enchantedsleeper

Hello! Thank you so much for being my gifter, for considering making a treat for me (I have gifts enabled and treats are so welcome!), or for otherwise taking an interest in this letter ^^

In general, I'm open to most things in a vid/gift - while I'll put a few preferences below, they're not that strongly held, because I find a wide variety of things interesting and cool. So, feel free to be unorthodox; feel free to get creative; feel free to make whatever you're inspired to by the fandom material 😄

General likes

• Lyrics that match well with the visuals of a vid, especially those moments where it’s really bang on with what’s happening in the clip – love that
• Pretty much any genre of music – though I admit that death metal would be an unusual choice for my requested fandoms, but otherwise, my preferences with genre are generally “yes”. Whatever you’d like to use for the material, I’m on board with. That includes instrumentals with no lyrics if you’re so minded (I’m a fan of classical music, and there are many epic orchestral pieces that I think can make great fanvids!)
• Upbeat or hopeful vids/visuals, although I’m on board with angst – I’d just prefer to stay on the “bittersweet” end of the spectrum rather than “tragic”
• Shippy vids or vids that focus on any kind of relationship between characters (friendship, queerplatonic, mutually obsessed enemies)
• Vids that tell a story
• Very open to non-traditional vids with creative combinations of visuals/audio/sound (which for some, non-visual, fandoms is needed of course, but even if it’s not, go for it!)

( Read more... )

I hope you have a great Festivids, and thank you again for vidding for me! <3

This weekend, I finally finished my Festivid, which is my fourth fanvid in total since I started vidding in 2019. It took nine (almost consecutive - I had one day 'off') days of pretty hard editing to complete, and I'm really pleased with the result. (I've also been pretty "head down" in vidding mode all weekend, so apologies to the people still waiting on replies to comments they left me! I also have Snowflake challenges I want to catch up on).

Having said that I'm really pleased with my vid, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the quote by Ira Glass, which is much-circulated on Tumblr, about the gap between taste and creative output. From a transcript I found on The Marginalian (sidenote: the accompanying short film is really cool!):

"All of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? [...] But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you"

(That's not the whole quote, which is much longer, but it's the relevant part).

The song that I chose for my vid (I have to be a bit coy about what it is because the exchange is anonymous for now) is very snappy and upbeat, and I have this version of my vid in my head that's so crisply on the beat, where every visual and every audio beat combined is killer and the result just blows the viewer away. And the actual vid I've put together is good work, I think, but it does fall short of the version in my head, and I've worried that I'm not doing the material justice - the potential of the vid justice - with what I'm making.

But, of course, the only way to get to where I want to be as a vidder is to keep making fanvids. It's literally the only way. And so of course the vids that I produce as I go will have things that I need to improve on. There's no scenario in which I become a better fanvidder by never making vids or by giving up on them because they don't match my imagined ideal. I also have to love the idea of what I'm making enough to keep trying to create it - so if I didn't have a super cool version of the vid in my head, what would I be trying to make?

Another thing I've been telling myself is that when I'm writing fic (which is my main type of fanwork and the one I feel most confident in), not every single line that I pen is supposed to be killer. There'll be some that really hit home, but others are just there to move the story along or lead up to the killer moments. So, it follows that not every moment of my fanvids can possibly be The Amazing Golden Moment - some of them are just there to suit the flow or pacing, or because they looked kinda cool.

Vidding to a deadline also requires some sacrifices, in that I can't spend an infinite amount of time familiarising myself with the material or trawling for the perfect clip and experimenting with the best combinations. But I also like that I'm motivated to push past my doubts to some extent and just finish the thing. As it happens, in his full quote, Ira Glass also says to give yourself deadlines, so I'm doing that bit! And when I look back later at parts of my fanvids that made me wince at the time, I often think, 'What was so bad about that section? It looks fine'.

It'll be interesting to see how I manage when I'm not vidding to a deadline from an exchange or event, but hopefully I'll remember to focus on the end goal of accomplishing a finished fanvid rather than obsessing over an ideal version in my head.

Exchange season is at hand!

I look forward to this time period every year while also feeling bad for looking forward to it because it means the year is coming to a close 🥺 But as a wise Tumblr(?) user once said, "the time will pass anyways", and it's nice to have the excitement of preparing for exchanges and planning gifts as the months (in my part of the world) get darker and colder.

I've been doing Yuletide every year since 2018, and although some years are a bit "skin of the teeth" (my 2020 and 2021 Yuletide gifts were 15k and 13k words, respectively... I very deliberately wrote a shorter fic last year xD) I still have a lot of fun taking part every year. Then a few weeks ago I was boosting posts by the Festivids account on Mastodon because \o/ yay vidding \o/ and I thought, hold on... I could actually do this?? I've never even considered taking part in a vidding exchange, but the idea is really exciting. (I also like that Festivids takes a very expansive view as to what you can nominate as a fandom, and also what counts as a vid, so you can get pretty creative).

Luckily, the timelines for Yuletide and Festivids don't overlap that heavily (obviously they're running around the same time, but the nomination periods are one after the other and the Festivids submission deadline is a while after Yuletide), so I feel pretty good about signing up for both.

But that's not all! (As you can tell from the title of this post xD) I've been on a Fence! fandom kick lately, ever since the last issue of the comic's latest volume, Fence! Redemption, came out. If you haven't heard of Fence!, let me briefly evangelise: it's a comic all about fencing and fencing rivals, in the tradition of sports manga, with a main character who's very determined to become the greatest fencer and beat his rival, whom he definitely despises and does not have a crush on, at all. Also, OMG, they were roommates. (In fact, let me share with you this panel that I coincidentally have a photo of...)



It's wonderfully queer with lots of shippable pairs (mostly M/M but the last few issues introduced a really TOP tier F/F ship that my friends and I are vibrating over), which isn't surprising when you learn that it's written by C.S. Pacat of Captive Prince fame, with artwork by Johanna the Mad. If your interest is piqued, you can get it on Amazon, oooor there are online uploads to be found if you're strapped for cash. The fandom is small but very enthusiastic, as small fandoms often are :D

Anyway, I've been enjoying making and sharing posts on Tumblr, and then I saw that there is a Fence! Secret Santa being organised for December! I thought... I can squeeze in one more exchange, right? XD

And that is the story of how I came to sign up (well, technically sign-ups aren't open yet for Yuletide or Festivids, but I'm definitely gonna) for three different holiday challenges this year :3 I'm sure many habitual exchange-goers do several at once, but the most I've ever done is two (Yuletide and Murderbot Diaries New Year's Gift Exchange in 2021), so, this should be fun!