VID: The Godzilla Saga (Godzilla)

Vid Title: The Godzilla Saga
Length: 3:17
Song: Europe - The Final Countdown
Source: Godzilla
Warnings: Destruction and devastation.

Summary: History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man.

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VID: Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, etc)

Vid Title: Martin Scorsese
Length: 2:44
Song: The Lonely Island feat. Michael Bolton - Jack Sparrow
Source: Goodfellas, etc.
Warnings: Violence, blood, sacrilege, a bizarre sense of humor.

Summary: He doesn't always do what you expect.

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, and lizbetann (and brand-new usual suspect anoel).

You can blame this whole vid on my co-workers, who would incessantly play this song until it wormed its way into my head and I thought, you know... you could use this. You could use it to say something about maybe, like, a director or something... And this happened.

Vividcon 2012 Report

As I am writing this, I am still on the train back to LA -- in fact, we just pulled out from the station in Chicago. But I wanted to get my thoughts down.

In short, Vividcon was amazing. Differently amazing than last year. Last year I felt like I was finally becoming a part of this community. This year, it felt like going to a family reunion in a perfect world where family reunions are actually heartwarming and joyful experiences.

Echan and I arrived on Thursday night after a long and slightly restless 40 hour train ride. Very quickly, we ran into so many friends we hadn't seen in six months to a year (thank you Escapade for being methadone for Vividcon's heroin). Played a couple of lively games of Fiasco that night with diannelamerc , lizbetann , and greyhat.

The con started on Friday. I decided. to go to as many panels as possible this year, in order to improve my understanding of vidding. I did catch the opening History of Club Vivid show.

...

Okay, so writing this on the train didn't pan out, so the rest of this comes to you from today. post-train.

Also, I can't really do a blow-by-blow account like some folks, so here are some highlights from Friday:

• Wracking my brain with par_avion and settiai at the Vividcon quiz show.
• greensilver  opening the Structure of a Vidshow panel with exactly the right clip from High Fidelity.
• EVERYTHING about kuwdora 's WIP It Good panel. Just seeing how other people vidded was AMAZING.
• The amazingly thought-provoking pairing of the Do You Vid Your Myers-Briggs and Vid Your Id panels.
• Helping set-up Club Vivid with my partner-in-tall, Pete.
• Club Vivid. Which requires sub-highlights:
  
  • revolutionaryjo  and her LESLIE KNOPE cosplay.
  • Having everyone ask me who I was dressed up as (I was pretty stylin' in a nice shirt, waistcoat, and dress pants).
  • All the Avengers cosplay!
  • Accidentally setting dualbunny 's Loki horns askew.
  • Giving sweetestdrain  a massive elevator hug after her Prisoner vid. THERE'S A PRISONER VID.
  • Dancing with my LA vidding pals during their premieres in support!
  • Having my LA vidding pals dance with me during my Godzilla premiere for support. Also, bradcpu  informed me that people concocted a new dance!
  • Singing along to everything! Including One Direction! Which is entirely elipie 's fault!
  • Stripping.
  • Drunken hugs with lots of people!

Highlights from Saturday:

• Waking up with a much raspier voice the next morning.
• Learnin' 'bout smart quotes and font choices in the Typography panel and instrumentals in the Let My Lyrics Go panel.
• VJing my first vidshow -- Vids That Go Bump in the Night. I think it went well. I hear a lot of people were quivering masses of nerves at the end.
• Running my first Vividcon panel -- Shadows and Fog: Vidding Horror. I have more thoughts on this that will appear after the highlights.
• jarrow  had me seriously rethinking my approach to vidding in his Setting the Pace panel. Go him!
• talitha78  and her never-ending id-stream that was projected during the Forever Reblog panel.
• Dinner with absolutedestiny  -- lots of shop talk and horror discussion.
• PREMIERES! So many good vids. Such a solid show. I'll have vid recs for the whole con in a separate post later.
• Vid Karaoke -- jumping in at the last minute to back up elipie and laura47 on "You Told the Drunks I Knew Karate", the amazing Rory vid by settiai.
• Avengers room party in the room o' deejay! With fandom-appropriate drinks. Yay!

Highlights from Sunday:

• Breakfast with luminosity , talking about old horror movies. 
• Vid Review -- seeing my friends' vids get such positive comments. I received... probably the harshest feedback in the show, but it was all well-deserved. I'm not going to foist another half-baked vid on that audience again. It's not fair to them and it's certainly not fair to me. The Lost Girl vid will get tweaked (not a lot) and posted in about a week.
• In-Depth Vid Review. I was running the DVD player as a volunteer. Such great commentary on two remarkable vids.
• Challenge. Holy crap, what a great set of vids. There was a Final Girl vid full of FEELS! I was nervous about how my Challenge vid would play, especially after Vid Review had left me pretty low, but I shouldn't've worried. People laughed and then it received some really heart-warming commentary from a lot of vidders whose work I love and respect.
• Auction. Another set of great vids. Too many good vids this year, dammit.
• Teen Wolf room party! Yeah, probably *not* going to end up a watcher of the show. But Stiles is cool.
• Fiasco. OMFGFiasco. I can't even... I just... WOW. That was some fucked up shit and I loved it. We gathered an audience even! Thanks to laura47, obsessive24, kiki_miserychic, and deejay for adding madness beyond madness.

General weekend highlight was seeing so many awesome vids and meeting so many incredible people. And also seeing other incredible people who I hadn't seen in ages. I am going to miss everyone! Especially you. You know who you are.

Onto my wider discussion of the horror panel. Part of the reason that I volunteered to do that panel was that, as much as Vividcon feels like it's full of my people, I've always felt a little outside, given that my interests aren't usually your normal fandoms. I like horror movies primarily, to the point of obsession, and I wanted to bring some more people into my love. Selfish? Absolutely. Necessary? Not really, but it spurred a lot more contact in that direction. Vividcon is filled with horror fans and I found that out increasingly as the weekend went on. People telling me they were looking forward to my vidshow or panel, people who came up to tell me all about their favorites.

I really enjoyed running the panel, even if I felt like maybe I let myself talk too much (and went on a weird tangent about Girl Power, which I should have trusted the audience to come to on their own). The room was filled with intelligent commentary and thoughtful questions. I really appreciated everyone who came (and I totally understand everyone who could not come due to needing the "No Kleenex Required" show after the horror vidshow was over).

I made a follow-up post in the Vividcon community with some film recs, so hopefully that will spur some more horror vidding.

I can't wait for the whole Vividcon cycle to start again in 2013!