Welcome to Day 1 of my Insane December Vidding Project. So far, it is living up to its name in spades.

Since this is the first day, let me tell you what I'm going to do. I'll provide the vidlets each day, as well as just the section of lyrics that I used (where lyrics are involved at all) and a bit about my thought process, limited as it is on these. I'm also going to talk about what I think succeeded in the vidlet and what failed, as well as note the tricks I learned that day and if possible, how I did them. I intend to use this as an FCP guide for myself so that when it's all done and I want to remember how I did something, I have it written up. Thus, I may go back and add to those details from time to time, in case you're interested. I'll also be putting all of these in my memories, so if you ever want to go back and re-live the fun (heh), just go there.

For any FC or FCP users who read these, please jump in at any time with hints or suggestions on how to do things more efficiently for tricks that I have already tried. I'm doing a lot of random clicking and layering here and I know a lot of times those aren't the best ways, just the ways I figured out.

The first vidlet I did was suggested by cheesygirl: a Wesley vid to the Catherine Wheel song, "Heal." I was pretty surprised the first time I listened to the song and it was a guy singing, let me tell you. For those of you who are just here for the vids - please right-click and 'Save Target As.'

Heal (14 MB)

Please let me know if you're unable to play the vidlet. Also, I know the file is huge for just a minute in length, but I haven't been able to wrestle my exporting down yet. I'm especially looking for suggestions on this, because I want the files to be good quality, relatively small, and readable on a PC as well as a Mac. I don't ask for much. ;) (I tried saving as an .AVI but I either got horrible quality or an unreadable file on any other computer.)


Lyrics
But it's all a lie
and I've never felt so sad
There's a streak of melancholy
running down my back
And there's a great mistrust
that borders 'round the man
I call it strange from a boy
who never left his head

It's how high you are and the time it takes to heal
It's how high you are and the time it takes to heal



My Thoughts; What Works; What Doesn't
I wrestled with which section of lyrics to use on this vid for awhile. The song itself could encompass Wes' tenure on A:tS as a whole, really, but I knew I wanted to keep all of these vidlets narrow in scope so I wouldn't have to rip quite as much source. What I decided to do, then, was do this look at Season 5 Wesley, mostly because I keyed into the "it's all a lie" phrase. There was a lot of lying going on in Season 5. As I was deciding which episodes to use, I thought it would be interesting to correlate the betrayal Wes felt at his father's hands and at Angel's, as well as his betrayal of them.

I'm happy with the structure of this vid, actually, especially considering I didn't storyboard it at all. I love how the Orlon window flash goes into Wes' father getting shot, connecting those two moments of Wes' betrayal (and also how the explosion is on beat), and I love the fade to black at the end on his agonized face. I don't like how the source is two different sizes - WTF is up with that? Also, the ripple effect didn't work the way I wanted it to, and the last two effects are just goofy. Overall though, it's not too embarrassing.



What I Learned
Most importantly: how to get clips onto the timeline. :) Also, how to fade! I double-clicked on the clip in the Timeline (or as FCP calls it, the Sequence) and clicked on the 'Motion' tab, then put a keyframe at each end of the clip and made the end keyframe's opacity 0%.

Transitions are something I'm still having trouble with, so I'll probably have to use them again. I lined the two clips next to each other on the same track and put the transition on top of them, but I'd really like to go back to having one clip on one track and another clip on another track and lay the transition on the top of the first clip because I don't like change *whine*. Also because I don't know how to adjust the transition length yet without affecting the clips that it's attached to. (Here come the inevitable FCP vs. Premiere 6.5 comparisons - but I did like how Premiere had that transition track you used for their pre-made transitions; on the other hand, it sucked that you could only use that transition track, which made clip order juggling something of a pain.)

I also figured out how to make simple titles, and that you use the 'Motion' tab in titles to change the center point of where the text is located. I also learned that playing around with the filter settings on transitions is fun.

One thing I wanted to do that I couldn't figure out was how to hold the last frame. I may have to look for that one again later.


In non-IDVP related news, I got my serenity_santa assignment today and I am muy excited. I'll have to fit in some time for that on the weekends. :)

Hope y'all are doing well. My commenting will probably drop significantly this month, but I will still try to keep up with reading.

ETA: deathisyourart, I haven't found our copy of The Matrix yet. Will you comment with another vidlet idea in case I can't find the DVD (or buy a new one - heh) before this is all up? Any of the fandoms listed *except* that one. Hee. The main post is in my memories.