Sakura of DOOM

yhlee asked me to write about being a vid beta (vidder beta? beta for vids?) a while back and pointed me to sdwolfpup's take on having vids beta'd.

Finally, I get around to it!

I actually feel sort of weird writing this, because I've only beta'd yhlee's vids. I also am not a vidder, I really don't know much about vidding at all, and I largely got into watching vids because of the "ooooh, shiny!" factor.

Never underestimate the power of the "ooooh, shiny!" factor.

I also have very little knowledge of video editing or music, much less terminology.

My beta process generally consists of getting a vid from Yoon, downloading, and quickly watching it once. I don't take notes the first time or really do anything except watch. This didn't actually start out as a process, heh heh. It actually mostly just happened that way because I was too busy or too lazy to really take it on the first time! But then I found that I like doing it this way because I can get an overall sense of the vid. Usually I will have absolutely no idea on what most of the vid is about (my brain, it does not pick these things up quickly), but there will be a few cool image-music matches or a particularly neat lyric or shot that I'll remember.

After that, if things are going as usual, I will completely forget and be a horrible beta until Yoon asks again. Then I get very flustered and embarrassed!

Hopefully by this time, I'll still remember my first impressions. If not, I usually do a quick rewatch. Then, I settle down and play the vid a couple more times and try to figure out what's going on, how everything interacts with the music, etc. If I'm having a particularly good day, I can catch nifty tricks with motion or lyric matches. I, eh, often don't have time though =(.

By now, I should have a few not-so-shallow impressions of the vid, like some sense of where the story-structure is going, or what the argument is, if there is one. If I have no time (usually the case), I send a giant mass of impressions off to Yoon. If I actually do have time, I try to get timestamps. Sadly, I am a horribly remiss beta and rarely do timestamps.

Rinse, repeat.

It's actually really difficult saying what I do, because I don't feel like I do all that much. I just watch, and take down notes, and then send on. Occasionally I scratch my head and ask, "If you did such-and-such, would that help?" but usually I find that Yoon knows better than me how to fix stuff. Sometimes there are phone calls brainstorming how Angel could be Norma Desmond and such.

The nifty things about beta-ing include watching a vid take shape from draft to draft, watching the vidder move just a clip or two and have the entire vid's argument crystallize, or adding a few fades to create parallels were there were none before. I'm always amazed by this. Usually I send back comments on the first few drafts that go something like, "I am very confused. Uh... maybe redo entire portion?" and sit back and feel tremendously guilty. But then, it'll come back, and really, not that much will have changed, but the brief adjustments make such a giant difference.

It's also fun discussing things like POV and how to get it through strongly when there's a gender mismatch (I was trying to use Morgaine's "She Bangs" as a nifty example).

A lot of it actually reminds me of doing LJ book write-ups. I just note down my reactions and send them back on their way.