Sakura of DOOM

For lovepeaceohana

AMVs! They were actually my first introduction to the fannish vidding tradition. The very first one I ever saw was an Utena vid to Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn," and it took probably two full days to download and was the size of a postage stamp. Oh dial up...

In retrospect, the song choice was probably not quite right, and there was a lot of literalism, but hey, the literalism made it much easier to figure out what was going on! And I suspect the vidder picked the song based on "Illusion never changed / into something real."

I don't remember if I found more after that, but by my sophomore or junior year of college, I had started up an anime club, and some of the people there had entire tapes of AMVs from cons and the like. Also, thanks to college ethernet, I had begun downloading a ton of AMVs, most of which were based on Evangelion. I think there was a very big focus on lip syncing at the time, as well as a lot of technical effects. And a lot of audio from trailers of popular movies (a lot of Star Wars Episode II) with footage from various anime series. Because I came from AMVs, I was really confused by Western media vids when I first watched them, though nowadays I have probably seen much more of the latter than the former.

This is also reminding me that I wanted to catch up on AMVs prior to Wiscon, so maybe I will go off to do that!

Also, on a funny note, when CB and I were first emailing each other off OK Cupid, I mentioned vids, and he was kind of skeptical, because all he knew were the bazillion Dragonball Z vids on YouTube done to some specific dramatic song I don't quite remember right now. Then I showed him the Princess Tutu AMV as an example, and he was blown away by the fact that people timed things! To the music! And had narrative! (I have sicced a lot more on him since, bwahaha.)

(I know I always say this when I talk about AMVs, but more recs are always welcome!)

I've been having some exciting mail days lately!

1. yhlee! The 2006 Vividcon DVD arrived! EEEEEE! I thought it would be lost forever, as it was sent to my old address, but good old USPS worked its magic and rerouted it and I have it! That totally made my week, and I am planning on hunkering down on the couch with easy knitting to watch "Fix You" and "Have You Heard" and oh so many other excellent vids on my tv.



2. ROCKIN' SOCK CLUB OMG JOY! Um. Yes. It is quite possible that I have been bitten by the sock bug even though I uh... have yet to finish my first pair. But that's because the foot is in pure stockinette, and it is boring me to death, and I want to get to the cool parts like the heel! I started knitting Grumperina's Roza's socks from IK Spring 07, but I got really bored with brioche stitch. So I tore it out and started toe-up Happy Socks. Except it's taking a while to get to the lace, and once I got past the figure-eight toe (so cool! so proud of self for figuring it out!) and the increases, it is stockinette for what feels like miiiiiiiiiiles. At least it's entertaining watching the yarn self-stripe.
   
   Also, I have decided that I can indeed do dpns, but I don't particularly enjoy them and want my magic loop again. I have also decided toe-up is the way to go, as I can try it on as I knit and knit without fear of running out of yarn before finishing the toe!
   
   Wait, got distracted again, meant to talk about Rockin' Sock Club. Anyway, I am not completely in love with the colorway, but the pattern looks cool. But I have decided to knit some other sock with the yarn, as I don't like how it pools on other people's and use some other sock yarn on the Inside Out pattern. More news later...



3. Wild Adaptor 1-4 in Japanese from vom_marlowe, joy!

The only sad thing is that my Sundara yarn has not come yet. This wouldn't be so tragic, given that I will forever have more stash than I have projects, except for the fact that the tatami kimono pattern has also not yet come argh want to knit it now have beautiful yarn sitting in closet woe. Am emailing Sundara to check.

Um, also, are people really bored by my obsessive knitting posts? I figure they probably don't make much sense if you don't knit...

I haven't been reading much lately, as a) I haven't been sleeping well lately and therefore have been falling asleep in the middle of books and b) Remix has been eating up my time. But really, it's not like I don't have enough hobbies to fill up all my time and then some anyway...

Download vid (goes to website)

Alas and alack, I didn't get a chance to go to Vividcon and have been jealously reading everyone else's posts and downloading scads and scads of vids.

Since I can't do con reports, I figure I will write up in detail the vids that really got to me somehow, even if they weren't shown at VVC.

This one apparently premiered there. For some background, I've seen the BSG miniseries and the first six episodes, and then bits and pieces of S1. So I have a vague idea of what happens.

Everyone seems to be talking about Coldplay as a musical choice; I have no idea what is and isn't popular, so I had no idea. I had also read a little commentary prior to watching the vid, so I knew it wasn't going to be what it seemed.

That said, having the vid be from Six's POV, having this rather gentle, loving song be about Six's love for humanity and her desire to fix them, all this totally bowled me over. Also, it didn't hurt that the editing is awesome.

( Vid write-up )

I totally blame this on coffee_and_ink and her vid recs for X, but I have now joined AMV.org and even paid money so I could download videos rightthissecond.

And now I'm completely lost because AMV.org is a LOT bigger than it used to be!! Lots! Jeez. Things change in three years after one leaves a fandom.

So I'm trying to dig up all the old vids that people showed me waaaay back when I was the anime club president. Luckily I found two familiar ones on Phade's Required Viewing (keep in mind this list was around several years ago, so it's not quite as required anymore). Engel and Episode I, both Evangelion vids, are pretty old by now, so I don't know how revolutionary the concepts are anymore. But Engel was awesome because it had really great lip-synching of the music with the anime characters.. I used to be so wowed by this that I didn't actually notice that the focus on talky-face really slows down the momentum of the vid. But it's a great Asuka-kicks-ass vid and reminds me of why I love the character. Unfortunately, it's also got some spoilery bits for End of EVA in the middle. Sigh.

Episode I can be used as a conversion vid, maybe? It's basically the trailer for Star Wars Episode I set with Evangelion footage. Again, not a new concept now, but really really awesome when Brad DeMoss first did it. No spoilers. Great sound effects.

And, of course, Kusoyaro's Bachelorette, which does have spoilers for the Utena movie. But then, the movie is so incoherent anyway, that I feel it largely doesn't matter. And gorgeous, gorgeous visuals.

I'm sad Get a Job doesn't seem to be online anymore =(.

I still love Justin Emerson's Cowboy Blues, a great character vid for Cowboy Bebop which amazingly is not subject to his tendency to edit the hell out of everything. Unfortuantely, again, it's kind of spoilery for Faye Valentine and Jet's arcs (more Jet's than Faye's), and this is driving me crazy because I want to make everyone watch Cowboy Bebop. His other vid for Bebop starts out with the Giant Honking Spoiler, so I'm not even going to link to it.

And I finally managed to find Doki Doki Productions' Right Now Someone is Reading This Title, which is a huge love letter to anime fandom. It's also probably tons more fun watching with a roomful of anime fans than by yourself at the computer (so I have discovered). And Disney has finally (finally!!) released Laputa, so that's off. I also noticed that really, the music has nothing to do with the clips, but no one really cares because the subtitles are so funny. Also, I think he managed to get his hands on a clip of a Takarazuka production of Utena and now I want to know how because I have to see that someday. (Takarazuka's an all-female revue, and they've put on Rose of Versaille and Utena)

And now AMV is so big that I don't even know where to start finding new vids. It's also strange noticing that all the anime vidders I have heard of are male, given the predominance of female vidders in the Buffy fandom. I think it's probably because most of the anime released in America prior to the past two or three years were all very aimed toward guys (mechas, girls in skimpy clothes, almost no shoujo to speak of). So I feel cheated because I never got to see enough shoujo anime.

Have finally got Premiere. Installed Premiere. Looked at Premiere for about three seconds and freaked out and ran away.

Also am not sure how to rip my DVD to MPEG or AVI.

I feel I am not meant to be a vidder.

Seriously though. With Photoshop it was easier because I had the boy, who nominally knows how to use Photoshop. So I watched him diddle around and made him do things, and picked up enough of the basics enough so that I could just press random buttons and see what effects they had. Unfortunately, the boy doesn't know Premiere so I can't watch him. And I started reading the help files, but my brain completely zonked out. I don't understand any of the terminology and there's no helpful person sitting next to me pushing buttons and showing me how it's done.

Hrmph.

I am now sitting at my computer (obviously) watching Sisabet's new vid Peacekeeper over and over and over. This is my way of not packing. I hate packing. I hate shoving my room and all my little knick-knacks and books into cardboard boxes and sealing them up. Unpacking is fun. Unpacking, I get to decorate and place stuff and arrange my room. But packing is horrible and nasty because I'm taking down my whole life (or so it feels).

Reunions is going on right now, so it feels as though there's a ginormous beach party going on everywhere. Very strange. And tons of alumni wandering around, which is also very strange. Weirdest of all is the thought that next year I'm going to be one of them. Eep.

And to be totally random, I will list some of my favorite vids:

- Myrtle and Eunice's Fragile, a S2 Buffy vid with gorgeous imagery and a haunting song that makes the pain of the season even stronger. Also, Fata Obstant is a pretty cool Buffy/Angel vid.
- Sisabet's Peacekeeper (spoilers for Chosen), about being a Slayer and being Buffy, Cowboy, an Angel is a pimp vid, Country Calvacade and Brass in Pocket with Dr. Dawn, one of which is hilarious and the other as an awesome Lilah vid.
- Morgaine's SheBangs, a Buffy and Faith vid. Love the POV switch in the middle.
- Bonibaru's Hallelujah, a beautiful beautiful Firefly vid about Mal's great romance with his ship.
- Luminosity's everything. Particularly The Other Side (a Spuffyish vid, spoilers through Chosen), End of the World. Er. Some might be on headtilt.com.
- Here's Luck's Writing Notes, Atropine (which makes me teary all the time), and Glorious #1.
- Linzee's Bad to the Bone (Spike, the big bad, in all his glory) and Disease (Spike/Buffy badness, mmm yeah)
- Mina-Clare Moseley's Saint of Me, aka Angel in five minutes. Love the opening bits.
- wisteria_'s Connection and Mobilize (I think they're linked on her LJ)
- Valerie's When I Grow Up, a cool Dawn vid.
- crazygrrl's Strange Disease, one of the funniest vids I've seen.
- Justin Emerson's everything. He makes kickass anime vids, especially the EVA and Cowboy Bebop ones.
Lots of other great anime vids out there, but I can't remember where the links were =(.

Not that any of these vids are non-recced and unknown. But these are the ones that have someone gotten themselves stuck in my head for a very long time.