swizzlespoon

Well, at long last I think I may be mostly satisfied with my post on AO3 about this fanvid playlist or fanvid mix or vid show or whatever you want to call it.

I watched it again this morning and I'm still just so damn pleased by it. It's probably silly, it's not like I made the vids! Nor do I have anything to do with any of the music used in the vids or the source for the vids.

But I tracked these down and watched them a lot and tracked down info and you don't want to know how much time I spent deciding what vids to include and what order to put them in. Nor how many times I've watched them in this order and some variations on it. I hope some people do actually watch it from start to finish (with breaks as necessary). Ideally on a big screen (I watch such things on my TV).

And then of course I spent still more time trying to write something about the vids and the playlist. And then even more time trying to format the info for this place and then later for AO3. I actually pulled my old post here down (or made it private) as I like the formatting on AO3 so much better.

Go forth and check it out if you like. My first ever work on AO3. Should such things be posted on AO3? I would like to see vid shows archived there and to see people share fanvid playlists the same way people share fanmixes. Hopefully no one has a problem with this.

I haven't a clue what tags I should add on there, I'm just meandering around.

I considered adding "inspired by" links for all the vids that are on AO3 but there were 16 when I counted and that would probably be an awkward thing at the top of a post (and I didn't see a way you could have "inspired by" associated work links at the bottom of the work).

As it is I probably rambled too much in author's notes at the end of the work but I'm wordy. (This post is a good example of that. I just meant to share a link!)

Here's the link:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/57130747

I started work on this a couple of weeks ago and then thought I'd shorten it or refine it later and welp. Here we are. After doing a playlist for More Joy Day last month that wound up being 90 minutes long, I thought for sure this playlist would be shorter, but instead it's nearly 2 hours long.

The playlist evolved as I worked on it; I really figured it would just be a short simple playlist featuring characters or ships or sources I love, or maybe with a more general love theme. But it got away from me and that's fine.

This playlist wound up being about fannish love of a sort I suppose. And fandom. And ships. And shipping. And vidding and other fanworks. And how things have changed over the decades I've been a fan. It does feature some favorite canon and non-canon ships of all sorts, I suppose. There's a section that is very much "these were my het canon ships back in the day" because why not? And there are some vids for sources/ships that aren't really mine, but which I wanted to include.

I like to think that the whole of it shows how far things have come-- that was my goal in the end. Fans have always looked beyond canon, but now lots of things we never dreamed we'd see on our TVs or in movies are there too. Of course fans will always be looking beyond canon no matter what.

Valentine's Day Playlist for 2024 of cool fanvids. (Unlisted for now.)

It's a YouTube playlist so is limited to vids on YouTube, which is a bummer because there are lots of other great vids that would've worked well on this playlist.

I will write up more detailed notes on the playlist and vids on it (and some I might've included if they were on the 'Tube). With links to vids on AO3 where possible and so on. But I don't think I'm going to manage that yet today, so stay tuned for that if it is of interest.

There is a method to my order and I'm curious if people will get what I'm doing here without commentary though I guess I already spelled some of it out. I overthink playlists probably, but then I put a lot of work into mixtapes back in the day too.

Ugh, I really thought I'd have detailed notes or at least a list of vids with links ready by now given how long ago I put the actual playlist together but life has been particularly rough these days.

And then I thought maybe I should wait and post this until I get such notes together, but you know what? Maybe someone will check this out and get a bit of joy from it, so it is worth posting as is for now.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I managed to download almost all of the Festivids the day they went live and have watched most of those I grabbed successfully. Got sidetracked by lots of things so I've still got many comments to make and several vids to watch.

I don't think I've yet run into any vids that weren't decently made IMHO (a couple where the actual resolution was such after I downloaded that I couldn't watch on my TV but that's not a problem with the VID itself really and maybe I can yet find better versions to download; I think the software I use to download videos from YouTube failed me in a couple of cases).

(I think I've mentioned this before but I by far prefer watching fanvids on my TV rather than on my laptop or whatever so I pretty much always download videos rather than stream them. Well, with some vids I stream to see if they're worth a download but in the case of Festivids I download all the things I can both after go-live and then once signed versions are available.)

Anyway! My faves are of course terribly subjective as is so often the case with fanvids. Familiarity with source can make a big difference (as can opinion of song choice) and so many variables. As always I'm just delighted people make vids and put them out there. Go you vidders, go!

Vids I truly love (so far):

"Civilian" (London Spy)
This may be my absolute favorite so far. Makes sense that this source would make for a gorgeous video given how beautiful the show was to look at. It's a deeply flawed miniseries IMHO, but that doesn't matter so much for a vid, you know? This vid captures some of the best parts of the source and I don't just mean Ben Whishaw's face though that surely doesn't hurt. I need to watch it again so I can comment more coherently and will likely do so in comments on the vid-post sometime this week.

"I Get the World: The World Gets Me " (L.A. Confidential)
OMG OMG OMG! I mean, I'd likely be delighted by any vid for this source, but this is an outstanding vid. Lots of big spoilers for the movie in the vid BTW so if you've not seen the movie or the vid yet, that might be good to know? (It's one of my favorite movies so I'm giving that a rec here too.)

"Welcome to the Jungle" (Singin' In the Rain)
This beautiful melancholy vid is unlike any other vid I've seen for this source in its focus and I'd love it for that alone but then there's much more to love about this vid.

"Wow" (Sense and Sensibility (1995))
If you'd asked me if the world needed another fanvid for this source, I would've thought it didn't really but this fanvid is outstanding. (I was really really wrong.) "Wow!" - me, re this vid called "Wow"

"Gone Gone Gone" (One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961))
I haven't seen this movie in decades and this video grabbed my heart and made me want to watch it again and brought back how scared I was as a kid for those puppies when I first saw the movie while also giving me lots of warm fuzzy feelings.

"A Better Son/Daughter" (Carrie Fisher)
I've watched this twice and both times I cried and not just an elegant tear or two I was nearly sobbing. I know the category here is Carrie Fisher and Gary but of the two vids for that category this one is more about Carrie and it's pretty much perfect in every way. Love that it covers so much of her life and ends with her impact and I just . . . hell, I'm getting emotional just writing about it.

"You're My Best Friend" (Carrie Fisher & Gary)
I recommend watching this one after the other Carrie Fisher vid because this is cheerier and mostly about Carrie and Gary as BFFs and it's cute and lovely.

These aren't quite vid loves but are serious likes (at this point):

"Love God Herself" (Bitch Planet)
This is my favorite of the three (I think) fanvids that use comic books as source but I was impressed with all of them despite my not knowing much about the sources. I forget the first fanvid I saw using comic books as source material years and years ago, but I was amazed then and I continue to be amazed by how well a good vidder can make this work. This one has such great movement and editing at times I forgot it was a static source if that makes sense. (Bitch Planet has been on my list of comics to check out for ages but this vid may have helped push it further up the list.)

"500 Miles" (Pokémon GO)
LOL. I suppose this song plus this source might always be a win, but this is really well put together with some great cutting to the music and just great choices throughout.

"Harder Better Faster Stronger" (RPF - Richard Ayoade - Gadget Man series)
OMG, yay! This is awesome and I suspect it may be even if you don't know the source (as I do). Richard Ayoade = always a plus, IMHO but add in ridiculous technology shenanigans together with this song and it's just pure fun.

"Who Else Can You Trust" (Archer)
I was expecting a goofy Archer vid given the source (of which I've only seen a handful of episodes) but then someone had to go and make basically a straight up James Bond theme song sort of vid which is perfect (and sometimes hilarious too).

"Another Place to Fall" (Life, the 2007 TV series)
Grateful to folks who request this source and who make fanworks for it. I miss this show. Though this video was lacking in Adam Arkin and I understand given the focus of the vid but now I feel someone needs to make a vid focusing on his character and basically I just want all the Life vids.

The two Luke Cage vids gave me all kinds of feels despite my not having seen more than one episode. (So that's some good vidding, IMHO.)

Three more fun fanvids for 21/22 Jump Street this year; vidders keep making me want to watch those movies and then I forget and then there are more vids which make me vow to watch those movies already. (Maybe this year I'll manage it.)

I'm looking at the list and realizing I should get on watching the ones I haven't seen yet. So this post may be to be continued . . .

Festivids 2016 Masterlist wherein you can find a list of the vids and links to all of them.

Still alive, just not reading or posting much online most of the time.

I'm finally watching vids that premiered at Vividcon in August and many of them rock-- so rock on, you people who make excellent fanvids! Go you guys!

I enjoy vids and fanfic so much I really should do more to give back than leave kudos and the occasional comment and to that end (and simply because there seems to be a need), I've been working on a lengthy guide to how to use the FanFicFare plug-in with Calibre to organize one's fanfic collection and have your fic readily available in whatever format you like, wherever you like.

And then when that project was ongoing while I was looking at vids and making a clean start on my Plex media server set up, it led to me starting yet another fanvid organization project.

But! Stroke of genius? Crazy idea? I made a separate Calibre database just for fanvids since so many vidders are now putting info re their fanvids up on AO3. So I'm using FanFicFare and custom columns to download all that useful fanvid metadata for vids by vidders I like who have such things available on AO3.

Meanwhile I've also been making movie.nfo files for vids (and fanart and poster art when ready-made isn't available or needs tweaking to work well as Calibre cover art and/or poster and fanart on a media server like Plex or Kodi).

I've been pondering a script or plug-in that could generate nfo files for fanvids using data from AO3/FanFicFare. My husband's a programmer, he could help . . .

There still isn't a definitive useful fanvid database like The TVDB for TV or IMDB and Movie DB for movies, is there? Would be a tricky resource to maintain. And yet. A gal can dream (and I did look into creating such a thing once upon a time).

Honestly if vidders would simply maintain consistency in how they name files, that would be a help. Or use a standard format for listing useful data when posting about vids on AO3, Tumblr, DW/LJ, YouTube, wherever? It's likely already a pain to post things in as many places as some do.

But if everyone agreed on filenames of FANDOM - VID TITLE - VIDDER or something that would be a boon to nerds like me.

I've also decided I wish all vidders would create some sort of cover art for their vids or at least pick a still from the vid they think best represents it? People can do that when posting vids to YouTube and I'm now so very grateful for people who actually put art up with their YouTube vids or select a good frame of the vid where it's possible to do so.

At first I was viewing source on YouTube vid pages to find the imagine file for that, but lately I've been using this Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey script to make it easy to download that image for vids on YouTube. (Basically it puts the image on the YouTube page as a small thumbnail beneath the vid next to the subscribe button IIRC so it's easy to simply "open image in new tab" and/or right-click-save it.)

On AO3 when you post a fic or vid or other fanwork, you should be able to designate an image as cover art and when people do that makes it dead easy to autogenerate a book cover (or vid movie poster as the case may be) using FanFicFare and Generate Cover plug-ins with Calibre. It still seems rare that anyone does this on AO3 so I'm not sure if that's hidden or new or people don't realize how helpful it is to do that?

I occasionally consider putting together a simple guide for how to do these things as well as a proposal for formatting or something but I figure if I posted that in a vidding community somewhere people would just wonder who the heck I was and what my deal is and think me presumptuous and annoying.

But perhaps if I put together a useful resource and built templates and guides, people would appreciate that? Mostly I want to give back and simplify the lives of vidders and fans of vidders, not make more work or complicate things. It's tricky, you know? And maybe some clever soul that's more involved in vidding fandom has already tried this or done this sort of thing. I surely don't want to step on toes.

Life itself is not pleasant these days, which is why stumbling on a fic that surprises and delights me is especially grand.

"fizzing whizzbees and a cunning plan" from the HDS Beltane Fest is such a fic.(HDS Beltane is a Harry Potter Fest featuring fic and art involving Harry Potter and/or Draco Malfoy and/or Severus Snape.) Here's the story on Livejournal; it also can be found on Dreamwidth.

I looked at the word count (around 4,500) and the title and figured it probably wouldn't be my sort of thing because I usually prefer long fics to short ones and stuff that's a bit more plotty than fluffy (if that makes sense), but looks can be oh-so-deceiving. There's an awful lot of world-building and story in this short fic, especially if you read between the lines. And I love that it surprised me in a number of ways by not following the usual way of things-- I mean, if Harry & Draco are going to be teaching at Hogwarts, I have certain expectations having read lots of fic of that sort; what a cool thing to for once have Harry not enjoy teaching! All in all, it manages to be funny and plotty and interesting. Yay!

* * *

perverse_idyll mentioned that mia_ugly has a new WIP (OMG OMG OMG!) and has put older fic up on Archive of Our Own. Woot! This prompted me to reread "Rapture" and the sequel "Blood, but also roses" and fall in love with them all over again. I think "Rapture" is one of those fics that pairs Severus Snape & Harry Potter which makes it believable even for those who don't think they can buy that at all. You gotta just go with the time travel. I love how it plays with and works with canon in interesting ways and the multiple timelines, but mostly I love the language.

* * *

We watched the first (only, so far) season of Daredevil and . . . eh. I want to like it more than I did. So much violence of the sort that I suppose people may be used to on premium cable on certain shows, but no-- I really don't need to see or hear that (and in fact did hide behind my laptop during some scenes).

I liked the actors on the show and some of the character stuff and world building, but it's dark and there's torture and I hope this doesn't mean Vincent D'Onofrio is going on another run of playing villains as I find it terribly boring.

Can't really recommend it unless you're a big fan of certain actors or the character or something, I also advise that if you're squeamish you may want to pass (or be willing to not watch some parts of it).

* * *

Speaking of "violence I have to look away from," we watched Kingsman and well. I'm glad I was warned about certain sequences so I (once again) had a laptop handy I could hide behind because I didn't need to see some of the violence in it. I suspect after hearing good things about it, I was hoping for better . . . I mean, it was okay, but yet again I don't think the good necessarily outweighs the bad for me.

As with Daredevil, I'm not familiar with the source material (the comics) so can't speak to that, just what was on screen.

* * *

It's a bit weird to say "too much violence" given how many seemingly violent movies and TV shows I do like, but there are degrees of this stuff as far as how much is shown and how necessary sequences are for character and story purposes and whether there's enough goodness to balance the dark.

* * *

Still mad for Person of Interest by the way. Those of you that tuned out after a certain development have missed some really good stuff. There were a couple of small missteps this season IMHO (as well as a tricky bit of real life to work around), but it was still ultimately made of win and I think it may still all fit together in the end. I do hope they sort out whether next season is the last or not in advance because this is a show that's gonna need serious plotting to conclude it well. I think a shortened season of 13 episodes (that's the order for next year, with the show starting at mid-season) could be a good thing for concluding the show or for going forward with shorter seasons from now on.