Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

Title: I Don't Feel Like Dancin'
Song: I Don't Feel Like Dancin' by Scissor Sisters
Source: Jackie Chan films (Hong Kong/China)
Length: 2:59
Warnings: Some small amount of blood.
Made for: Club Vivid 2018

Summary: Jackie Chan and the Art of the Flailing Fight


Vimeo Password: jackiechan


Download 30MB MP4 (right/ctrl-click and "Save Link As...")

Notes: It occurred to me after making this vid that maybe I have a weird obsession with bodies in motion, between this, Gene Kelly, and wuxia. I was honestly contemplating a Busby Berkeley vid at one juncture if you need a fourth data point (edit: this has happened). Anyway. This is a vid that lived in my head for a while and with the Final Club Vivid upon us, now felt like the time to make it. So I did. Cool story, bro. All source is from Jackie Chan films produced in either Hong Kong or China (so no Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon, or other American films). Cheerleading by sol_se.

Hello fellow Vividcon attendees! Would you like to fight monsters, dodge traps, and solve puzzles? Of course you would! I can help! I'll be running a one-shot Dungeons and Dragons adventure at least one night of the con for 4-6 players. No experience required! I'll provide the dungeon mastering, rules knowledge and some pre-generated characters for you to pick from. You provide imagination! The whole thing should take a few hours at most.

The current plan is to run a session after Premieres on Friday. If there's enough interest, I may also run a game Sunday night with a different module.

Let me know if you're interested in the comments (and let me know your general level of experience with D&D or roleplaying games -- experienced players may get roped into helping less experienced ones sort out the system).

Title: Bad
Song: Bad by Michael Jackson
Source: Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and related media)
Length: 3:29
Warnings: Physical triggers (e.g., epilepsy or migraine: strobe lights, bright lights, "stuttery" cuts between 2-3 stills)
Made for: Vividcon, a vidding convention that takes place every August in Chicago (this version differs slightly from the one shown there)

Summary: DEEP HURTING



Vimeo Password: pushthebutton


Download 33.2MB MP4 (right/ctrl-click and "Save link as...")

Notes: Yeah, this was going to happen eventually.

Thanks to laurashapiro for her insightful beta!

Hey, look, it's that thing people do where they talk about con experiences.

Mine was a mix of amazing times and nerve-wracking glitches and surprisingly consistent sleep.

It was my first year as Official Vividcon Staff, working with heresluck (my rock in times of stress) on the on-site tech, with able assistance from folks like elipie, bradcpu, echan, thefourthvine, dsudis, jackiekjono and more that I don't actually remember right now. Believe me, I wish I'd written it down, because they were all superstars. I did a few panic-related memory dumps over the weekend, as you can imagine.

Also, absolutedestiny debuted a new system for running vidshows that was amazing. Yes, there were a few glitches, but you know what? Every vid was played. Every vid. Someone told me that in past years, if there was an issue with a vid on the DVD, we'd just have to apologize to the vidder and move on. Long story short, it's an absolute (heh) dream to move forward technologically like this.

This year, as in past years, echan and I roomed with thirdblindmouse and shati -- kind of a headquarters for the IRC folk. They're great roommates and fun to hang around and they only mock out of love. I'm pretty sure it's love.

Since I was using up a ton of energy doing on-site tech, I didn't get a chance to do a lot of stuff outside of the con, but echan and I did get to have our traditional Saturday lunch with vagabondage, her husband, and fan_eunice. That's always a lot of fun and one of the highlights of my con experience.

I also had lunch and/or dinner with some cool people like par_avion, renenet, trelkez, sweetestdrain, thefourthvine, dsudis, and bironic.

By the way, it was *so* nice to finally get a chance to talk with bironic in person since releasing my monochromatic remix of Starships. She's one of the coolest people I know and she helped me get my multifandom panel into shape ahead of time.

I got a good response out of my multifandom panel, but ultimately, I don't feel like I actually communicated anything useful. I'm not really a presenter. Maybe I should write up vidding meta posts instead. The room was full of useful voices though, and they added a lot that I couldn't.

Club Vivid rocked, as usual. Alas, I screwed up my left hip prior to the con and my dancing only exacerbated the problem. Oops. I cosplayed this year as a random surgical intern from Grey's Anatomy (complete with sparkle pager and a scrub cap made by jmtorres), because my life is all Grey's Anatomy now, apparently. I may put up pictures in a separate locked post later on.

More later, including other panels/vidshows and stuff.

Title: Electric Avenue
Song: Electric Avenue (Dubstep Remix) by Transbot
Source: Robots!
Length: 3:22
Warnings: Physical triggers, violence.
Made for: nakedbee 

Summary: Robots Rock!

(this version differs slightly from the version that played at Vividcon -- an additional clip was added and there were a few tweaks to the editing)



Vimeo password: rur1921


Download MP4 (right/ctrl-click and "Save as...")

Notes: There's a long and labored version of making this vid that I won't really bother you with too much. Basically I made the vid once (for nakedbee  in exchange for my sweet Number 6 jacket for Club Vivid two years ago). I had no intention of having a point of any kind. Except I did accidentallyhave a point and I stuck a dance break in the middle of it. So I recut the song, reordered my clips, and offered it up for thirdblindmouse to use in her Artificial Life show at Vividcon.

Much thanks to elipie, kuwdora, echan, shati, and thirdblindmouse for their encouragement and beta work.

( List of sources... )

This just went up on the Vividcon website, so I feel comfortable properly announcing it here: I was asked to join the staff at Vividcon on the technical team! I think it was mostly to increase the average height of the staff, but I accepted and I'm super-excited to be a part of one of my favorite cons.

Title: Dracula Has Risen from the Dance Floor
Song: Dragonette - Fixin to Thrill
Source: Hammer Dracula
Length: 4:00
Warnings: Metaphorical sexual violence. Violence. Blood.

Summary: If Drac is a DJ, death is a dance floor, blood is the rhythm, your screams are the music.



Vimeo password: vampires



Download MP4

Notes: This vid uses at least one clip from every Hammer film that features either Christopher Lee's Dracula or Peter Cushing's Van Helsing. I've been meaning for years to do a companion piece to Don't Stop Me Now, my Hammer Frankenstein vid. One day in IRC, joyo raised the challenge: more vidders should be making vids to Dragonette songs. I popped into Rdio and the first song that came up started with this dark, minor key dirge that sounded similar to but distinct from James Bernard's score for 1958's Horror of Dracula. And thus, Fixin to Thrill became my vidsong.

My vidding process on this one was a bit different. I literally just pulled every clip I liked down onto the timeline. My hope was to create a visual melange based on the qualities of the footage divorced from the narrative context. My multi-source vids tend to collapse the narratives of multiple sources into one meta-narrative and I wanted to break away from that a bit. Unfortunately, my brain is just organized the way it's organized, and the end result is once again a meta-narrative. Sorry if you wanted something new from me, folks.

The one major issue I ran into while making this vid is that my fannish devotion to the source began decades before my personal social justice awakening. The dubcon/noncon subtext of the films turned me off a bit. Ultimately, I decided to turn into the skid and acknowledge the problematic nature (even if I was doing so in the midst of a vid that was supposed to be dancey fun).

I don't even remember everyone who looked at the vid ahead of time. I really must keep better notes. I know that thirdblindmouse took a gander, for which I am grateful.

So Festivids was eating my soul. It's not now. I have a few vids in and I'm contemplating one more (possibly two). I also have a Hannibal vid for Escapade I need to finish (listens as mresundance's ears perk up).

Been struggling with a depressive jag that's making working on any of the above difficult. Been spending a lot of time playing Borderlands 2 or this Marvel Comics-based gem matching game and feeling like a lump while doing so. Cheered myself up a bit with some Marx Brothers last night (Monkey Business), but still fighting.

Beyond that, starting to look forward to Vividcon season. Kind of lost on potential Club Vivid and Challenge vids. I may be taking "Gift" too literally... will have contemplate. I have way way way way way too many potential Premieres.

Informal poll -- would you prefer to see:

• A multisource, slightly bitter vid about post-apocalypse?
• A mournful, slashy Spartacus vid set to modern pop?
• A dark, brooding femslash vid based on an Ingmar Bergman film?

No, there are no happy options. Comment and let me know!

Where was I? Oh yes. I went to bed on Friday night feeling like my legs were in revolt and not giving a crap.

However, I had to be up early on Saturday ( This is where we talk about Saturday )

Aaaand up again early on Sunday morning ( All about Sunday morning here... )

( A moment of navel-gazing... )

Back to Sunday!( Here we go... )

Next post will cover the last two Fiasco games, the end of the weekend, and vid recs.

A lot of different sources went into the making of my Starships! remix vid, partially out of a desire for a large range of sources, but also because I was working hard to match the clips from bironic's original vid as much as possible.

( 77 sources, give or take ) 

VividCon was amazing, but I'm not braining very well, so there may be another post later where I discuss the sources in more depth.

I will say this, though: this vid would not have been possible without Cinemageddon or Archive.org.