Does anybody know of good fanvids or fannish music videos set to either Elton John's "Your Song" or the standard "They Can't Take That Away from Me"? Edit: Or a similar jazz standard.

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

Late last night while putting the finishing touches on the reception playlist (well, the content, not the actual order), I discovered that there's very little in the way of songs that lend themselves to slow dancing or even slow-to-moderate dancing (except the First Dance which is kind of restricted to echan and I). Given that wedding receptions are great for making people feel all romantic and whatnot, this seems wrong to me.

However, my search for another song is somewhat complicated by the fact that we're doing a video reception -- that is, there will be a fanvid, music video, or other visual element for every song (this also means that Blister in the Sun is cut ridiculously short, much to my chagrin). The two songs above seem the best picks. Worst case scenario, I can cull the related musical numbers from Moulin Rouge and Shall We Dance? but I'd prefer something a bit more fannish.

Title: Boris Karloff: Frontier Psychiatrist
Author: Jetpack Monkey
Song: The Avalanches - Frontier Psychatrist
Fandom: Classic horror movies

Summary: Starting with The Man They Could Not Hang, Columbia released four mad scientist films starring Boris Karloff in an eighteen-month period between 1939 and 1941. The other films in the series were The Man with Nine Lives, Before I Hang, and The Devil Commands. As a tribute, I created a short video to illustrate the general shared tone of the films and their similarities in structure, casting, theme, and direction.

The song I chose, The Avalanches' Frontier Psychiatrist, is constructed from audio clips and samples from previously recorded materials. I picked this song in particular because it calls attention to the fact that the Columbia Mad Scientist series was itself constructed from "used" parts, taking elements from Karloff's past successes in films like The Man Who Changed His Mind, The Invisible Ray, and even The Walking Dead.

Direct Youtube Link


Notes: This vid was created as Classic-Horror.com's contribution to the Boris Karloff Blogathon over at Frankensteinia, which is why my real name appears in the vid's opening credits.

I've finally had a Glee vidbunny. Not my usual style, either. *ponders*

In other news, I still need Glee icons.

Comment with a song, a fandom, or both. From the comments, I will take the song and fandom combination that amuses/inspires me the most (providing I have the source, obv.) and make a quickie vid.

Go.

A non-roommate, non-vidder has requested a vid from me. A classic movies vid.

It's official. I am an awesome vidder.

First of all, I'm pleased as punch to have added a new fandom to Vividcon's database. I'll be adding more as time goes on. Next year... I have plans. Awesome plans. Of awesome.

I'll be making a separate post here later that's a general introduction for folks friending me for the first time. Don't be shy about friending me if I haven't done so first. I met a lot of neat people at Vividcon and I'm having trouble remembering all of their LJ/DW names. I should've kept a notebook!

Vividcon was... exceptionally different. I haven't had this much socialization at a Con since, um... ever. In a lot of ways, it was thoroughly exhausting for someone like me who's a stealth introvert. I did get to meet a ton of great people, see a lot of awesome vids, and learn a few things.

I had a minor-key introduction to showing my content to a group for the first time in the Bechdel Test vidshow, where my Josie and the Pussycats vid More Than One Way to Celebrity Skin a Pussycat debuted. I think the response went quite well, all things told.

Then came Premieres. The response to my Hammer Frankenstein vid Don't Stop Me Now didn't seem as positive, but at the time, I felt it was largely because I couldn't really hear that much over the sound of Freddie Mercury. A few people did approach me later to tell me they liked it, though!

Then... then came Vid Review. I don't really know how I felt about it. I think I heard more of the negative comments than the positive ones, but listening to other tear-downs directed at vids made by relative newbies, I can't say I found the experience to be an endorsement for return visits. I'm committed to being a better vidder and I will improve, however.

A list of vid recs will come later. Right now I should probably get back to work.

Title: More Than One Way to Celebrity Skin a Pussycat
Song: Hole - Celebrity Skin
Fandom: Josie and the Pussycats movie

Summary: Being unknown sucks. Fame sucks more. Friends? Friends are rock'n'roll.

Direct Youtube Link

Notes: This premiered at Vividcon 2009 during the Bechdel Test vidshow. You can thank jmtorres for making me finish it and echan, butterflykiki, diannelamerc, and lizbetann for being patient betas.

This is half for my own tracking purposes and half just to illustrate my own insanity. My to-do list through October:

( To spare the uninterested... )

The Return of the Doctor Who/Dr. Horrible crossover vid!

Title: Slipping
Song: Slipping from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: Davros has an evil plan -- knocking the Doctor off of his pedestal. Oh, yeah, and world domination. Spoilers for the end of Doctor Who Season 4.

Direct Youtube Link


The Dr. Whorrible Masterlist

Look, a sequel vid!

Title: The Master and the Bad Horse Reprise
Song: Bad Horse Chorus (Reprise) from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Fandom: Doctor Who
Summary: Bad Horse is very disappointed in The Master. Very disappointed. (21 seconds)

Author's Note: I did this to see how quickly I could do it. My goal was a half-hour, but it ended up taking twice that (mostly because of the intro). This is a sequel to The Master and the Bad Horse Chorus.

Direct Youtube link


The Dr. Whorrible Masterlist

Another Doctor Who/Dr. Horrible crossover vid!

Title: The Doctor's Freeze Ray
Song: My Freeze Ray from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: Even with all of his power, The Doctor cannot stop the slow path. Serio-comic. 10/Reinette. Spoilers for 2x04 - The Girl in the Fireplace. (1:54)



The Dr. Whorrible Masterlist

This newest Dr. Whorrible vid I'm working on is very much a departure from the last two. It's more structured and, despite the song ("My Freeze Ray"), I wouldn't really call it comedic, except for a few moments. If I do it right, it's actually going to be kind of sad. This is new territory for me to say the least. I hope the folks who have been so generous with the feedback on Brand New Day and Bad Horse Chorus will enjoy it, though.

A good chunk of last night was taken up transcribing my interview with Adrienne King, star of Friday the 13th. Usually I hate doing the transcription, because when I do interviews, I sometimes get really excited and my voice goes all squeaky. This time was something else entirely, though. At some point, it stopped being an interview, and it was just two fans riffing on horror and the F13 franchise and whatnot. It was awesome. We would finish each others' sentences and take pot shots at Hollywood and make terrible puns (okay, the bad pun was all me -- and don't look for it in the transcription when it goes up, because I want to keep that moment for myself).

I also did a half-hour chat with Phantasm star Reggie Bannister on Wednesday. I'll have more to say on that when I start transcribing it.

Another Doctor Who/Dr. Horrible crossover vid!

Title: Brand New Day
Song: Brand New Day from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: A darkly comedic take on the Doctor vs. Dalek conflict, with an end-of-Season 4 twist. Very spoilery for Doctor Who 4x13 - Journey's End. (1:52)

Direct Youtube Link


The Dr. Whorrible Masterlist. And yes, I came up with the name.

Title: The Master and the Bad Horse Chorus
Song: Bad Horse Chorus from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Fandom: Doctor Who
Summary: The Master receives a long-awaited phone call. (0:39)



Yes, I'm on crack. Why do you ask?

Sometimes you're watching a show and you hit upon the PERFECT clip for that one spot in your long-put-aside vid, the one that would totally win over whatever filler you had there. And thus does work begin anew.

I'm back on the HIMYM vid.

Title: Ever the Same
Song: Rob Thomas - Ever the Same
Fandom: Universal Monsters
Summary: For all that changes, the monster movies produced by Universal between 1931 and 1954 remain the same, constant cinematic companions. This is my tiny little tribute to them.

Films Featured: Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Details: Quicktime .MOV file, 26MB (finally figured out how to get a small file size)

Where: File (right-click and "save as") or Youtube.

Comments and feedback are welcome and encouraged.

So, I'm quickly learning one of the more annoying aspects of the Mac. The multiple iLife programs (iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto) create copies of the files they import. This is not a problem in and of itself. What is a problem is that you tend to end up with two of everything on the machine when you only need the one.

I downloaded a Java app (which isn't perfect, alas) to handle the dupes, but it took pretty much all evening and was kind of a pain in the ass (I probably could've just nuked the dupe folders, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't deleting anything I only had the one of).

Also, having a hard-drive that is three times the size of my largest previous hard-drive has made me greedy. I start getting really concerned about file space when I get down to 50 GB now. Mind you, part of this is that I'm vidding now and I work with large-size movie files more often. I really need to get some external hard-drives or something.

I definitely need more RAM.

So, I finished my Universal Monsters vid. I'm not posting it publicly just yet because it's on the 2008 Apocalypse West reel for Vividcon and I want it to make its debut there. I will be posting the vid online after Vividcon is over, however.

However, I did redo my Angel & Spike Tenacious D vid for the same reel and I'm happy to show that around now. It's not an extensive revamp -- some places were retooled to better match the beat, some footage swapped about, other stuff added here and there, but it's essentially the same vid with better source material.

You can click the cut to view from my journal or watch it on YouTube.

( Vid is below the cut )

I've had to put my How I Met Your Mother vid aside for a moment -- I think it's a little outside of my scope as a vidder and I'm having trouble putting together appropriate clips, despite having extensive notes. I'm going to take some time away and let my subconscious work out the various obstacles.

However, this has let me move on to the vid I'm really excited about -- my Universal monsters video. I've told a few people what song I'm using and they've accused me of not sharing the crack. Sorry?

Originally this was going to have a much broader scope, encompassing the whole of Universal's output from the 1920s-early 1950s, but I've since narrowed it down to the six main monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon) for a number of reasons. The main one is that there are five choruses and one bridge in the song, so I can devote each to a specific monster (my Mummy chorus is freakin' wicked). There's a few other areas in the song that sync up with the number six, so I decided to take it as a sign (I didn't know this before I picked the song) and I've focused the vid on only movies featuring the main monsters.

So far I have three of the six monsters completed (although I'm not completely happy with the Wolf Man section).

This is going to rock.

I have commenced vidding on my How I Met Your Mother vid set to Journey's Don't Stop Believing.

This is going to be a toughy, I think. Even though it is frequently cleverly directed, the show is not exactly what I'd call cinematic. Keep shots varied is going to be difficult. Also, I'm working from broadcast sources (because the Season 1 DVDs are 4:3 not widescreen and Season 3 isn't out yet), which means I have to avoid things like the TV rating in the upper-left and the "BROADCAST IN HD" at the beginning of each episode.

I think that I may have just stepped into a much bigger challenge than I had anticipated.

Title: Female Friend
Song:Stuart Davis - Female Friend
Fandom: Doctor Who
Summary: It turns out that the Doctor has equal regard for all of his female companions. He wants to shag them all. Spoilers through Doctor Who 4x12 - The Stolen Earth
Pairings: Doctor/Rose, Doctor/Martha, Doctor/Donna, Doctor/Lucy Saxon, Doctor/everyone with breasts.

Details: Quicktime .MOV file, 80MB. 3:51.

Where: File (right-click and "Save as...") | Youtube

Comments and feedback are welcome and encouraged.

X-posted to lifeonmartha and andtheropes

The rough cut of my Doctor Who vid set to Stuart Davis's Female Friend is out to my trusted and respected betas right now. Hopefully they'll have some useful suggestions (but I'll take unabashed praise and gushing).

Can't say how this falls in terms of quality vs. my Donna Noble vid, since the tone is way more tongue-in-cheek (which fits the song).

( Weird stuff encountered while doing this vid )

I'm not starting work on my HIMYM vid until I have at least one Classic-Horror review banged out. Also, midnightfae has kindly requested that I interact like a human being for a little while.

If you downloaded my Donna Noble vid, you might have noticed that it comes with black bars and looks just a bit squished. I've corrected this flaw (which came from, I assume, working with PAL sources in an NTSC file) and the whole thing looks a lot better.

http://www.monkeyswithjetpacks.com/donnanoble-justanotherday.mov (106MB, Quicktime)

At some point, I suspect, I will become so prolific at this vidding thing that I will not be updating ya'll on the progress of every single one.

That said, this one has been a doozy and it's forced me to do an effload of cheating in the second verse to get it vaguely working. It's about... 87% complete? Possibly more if I decide to futz with the song's opening.

Otherwise, it rocks. There is one part that makes me laugh out loud every time I see it, and I'm the one who put it there.

I may have it done tomorrow. If that's the case, I'll probably remove a brief clip ganked from this week's Who and replace it with something not-spoilery.

I'm working on my third vid ever (and my second in the Doctor Who fandom), so clearly I'm not an expert or anything, but I've picked up a few tips and tricks here and there. I'm not listing things like how to get episodes (my method is insanely complicated and probably very wrong), what video editing software to use (I like Final Cut Express even though it's probably way overpowered for what I need it to do) or anything like that.

No, these are just things that I've run into which weren't immediately obvious to me, but which made me go "Hm. Neat." Some of these (especially at the beginning) are specific to Doctor Who. Others (especially at the end) are more general.

• Fear Forecasts. These are minute-by-minute recaps that the BBC posts with each new episode (starting with World War Three back in Series 1), following four children as they watch (and are terrified by) Who. They can give you a good idea of when a certain event occurs in an episode, time-wise and they're really quick reads.
  
  Series 4 recaps aren't collected in any one place as far as I can tell, but they're easy to find. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/episodes/?episode=s4_01&action=fearfactor is the Fear Forecast for Partners in Crime. Just replace the s4_01 with s4_episodenumber for other eps, so http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/episodes/?episode=s4_02&action=fearfactor is Fires of Pompeii and so on.


• Picspams - People are squeeful about great moments. What catches other people's eyes will probably catch yours as well. These can be great inspiration. Just be sure to leave a comment (where possible) thanking the poster for their help.
  ( More under the cut... )

Title: Just Another Day
Music: Oingo Boingo - Just Another Day
Fandom: Doctor Who
Summary: Donna Noble is totally awesome. Spoilers through 4x10 - Midnight.

Details: Quicktime .MOV file. 102MB. 3:23.

Where: File (right-click and Save As...) | Youtube The video has been removed from Youtube, so I've put it up on my personal website as a streaming FLV.

Xposted to marriedonmars

ETA: Oh yes. Feedback is love.

Went to LA this weekend. As per usual, it completely rocked.

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday AT DISNEYLAND )

Man, I needed that. I feel like my system is completely reset and I'm able to handle life again.

Saturday

The Roomie left me her car to run errands, so that's pretty much what I did all day. First I stopped by Mom's to pick up some packages I had mailed there, including the Night of the Living Dead 40th Anniversary DVD with the Classic-Horror quote on the back cover. Mom was babysitting my niece, who ran over to give me a big hug. It was the cutest thing ever.

After that, I ran to the hardware store to pick up some materials for the Memorial Day Project. Then I spent more time and drove more miles than I'd like to admit trying to find sufficient Testors Metal Flake Ruby Red paint, as the Project requires it in large quantities.

Picked up the roomie from work, dropped her off at the gym. Instead of heading to the nearby Best Buy, I headed into Bookstar, which was a book store that I'd seen a billion times but never gone into. It looked chintzy from the outside and I'd always assumed it was a half-price used bookshop. Nope. It was a Barnes & Noble in everything but the sign on the front and the way the employees answered the phone. Even the little placards over the individual sections said "Barnes & Noble". I ended up spending *coughcough* on some books on digital photography, web design (I'm trying to get a more elegant look for Classic-Horror) and Final Cut Express.

Sunday

Programmed my new Universal Remote. The old one only really controlled my stereo receiver and my VCR. This one handles everything but the Playstation 3 (which can't be helped because it receives over Bluetooth). I did have to reprogram Every Single Key for the HD-DVD player, because while the box received the signal, it thought I was trying to control a Standard DVD player and would throw up a little message on the front display that said "HD-DVD" instead of, y'know, doing something.

Edited two reviews and one Masters biography. Started working on a new fanvid for Donna Noble set to Oingo Boingo's Just Another Day.

Went to the coffeehouse that night with The Roomie to finish up some other work.

Memorial Day

Woke up early, skipped breakfast and computer to go directly to beginning the Memorial Day Project: painting the pieces of what will eventually be my very own Tom Servo puppet. The Roommate gathered them about a year and a half ago as a Christmas present, but circumstances prevented her from putting it together. Now we've finally decided to tackle this as a team. I have high hopes for its completion before she leaves for vet school in three months.

The Roomie's boyfriend came over that night and we watched Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, followed by Mystery Science Theater: Mr. B. Natural, then Cinematic Titanic: The Oozing Skull, and finally Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II. Good times were had by all.

airawyn's awesome Coupling vid has inspired me to share my one and, to date, only fanvid. I made it four years ago and it bears all the marks of being my first time. There's about a million things I'd redo if I had the chance. But here it is, for you viewing enjoyment:

Fandom: Angel
Song: Wonder Boy by Tenacious D
Pairing: Angel and Spike, with some Puppet!Angel/Nina and some other significant relationships.
Summary: Exploring the, ah, tenacious relationship between Angel and Spike in Angel Season 5.


Direct Youtube link. My apologies for some of the editing. I really would redo this if I had the time.