot. I just want to make a silly video, just to give my mind a break.
END NOTE: If you’ve read this far, consider yourself hand-shaked, bear-hugged and smack-kissed in both cheeks by me. *sniffs* Thanks!
