All of my vids can be found on LJ via the list below, by clicking on the vid tag, or at my site.

( Every vid I've ever made, with LJ links )

Thanks for watching!

I've just posted the fourth vidder profile over at the vid_commentary community - a day early this month, thanks to the holiday. The series features an audio interview with the vidder over excerpts from his or her vids. This month's featured vidder is dualbunny, who I interviewed at Vividcon a few months ago.

You can stream or download the profile here.

dualbunny constantly inspires me. Her sense for connecting source-to-song and source-to-concept is absolute genius in a way that I find engaging as a vidder - I want to get in and analyze it, and marvel at it, and figure out why it works so well. But at the same time it's playful and infectious, so you can enjoy her work on so many levels. Her vids are equally impressive on the dance floor, on a computer screen at home, at a convention vidshow, or as an example of vidding for people who don't usually watch this type of thing. There's no other way to put it: She just kicks a whole lot of ass.

Earlier profiles are here:
August Vidder Profile featuring kiki_miserychic
September Vidder Profile featuring bananainpyjamas, aka dragonchic
October Vidder Profile featuring charmax

I've also set up a You Tube channel for the profiles here.

If you haven't yet seen kiki_miserychic's latest vid, That Broken Day (The Broken), definitely check it out. It's one of the best vids I've seen this year. From music choice/use to pacing to storytelling, practically everything about it is just masterful.

Note that it contains rape, violence, and some extremely disturbing imagery... which probably doesn't surprise you if you've seen one of Whitney's vids in the past. Still, even by her standards this one is nightmare-inducing. It says a lot about the vid that maybe the most disturbing thing in it is a cup of coffee.

I've just posted the third vidder profile over at the vid_commentary community. The series features an audio interview with the vidder over excerpts from his or her vids. This month's featured vidder is charmax.

You can stream or download the profile here.

charmax is one of the most talented all-around editors I've ever seen. She has an inspired sense of musicality and she always offers unique and compelling perspectives on familiar source material. In learning more about the hows and whys of her approach to vidding while doing the profile, my respect for her went to an entirely new level. I didn't even think that was possible. Who knew there was another level??

Earlier profiles are here:

August Vidder Profile featuring kiki_miserychic
September Vidder Profile featuring bananainpyjamas, aka dragonchic

The next profile will be posted the final Saturday of November. If you would like to get involved with the series, you can find out how to do so here.

Mal, Wash, and Jayne together again...

( Embedded video )

( Embedded streams under cut )

So...

Where did the vidder go wrong?

It's been a great time to get lost in vidding lately, and here are some of the ones I've been getting lost in:

Slobo Babe by danegen (Lesbian Vampire Killers)
Surprisingly awesome-looking source, and you can tell how much fun the vidder had with it.

All Is Full of Love by obsessive24 (True Blood)
Masterful use of secondary source and metaphors to amp up the impact of a relationship study (Godric/Eric). Also, gorgeous.

The Powerpuff Girls - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Style by jagwriter78
Quite possibly the crackiest vid I've seen so far this year, and I say that in a post that also includes a rec for a Lesbian Vampire Killers vid.

Rake It In by thedothatgirl (Dollhouse)
S1 overview that puts the blame squarely on the Dollhouse management. Love how the overlays and source effects are used, as well as the theme of eventually reaping what you sow.

The Burly Man (remastered) by mranderson71 (The Matrix)
Having a bad day? Here's the perfect way to blow off some steam. The original is one of my most rewatched vids, and the remaster is tighter, sharper, and angrier.

Still trying to catch up with tons of vids I've missed in the past month or so...

Whenever Kim and I get something to eat and I spend the whole time while we're eating rambling on to her about vidding, she calls it "a little Brad and Breakfast."

If for some reason that sounds appealing, here's an invite to have a virtual lunch with laurashapiro and I in the form of our behind-the-scenes look at the Firefly vid we made for Vividcon this year, Hard Sun.

You can stream or download our commentary here.

It focuses mainly on the creative process and how the project came together, along with some general thoughts about the intention behind certain segments.

For a more in-depth look at the specifics of the editing and the vid's structure, check out absolutedestiny's excellent breakdown of the vid here.

absolutedestiny has posted an amazingly insightful video commentary breaking down Hard Sun.

Ego and flattery aside, I think it's fascinating as a general study of vid construction from someone - absolutedestiny - who could teach a master class on the subject. If you're a vidder, or just interested in vidding, you'll probably find it just as entertaining and enlightening as I did.

Riddick's dead. He died somewhere on that planet.

Vid title: Gone
Length: 3:35
Fandom: Pitch Black (2000 movie)
Artist: Black Lab
Warning: Sci-fi horror movie violence

40MB - Zipped Xvid
33.6mb - Zipped WMV
( Embedded stream )

( Very brief notes )

Thanks to geezola for her beta thoughts and to jarrow for pointing me toward the song.

( Lyrics )

Hope you enjoy the vid! Thanks for watching.

In the final stages of putting together the October vidder profile, I managed to lose the interview. As in, the actual audio of the vidder's responses to my questions has mysteriously disappeared from the folder and is no longer on my hard drive. So my editing program is like "where is this source file??" and I'm all "Uhhh..." Meanwhile, the vidder in question is offline until October and will come home to a panicked email from me that will probably trigger a good bit of (justified) cursing of my name. W00t?

( More like this. C'mon, you know you wanna! )

( Very brief Dollhouse premiere reactions )

Hopefully I can catch up with everything, online and off, by the end of October.

I've just posted over at vid_commentary with details about new posting dates for the Vidder Profile series and how you can get involved and make your own profiles for the community.

See this post for more info.

Sorry for the MIAness lately. Hope everyone's doing OK.

There should be an announcement next week about the future of the vidder profile series, including the posting date for the October profile and an opportunity for you (or anyone else) to create vidder profiles in the coming months.

( Stuff keeps happening! Fun stuff! And deadlines! )

I've just posted the second vidder profile over at the vid_commentary community. The series features an audio interview with the vidder over excerpts from his or her vids. This month's featured vidder is bananainpyjamas, aka dragonchic.

You can stream or download the profile here.

DC's a thrilling action editor with a compelling, intricate sense of musicality, and in doing this profile I feel like I learned a lot about how she visualizes music and structure - and it made a lot more sense after seeing how and where her aesthetics developed. Plus she uses such dynamic source that it was just really fun to explore her back catalog. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it.

If you missed the August profile, which spotlighted kiki_miserychic, that's available for stream or download here.

I have four more vidder profiles in progress at the moment, and I'm very excited about all of them. Each one is teaching me as much about myself as it does about the vidder.

The new challenge over at vid_commentary is asking vidders to either do a text commentary or an audio/video commentary about one of their own vids. Vidders have until Sept. 9 to sign up, and will have a month or more after that to finish their commentaries.

A list of all of the planned vidder commentaries will be posted on Sept. 10, and at that point anyone can go through the list and can then sign up to also do a commentary on any vid in the list that you didn't make - meaning there will be two separate commentaries for that vid; one by the vidder and one by the viewer. The idea is to compare them and see how they look through the eyes of the creator vs. the audience.

You read more details about the challenge and see sample commentaries here.

On a related note, the September Vidder Profile will be posted Saturday. (If you missed the August profile, it's here.) Later this month, I'm going to post something on the community asking for people to help create profile series in the future, with the idea of posting more than one per month and covering more vidders and vid communities than I can on my own. So keep an eye out for that if you think you might be interested.

I'm in the clutches of vid farr, but with the landslide of VVC recs I'm sure par_avion doesn't have enough to do and all of you don't have enough to watch. :P So I thought this would be a great time to share some old favorite vids.

These are vids that are each just really unique - some are funny, some are cracky, some very serious and thoughtful - but all are enjoyable in a way that *sticks* with you so that you get into a mood where you have to watch it again to get it out of your head.

( Recs under cut, in no particular order )

Five things that are making me happy right now

1. When I got home from the con, Ollie hugged me and said "I wish today would never end." Really puts things in perspective.

2. ( THIS )

3. My friends. All of you, including the ones I met at the con last weekend. I'll refrain from saying more because there's more sappy here than Yellowstone.

4. The people who "got" Hard Sun, seemed to really get it. It's tough for me to even read more than a few comments at a time without getting emotional. In many ways, the project is the most rewarding thing I've ever done.

5. Date My Avatar

Special bonus happy: Can Delight

Extra special bonus extra super happy: Starting timeline work on a new vid today! It's amazing how all of the less happy stuff goes away when you're editing.

Dear Future Brad:

Premiering a vid at VVC invites people to write lots of very public criticism about how and why it's broken. If the vid you're making is an intensely personal, emotional statement, you're going to be sensitive about it. Don't premiere it at VVC.

That is all.

Oh, and either don't have that third cup of coffee or at least make sure you have some heartburn pills on hand first.