Vividcon Report Part 2/4 - The Shows and Panels

[absolutedestiny]

In this part of my VVC2006 review, I'm going to talk about my personal experiences with the different shows in the con.

Friday:

Wayback Machine

I totally missed this. There was a problem with disc 1 of Club Vivid and I had to disappear to re-encode. This meant that I missed a vid that was dedicated to me... although I had seen the vid as I help author the shows :) Sorry tzikeh, duty calls. I trust the dance of two thumbs was as entertaining as ever though :D

Color Explosion Vidshow vs Titles

Having seen pretty much every vid at the con while making the shows, I almost always opted for panels. This was no exception although I knew it was a very very good vidshow with some impressive vids (some of which I'll rec later). The titles panel was good and easygoing which for an early panel was nice to have. I'm sure it could have covered more ground but at the same time it would have been rushed and disorganised if it went any further into design, so it was a well organised panel. Plus handouts = win. Thanks laurashapiro!

Spies Like Us vs Color Explosion panel

Again, I did the panel, starring sockkpuppett and dualbunny. It was great to finally hear the final thesis having heard tidbits of ideas from luminosity for weeks. Color is a really hard concept for many people and I think it was an eye-opener for many in the room. I was very grateful for this show/panel combo. Interesting ideas and great vids and discussion. Good job :)

Nearly New vs Music Fundamentals

Again, panel for me. However, I did have to miss a key section of the panel in order to solve the problem of Nearly New disc 1 not playing. That was easily solved while we played the 2nd half first. No biggie. renenet's panel was a lot of fun and it was great to really just bring the music down to its bare essentials and discuss the very basic principles. I enjoyed this panel a lot though I apologise to renenet for invading it with Radiohead at one point. I was excited, sorry :D I'd love to see more panels on music next year.

Dinner

For me, this was take out and club vivid setup nightmare. I got take out and it all worked out, though :D I was going to be watching Prison Break with f1renze, sweetestdrain and sdwolfpup but it was not to be. I have been pimped to the show but perhaps another time :)

Club Vivid

As always, a total blast. I couldn't remember if there was an intro vid last year but I put on in this year and it went down well and gave people time to get in position for the Joxer Dance. OMG Joxer Dance was wonderful as usual - a LOT more people doing it this year and the dancefloor was pretty full. My own vid (Heart of Funkness) was the first non-joxer vid played to a pretty shocked audience. It did, however, produce one of my proudest moments ever when the wonderfull killabeez came up to me later and bowed at my feet. Words cannot describe how awesome that was!

I thought Club Vivid went really well. sockkpuppett had picked out a good variety of music, I sprinkled in a couple of interesting surprises and then edited it all together so that it went through musical styles, allowing people to skip one song and know that there is a good chance that the next is similar. There were some problems, though. I hadnt printed out the CV list in advance so people couldnt check when their vid was showing (other than just asking me). I'll know better for next year. The Copacabana glitch was a real shame but what can you do? At least I'd put in chapter points so I could go to the next song but it did spoil the flow and the next song was the last (Stop the Rock, as always).

What did other people think of the changes to CV this year? Did you like the mixing? The range of music? The choice of non-premiering vids? Would like to see more of/less of? Any comments, I'd like to know.

Saturday

Symbolism and Metaphor vs Comedy panel

Well, as the Comedy panel was mine I had no choice in the matter. The comedy panel was well attended which, given the amazing quality of the vids in the show and the early time after a very tiring club vivid, I was surprised about. It seemed to go down very well. I'd half written up the panel but the post died so I'll have to try again later. There have been some good writeups by other people. The majority of this panel was prepared earlier that morning. Not that I hadnt tried to prepare it beforehand but a) I was really really busy and b) it was really hard to find good academic study on how humour works... all I found were some shitty cash-in 'make money from comedy' style books that stunk. I did have examples though and a couple of points but in the end I felt that I wasn't nearly expansive enough... but hey, there's never ever time for that.

God, Devil and Bob vs Great Transitions
Vid as Collage vs Professional Inspiration
Novelty songs vs Collage panel

All of the above shows and panels I missed. The first two due to me going back to sleep and getting a lazy lunch. The third one due to me making sure that the Premieres show was going to play ok. However, I can say that the shows were all really good from what I'd seen of the vids. Novelty had a bunch of stuff totally new to vividcon, which is nice to see and the Collage panel has some of my fave vids (see the recs post later). Good times. No idea about the panels but they were all moderated by competent vidders so I'm sure they were great.

Digital Axes vs Audio Editing

I went to the audio editing panel and it was reasonably well attended. This is something I really want more people to do. Follow heresluck's advice - cut everything you can get away with. It was a great panel with excellent examples and a neat insight into techniques.

Lord King Bad Vid

For me, this was the vidshow to end all vidshows. The anticipation was tangible and it was a really really big crowd. It was like Premieres before we'd even gotten to Premieres! I laughed and cried and laughed again. I love these vids dearly and a lot of my recs will be LKBVs. So entertaining. Totally unmissible. Big congrats to sisabet for putting it all together and for the wacky vidders for making these loony vids.

Premieres!

I was worried about Premieres this year, not only for the tech but also because there were a lot of heavy vids and slow songs. On the big screen it wasn't so bad though and I was able to relax some. The vids got great receptions and I was really happy with the reaction to my Life on Mars vid. The vids I knew were going to be big were big and that was great. I dont think the quality was as consistent as last year's (where you really had to try hard to find the bad vid) but there were some stunning vids.

KARAOKE!

It's all my fault. The concept, the set up.... heck even some of the singing. I for one had a fantastic time and I was very pleased to hear it shouted out as something to keep for next year at Calls from the Public. I was stunned at the talent though... omg. Everyone did really well with their songs and the audience got into it too. It was a really good playlist, which I was happy about. The tech worked (although the audience had a hard time reading the lyrics because of people's heads) but really for an experiment I think it paid off incredibly well! Yay. Good times. Oh, and more praise from killa who ran up and gave me a big hug after my rendition of Razzle Dazzle! :D Very memorable moments all round... flo, sisabet, apocalypse west, omg just everyone!

Sunday:

Vid Review

It's never ever possible to complete vid review, so it's good that they started from the end this year to balance it out. I liked what cesperanza and sockkpuppett had to say and there were some interesting opinions from the audience. Though not as much polairty, which I like in a good vid review. Not as many claws out :) Oh well, it was fun anyhow :P

Pimp My Small Fandom vs Special Effects

I actually skipped these for food and to meet sockkpuppett's daughter Liza. I hope lithiumdoll wasn't too panicked for her panel, I heard good things and I know it can be stressful first time. The small fandom show had some GREAT vids too. So many good shows this year.

War is Hell vs In-depth Vid Review

I went to in-depth this year where I didn't last. Partly because I wanted to hear what people though of Fix You and partly because having seen vagabondage's 1916 I knew it would traumatise me for the rest of the day. So, in-depth. Lots of smart things said about some very smart vids. I'm very glad these vids were picked and that they received the commentary they deserved - justifying the vidders intentions and going to new places, which is always fun.

Challenge Vids

OMG such great vids. The challenge vids are always some of the best of the con. See my recs post later. The real surprise for me was that there was going to be discussion. See, this year, because the topic was Remix, we showed the inspiration vids and then the resultant challenge vids. So, it would be twice as long... but not long enough it seems. So, elynross asked for discussion. Which uh yay... I'd not prepared for that. At all. So, I invited sockkpuppett on stage, pulled it out of my ass and made a big fuckup by revealing one of the secret vidders names! (It's a tradition apparently). *sigh* Next year, we must get someone who doesn't know the vidders to do the Challenge discussion. It went ok though and a lot of wonderful things were said about the vidders.

Auction Vids

The final show of the con ::sob:: but also yay because the vids were so great, wait for me recs post for more info :D I was really happy with the response to the vid I made for paraviondeux... and so glad the show played well!

Calls from the Public

The relatively small amount of complaints or suggestions for change was a great testament to how fun this con was. There were some good ideas for next year and I'm definitely going to look further into doing a panel on Tech. We'll see.

Comments

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

I really loved the way Club Vivid worked. I thought the mixing worked very well. I loved that there were two short breaks rather than one long break and the count down clock was very helpful.

Thank you again for saving me when I went up on my Karaoke song. That was very kind.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Wow, impressive report and recs posts, thanks so much! And go you for not only doing a ton of work for the con, but for timing your flight so beautifully. *G*

If you have time to write up your Comedy panel, I'd love to read it as well as the other writeups; I have very little notion of how comedy actually works. Also, what insane porn vid???

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

I tried posting a comedy report once but it got eaten :( So I'll have to write it up again.

I'll try.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked my panel. As I told you at the con, I felt rather lumpish in leading both of them -- too little sleep, not enough public speaking training. *g* greensilver had interesting things to say about wishing my panel had covered putting titles over clips, and I realize I didn't talk much at all about making titles move or using effects with them. I know it was too basic for some of the people in the room, but the fact is, even some of our very best vidders don't know how to make their titles aesthetically pleasing, or even give much thought to them at all, so I figured starting with the fundamentals was the best service I could offer. Maybe we could do an advanced titles panel next year...

[heresluck]

What did other people think of the changes to CV this year? Did you like the mixing? The range of music? The choice of non-premiering vids? Would like to see more of/less of?

I *really* liked the mixing, but it sounds like it was so much work for you -- editing everything together in Premiere is level of commitment that both delights and terrifies me. If there's a way to do this that doesn't involve such massive effort, then yay, but I'm not sure it's worth the additional stress.

As for music -- I always like the contemporary dance music best, but I know that's not everyone's cup of tea; if I want that kind of music in the show, I guess it's my job to keep making CV premieres that feature it. Heh.

And I think that as more people focus on making CV or CV-like vids, there will be more and more fun stuff to choose from every year...

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

Honestly, putting the vids in Premiere is a great way to check for things like sync, aspect ratio. It means I can double check every file and make corrections. It sounds complex but it was stuff I'd have to do anyway and I could handle it there and then.

It's just like a vid but with only 10 cuts. It's not hard :)

[heresluck]

Ah. Well, that's certainly a level of control freak that I completely understand. *g*

And hey, only ten cuts! Woo! Old-skool!

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

What did other people think of the changes to CV this year? Did you like the mixing? The range of music? The choice of non-premiering vids? Would like to see more of/less of?

I thought it was fantastic, honestly. Good range of music, good range of older and newer and brand-new vids, and the periodic "Club Vivid will begin again in eight minutes -- go get a drink" announcements were surprisingly helpful.

Also, now you've put "Stop the Rock" in my head again. :-)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that the reason you missed the Vid as Collage panel was so that you could check the show and destress that it would work all right -- though I would have loved to have your thoughts at that panel. It didn't require a lot of leading, really, more about the audience's response to the vids in the show, and it would have been great to have your responses added to the mix. I'll look forward to reading your recs from this show; I had a hell of a lot of fun putting it together.