Vidding for an absolute beginner

[dhampyresa]

For Reasons Not Worth Explaining At This Juncture, I would like to be able to vid. Except I have no idea how to start :(

Can anyone help?

Comments

miscellaneous other things

[yhlee]

Other considerations:

Aspect ratio: make sure, when ripping your source, that it comes out in the correct aspect ratio! For the USA, I think the big ones are 4:3 and 16:9. One of the sad facts of having been a vidder is that I can almost instantly tell if the aspect ratio is wrong. Some TV shows switch aspect ratio midway through (I know this because Angel was one of them, ahahaha) and...it sucks, but you're going to have to crop source one way or the other. Either you can switch everything over to a single aspect ratio (by cropping the one that doesn't fit), or, if your vid is organized just so, you might be able to get away with switching midway through. I have seen at least one successful vid that did the switch, but it only switched once. I suspect that switching multiple times would look intrusive and weird.

Get multiple vid betas if possible. They don't need to be vidders themselves (although obviously a fellow vidder will be able to give more specific technical advice). The main things I have found helpful when I got my vids beta'd were notes on what worked and what didn't work, the beta's impressions of what the vid's narrative/point/pairing/theme was, and also any timestamps of parts that worked particularly well or failed particularly hard.

Posting vids can be hell and a half--I was a founding mod of Festivids (a rare fandom vid exchange), and one of the most annoying things we had to deal with was finding a stable online video service where we could have people anonymously host vids without getting the things taken down. Some people have their own server space, but if you're posting to something like Vimeo or Youtube or Vidders.net [1], be aware that you may get your vid taken down either because of the video content or because you're considered to be infringing by putting up the song. (I got around the latter a couple times by composing my own music, but I realize that is not a common solution.) I don't really have a good recommendation here, but if this becomes an issue, I can ask around and find out what services people recommend.

[1] I don't even know what the current best places are anymore!

Festivids uses trigger warnings, but their use is not universal. giandujakiss discusses the issue a little here. It's out there, though.

Re: miscellaneous other things

[dhampyresa]

Some TV shows switch aspect ratio midway through
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Thank you so much for all your help!

Re: miscellaneous other things

[yhlee]

If you run into this, don't panic--I know that Final Cut Express had workarounds and other vidding programs should too, although I suspect the specifics will differ.

And it's no problem! I hope you have fun with it. =)