Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

I haven't completed a vid in aaaaages, but I have the urge. Of course, I vid rarely enough that every time I try, I find I've gone and changed operating systems, and have to start all over from scratch.

(Why isn't Sony Vegas available for Mac? It was such a NICE program. Then I found a site that said Kdenlive, the delightful Linux video editor I used a few times, was available for Mac ... and it is, but via some high-level workaround stuff. I just want to vid, dammit!

Anyway, my n00b level question -- when you real vidders talk about clipping, what do you mean? And what software do you use?

What I THINK you mean is that, before the vidding begins, you go through and cut out the clips you want to use, so you're not sitting there with ENTIRE EPISODES or ENTIRE MOVIES in your video editor when you're making the actual vid. Is that the case? Because it certainly seems like an easier way to go about it. But what software do you use if you're on a Mac? Or am I heading off in the wrong direction all together?

Open Adobe Premiere. Realise you have no idea how to use it.

Watch lots of tutorials. Realise you still have no idea.

Realise it won't open avi files properly. Realise it needs an AviSynth script.

Read lots about AviSynth. Realise you have no idea how any of this works.

Fondly remember nice, straightforward vidding Ubuntu vidding software.

Read more about Premiere and AvySynth.

Throw tantrum. Install VirtualBox to run Ubuntu and nice, straightforward vidding software.

Post to DW, wait for next thing to go wrong.

Reveals for the white_lotus Lunar New Year Exchange are up, so I can take responsibility for the following:

Title: Evidence
Recipient: avendya
Characters: Mai/Zuko
Summary: Reputable historical sources prove that Fire Lady Mai’s activities were confined to the traditional duties of the Fire Lord’s wife. Of the so-called history popular among women, the less said the better.

Title: Ambition
Recipient: yifu
Characters: Ursa
Summary: Ursa has plans for her future. So does her father.

Title: Somewhere in the Middle
Recipient: noldo
Character(s)/Ship(s): Mai, Mai/Zuko
Music: "Attagirl" by Bettie Serveert
Prompt: noldo asked for fic about Mai's political ideas and motivations, or possibly a vid about Mai being awesome. This attempts to combine the politics with the vid; whether it succeeds is ... well.

Additionally, I produced five fic(lets) in response to yesterday's prompts. They need a bit of a polish before they get posted anywhere else, but for the curious:

Heart of Stone: Toph has a challenge for Azula.

Social Dynamics of the Air Bison, or, Appa Thinks Aang Is Way Too Nice For His Own Good: Aang thinks it's time for Mai to make friends with Appa.

The Airbending Master: There's a difference between teaching a technique, and restoring a culture.

In Which Mai And Toph Are Not Remotely Ladylike: In soju, veritas.

Family Reunion: Shamelessly, a sequel to "The Scribe". Zuko thought finding his mother would make his life easier.

...this would probably be a convenient time to casually mention that in my heart and mind, "Ambition" falls into the same little world as "The Scribe" and now "Family Reunion". Apparently, although I can handle multiple futures and stories for Mai, and Zuko, and Iroh, and pretty much anyone else, all Ursas are as one to me. (Even the AU versions whose fics haven't been written yet, like The One Where Ozai Did Kill Zuko, and The One Where Ursa Killed Ozai As Well As Azulon.)

It's actually a bit awkward, because this path can only end badly, but at the same time I don't want to stop. So, um, try not to snigger too much when I'm in hearing. *eyedart*

Yesterday, after a slight hiccup where I kept grabbing my Windows 7 installer disk, then wondering why it was trying to install Windows instead of Ubuntu, I made the switch to Ubuntu-land.

( Here's a screenshot! )

So last night, I watched Whale Rider, about which proper thoughts shall come, and it was such a beautiful movie that I was immediately inspired to find me some vidding software and keep going with the Amy Vid of Doom. (And, once I get that done, I can go back to the Delenn Vid of Doom And Pain And Agony.)

(Actually, what I really wanted to vid was Whale Rider, but I don't yet have a song, and I feel like it's something that will require more than 20 minutes of thought, being a story centred around a tribal culture with which I'm not all that familiar, and also it's from New Zealand, and we Australians have this tendency to appropriate all the nice bits of NZ for ourselves. And, um, Russell Crowe. So if I'm to vid Whale Rider, I need to know what I'm talking about, and do it really, really well. Anyway.)

I've been reading a lot about vidding in Ubuntu, and beccatoria left some helpful comments that sent me back through her own posts about switching OSs. These are the applications I've tried so far:

- PiTiVi is the default editor that comes with Ubunu. It's very much in its early stages, and lacks even basic features. I may give it another look in a few updates' time.

- OpenShot is widely recommended as the ideal Ubuntu equivalent to Windows Movie Maker. As it froze as soon as I opened it for the first time, I'm inclined to agree with that assessment. It seems like a solid, basic program, and has an impressive array of effects. Unfortunately, these don't include fade in/out, which I overuse at every opportunity. Nor does it do that thing WMM does, where it automatically breaks your imported files up into smaller clips. That feature was the entire reason I stuck with WMM so long, dammit! I'm keeping OpenShot around in case the effects come in handy, but at this stage, I don't want it to be my main program.

- KDenLive is a non-linear editor with a heap of features and effects, which I may some day understand. It's currenly the contender for Liz's New Vidding Program, on account of how it's highly functional and not totally counter-intuitive. On the other hand, it also doesn't do the handy clip-cutting business. I LIKE MY CLIPS TO COME IN HANDY BITE-SIZED CHUNKS, DAMMIT! Anyway, as far as I can tell, to clip an episode into bits, you have to first put it on the timeline, so really, what you end up with is a timeline full of crap. This vaguely offends my sensibilities, and seems difficult to manage. Not impossible, I presume, since the world is full of people who have successfully mastered Video Editors That Aren't WMM, but dammit, learning things is HARD, and the tutorials are not entirely helpful.

On the plus side, it does have a really handy feature where you use a slider to determine just how much you want to alter the speed of your clip. No more Benny Hill-style double speed shenanigans for me! I think that once I get this clip issue sorted, I'll really enjoy this program.

In other, totally separate news, the cat is currently trying to bury himself inside my bag of fresh laundry. He's purring like a motorboat as he attempts to excavate a nest inside a pile of socks and knickers. Is it because they're warm? Or was he just offended that I removed all the cat fur from my black shirts?

Fandom: DW ("Blink")
Song: "Close to You", Iain Bellamy version from Mirrormask
Format: WMV
Size: 15.8MB
Notes: Oh, come on, like I was going to pass this up.

Download: "On the day that you were born, the Angels got together..."

Fandom: Doctor Who
Song: "Late Great Planet Earth"
Artist: Plumb
Format: WMV
Size: 16MB

An AoG/Doomsday vid. I cannot express the satisfaction I feel, knowing that the vid that's been in my head for weeks actually exists. It tastes like ... success.

"...the sky is falling..."