Why bother?
Apr. 13th, 2007 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aislynnI received some probably wise advice tonight: if I stress SO much over vidding, then why am I even bothering? If I'm such a stupid perfectionist (adjective mine) and it makes it SO hard to even choose the next clip on the timeline, then how can I honestly say it's fun? And if it's a hobby, isn't it supposed to be fun?
I've got no answer for that. I'm sitting here feeling literally exhausted from working on this vid for the past 2 hours. I have not advanced it any at all tonight. It's still at 1:39. I spent all my time trying to straighten out the INSANE timing and trying to smooth out the rough transitions where my clips were too short to fit the time I needed them to fit. Then I sat here for the past 30 minutes trying desperately to find the next set of clips. I've tried just sitting here listening to the music with my eyes closed (sometimes I'll suddenly "see" what's supposed to go next). I've tried sitting here quietly and just going through the bin thing (I've already closed Vegas and I guess I'm upset enough I can't remember what the "holding pen" for your eps/clips is called *sigh* ) and hoping that inspiration would strike (sometimes that works as well).
I've got nothing. I literally CANNOT find the next clip. So I jumped ahead to the next clip that I did know (it's so nice that Vegas lets you do that). I found that clip that's about 6 seconds down the timeline, cut it out... and it's got the blinkies. BAD. *sigh* If you know Vegas, then you know that that is its neurotic twitch. You'll have 50 split-seconds of black randomly strewn through your clip. I've found the quickest way to deal with it is to zoom in close, then go through it one split-second at a time, splitting the clip and removing each instance of black until you've got rid of them all. Then quickly re-rendering that piece and use THAT for your vid. If you wait too long, more blinkies will appear and you'll have this one clip cut into a zillion pieces for nothing. *sigh* I started to do that and realized...the clip really doesn't work there. So I didn't bother "de-blinking" it.
So, scratch that 6 second ahead clip. I'm back to nothing again. And I'm dead tired and I have nothing to show for all this wrestling and fighting I've done with this thing today. It's been 6 weeks today since I put the first clip on the timeline. At this rate, it'll be another month before I'm done with the last minute and, you know what? I'm sick of looking at this thing. I just want it DONE so I don't ever have to meet it in Vegas ever again. And that's a real great way to feel about my vid. It'll certainly show in this last minute, that's for sure.
I'm tempted to just switch off to something else but I know from experience if I do, then I'll never come back to this one. But maybe that's for the best. If it's THIS hard to do, then there's probably some intrinsic flaw I'm building into it that's going to make it look stupid anyway. So what am I struggling so hard for? To make a dumb-looking vid? Why do I struggle AT ALL to vid anymore?
I lost my writing this exact same way. This same sort of stuff happened at the end, where it became physically painful to try and write, to face a blank page and realize that I had no words left in me to put on them. I have no clips for this vid. Maybe I don't have any clips for any vids. Maybe I should just give up on vidding like I gave up on writing and just forget I ever thought I was a "creative" person. Maybe I should just shut up entirely.
My apologies for leaving this where you can read it. I probably should've deleted it or made it private or whatever. I know you've all got to be sick of hearing this same old idiot complaining from me on EVERY vid. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of hating what I love. But I don't know how to get around it. I don't know whether to leave this vid where it's at and sacrifice it to try and save my vidding as a whole. Or do I press on and force myself to use just whatever clips and finish this thing, knowing full-well it looks bad? (That's what I did with my first Supernatural vid, quite honestly, and now I can't stand to even look at it anymore. :S I let it be substandard and that's really embarrassing to have to admit.) So do I do that to this vid, knowing I'll be ashamed of it down the line?
And why am I making such a big deal out of this at all, right? It's just a stupid fanvid. It's not my career, not my only means of supporting myself or something like that. It does NOT matter at all in the grand scheme of things. So why do I make this so hard?
Which brings me back to that advice. If it's not fun anymore, then why do I do it? Maybe I should give some serious thought to giving up on vidding. It'll hurt but it can't be worse than giving up my writing. I identified myself as a writer from the time I was old enough TO write. I sold my first story when I was a teenager. I was a writer. But I'm not anymore. I can be a "has-been" vidder just as easily.
The other day, I saw one of my flisters mark her entry as "one I'll be sorry later that I wrote." This one is my "one I'll be sorry later that I wrote."
Again my apologies. I'm really tired and I just needed to rant a bit and get this off my chest. Sometimes, you just need to talk it out, just to try and put it all in words to explain it to somebody else so you can try to explain it to yourself. I'm sure that none of this is as dire as it seems right now. I'll probably wake up tomorrow knowing exactly the right clip for this next set (that has ALSO happened before *sigh*). But the question still remains: why do I do something for "fun" when it's really NOT fun anymore?
I don't know the answer to that.
I've got no answer for that. I'm sitting here feeling literally exhausted from working on this vid for the past 2 hours. I have not advanced it any at all tonight. It's still at 1:39. I spent all my time trying to straighten out the INSANE timing and trying to smooth out the rough transitions where my clips were too short to fit the time I needed them to fit. Then I sat here for the past 30 minutes trying desperately to find the next set of clips. I've tried just sitting here listening to the music with my eyes closed (sometimes I'll suddenly "see" what's supposed to go next). I've tried sitting here quietly and just going through the bin thing (I've already closed Vegas and I guess I'm upset enough I can't remember what the "holding pen" for your eps/clips is called *sigh* ) and hoping that inspiration would strike (sometimes that works as well).
I've got nothing. I literally CANNOT find the next clip. So I jumped ahead to the next clip that I did know (it's so nice that Vegas lets you do that). I found that clip that's about 6 seconds down the timeline, cut it out... and it's got the blinkies. BAD. *sigh* If you know Vegas, then you know that that is its neurotic twitch. You'll have 50 split-seconds of black randomly strewn through your clip. I've found the quickest way to deal with it is to zoom in close, then go through it one split-second at a time, splitting the clip and removing each instance of black until you've got rid of them all. Then quickly re-rendering that piece and use THAT for your vid. If you wait too long, more blinkies will appear and you'll have this one clip cut into a zillion pieces for nothing. *sigh* I started to do that and realized...the clip really doesn't work there. So I didn't bother "de-blinking" it.
So, scratch that 6 second ahead clip. I'm back to nothing again. And I'm dead tired and I have nothing to show for all this wrestling and fighting I've done with this thing today. It's been 6 weeks today since I put the first clip on the timeline. At this rate, it'll be another month before I'm done with the last minute and, you know what? I'm sick of looking at this thing. I just want it DONE so I don't ever have to meet it in Vegas ever again. And that's a real great way to feel about my vid. It'll certainly show in this last minute, that's for sure.
I'm tempted to just switch off to something else but I know from experience if I do, then I'll never come back to this one. But maybe that's for the best. If it's THIS hard to do, then there's probably some intrinsic flaw I'm building into it that's going to make it look stupid anyway. So what am I struggling so hard for? To make a dumb-looking vid? Why do I struggle AT ALL to vid anymore?
I lost my writing this exact same way. This same sort of stuff happened at the end, where it became physically painful to try and write, to face a blank page and realize that I had no words left in me to put on them. I have no clips for this vid. Maybe I don't have any clips for any vids. Maybe I should just give up on vidding like I gave up on writing and just forget I ever thought I was a "creative" person. Maybe I should just shut up entirely.
My apologies for leaving this where you can read it. I probably should've deleted it or made it private or whatever. I know you've all got to be sick of hearing this same old idiot complaining from me on EVERY vid. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of hating what I love. But I don't know how to get around it. I don't know whether to leave this vid where it's at and sacrifice it to try and save my vidding as a whole. Or do I press on and force myself to use just whatever clips and finish this thing, knowing full-well it looks bad? (That's what I did with my first Supernatural vid, quite honestly, and now I can't stand to even look at it anymore. :S I let it be substandard and that's really embarrassing to have to admit.) So do I do that to this vid, knowing I'll be ashamed of it down the line?
And why am I making such a big deal out of this at all, right? It's just a stupid fanvid. It's not my career, not my only means of supporting myself or something like that. It does NOT matter at all in the grand scheme of things. So why do I make this so hard?
Which brings me back to that advice. If it's not fun anymore, then why do I do it? Maybe I should give some serious thought to giving up on vidding. It'll hurt but it can't be worse than giving up my writing. I identified myself as a writer from the time I was old enough TO write. I sold my first story when I was a teenager. I was a writer. But I'm not anymore. I can be a "has-been" vidder just as easily.
The other day, I saw one of my flisters mark her entry as "one I'll be sorry later that I wrote." This one is my "one I'll be sorry later that I wrote."
Again my apologies. I'm really tired and I just needed to rant a bit and get this off my chest. Sometimes, you just need to talk it out, just to try and put it all in words to explain it to somebody else so you can try to explain it to yourself. I'm sure that none of this is as dire as it seems right now. I'll probably wake up tomorrow knowing exactly the right clip for this next set (that has ALSO happened before *sigh*). But the question still remains: why do I do something for "fun" when it's really NOT fun anymore?
I don't know the answer to that.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 04:24 am (UTC)But that's the only way I can put a story in place, just one clip at a time, slowly building it and hoping that it turns into "something" by the time I'm done!
It doesn't sound insane spelled out that way, but now that you've spelled it out that way, can you see how you're setting yourself up for frustration and slow vidding complete with agonizing tweaking in between? Slow vidding is not bad vidding, unless it makes YOU unhappy, and clearly, Aislynn, it's making you unhappy. What you need to do is implement at least SOME of my advice, especially if that's the way you feel you HAVE to do things, then taking all of my advice would make you really go nuts (lol)...and just see what happens. Pick a song that you're not in love with and that you won't mind seeing the vid scrapped if it doesn't pan out, the first time you try any of these techniques; that way it's not as heartbreaking if it doesn't work out for you.
No way! I would've never guessed that you didn't like all of that from Hit the Floor! It's an awesome vid (I actually just watched it again not too long ago! ;) )!
I hate all that stuff from Hit the Floor, actually lol, but that was just to prove to you because I know that you like that vid...even vids that you think are really well put-together and look really neat have things about them that the vidder who created them absolutely can't stand. But on the WHOLE...I think that Hit the Floor is, in the words of
Anyway, thanks again for all your help! It means a LOT, seriously! And you can write a novel ANYTIME in my comments! I ♥ long posts, you know that! :D :D :D
*super(natural)!hugs!* *snort* Sorry, couldn't resist... ;) ♥♥♥
You're so welcome. I hope it actually DOES help you, though...because after having read your vidding process, I'm wondering if my suggestions might just make your head explode instead of helping you at all :-\ lol
*Megatron!Hugs* (teehee super(natural)!hugs rule!)
Much love!!!
♥ ♥ ♥
no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 04:34 am (UTC)What you need to do is implement at least SOME of my advice
Maybe even if you vid a few seconds (like ten or fifteen) at a time and send THOSE bits to beta as you finish them, then you can continue to do it your way, but not have to agonize over little bits and pieces, because if a beta sees that it's okay and doesn't think anything needs tweak, leave it alone. Then, when you finish the whole song you've cut, send THAT to beta and they'll be able to see the vid as a WHOLE and poke and prod it more thoroughly for you.
...you should probably refrain from encouraging me to write novels in response to you from now on, don't you think...? haha
no subject
Date: 2007-04-17 04:39 am (UTC)Are you kidding? I'm lovin' it! :D :D :D
Of course, I forgot how LJ would put my answering comments in this weird "not-under-the-post-I'm-answering" format, so I hope you're able to follow my responses! *eyeroll* ;)
Thanks so much for working this all out with me and trying so hard to find things that can help me! *squishes you!* ♥♥♥!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-17 05:02 am (UTC)And, believe me, it's so worth it helping you out if it means you'll keep trying to vid, because it'll make me so sad to see you stop :(
*Megatron!Hugs*
no subject
Date: 2007-04-17 04:36 am (UTC)Puppy Glare of Doom, FTW! ;)
What you need to do is implement at least SOME of my advice, especially if that's the way you feel you HAVE to do things, then taking all of my advice would make you really go nuts (lol)...and just see what happens.
You know, I've been mulling this over all day and I think you're EXACTLY right about that... I don't know that I can outline an entire vid and stick anything remotely TO it (I once tried doing a novel that way and got a lot of details down, including the climax which hinged on the fact that the male lead was sort of reserved and was extremely agorophobic... Well, when I started the actual writing, I couldn't KEEP the guy indoors! o_O And instead of a reserved personality, he was a total flirt! O_O So there went that novel! ;) ). Aislynn + outlines = disaster 9 out of 10 times :S ;)
However, for vidding what I might be able to do is script out the opening few seconds/first verse whatever, pick out the clips, everything, then start vidding. Hopefully, I can follow the outline but if what starts setting up is pulling away from the outline, I won't have done details for the whole thing that's now being scrapped. I'll make adjustments for verse two and continue on that way. That might give me the ability to vid "organically" yet have the speed of vidding by outline as well...
*ponders* I'm going to DEFINITELY try finishing the Skate vid in this way since we're already down to the wire storywise and all that so I should be able to get it across the finish line without it taking some weird turn on me! ;)
*happy dances* Yay, some hope, at long last! ;)
*super(natural)!hugs* ;) ♥♥♥!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-17 04:56 am (UTC)Well...good luck! Any questions you have about the technique I've adopted that you might wanna try, gimme a holler ;)