Lots of vidding news over the last few days.

1. Thanks to jagwriter78 and her freshly set up website Inside the Tardis, I now have all my Doctor Who vids on a permanent webspace. And I still can't believe it! :D If you're looking for free webspace for vids, arts or fanfics head over there and register.

2. One more thing I can't believe: Remember that I submitted "What's Left of Me" for the FNVAs and the NFVAs in December? Well, I won an award on each site! WHHHEEEEEEEE! Especially with the NFVAs I'd never have hoped for this (since they only got so few categories).





I am so proud of these two! :D

3. I'm finally working on my 3 seconds Firefly vid again. Only that it is 1:30 minutes long now and is becoming more and more Serenity centered. The workflow with Vegas is slightly different, but safe for a few things I have now settled in just fine. There are already a a few, uhm, video "manipulations" I couldn't have done in Premiere. Or wouldn't have, since they're barely noticable and would have been far too much trouble. Funny that I'm working on a Firefly vid now that I have webspace for Doctor Who vids. *g*

One character in particular was missing - incidentally the perfect candidate for shading practice. So, while I'm printing labels for the project, one quick journal entry for

Third drawing: Nine (promo image from series 1)


Yep, like it. And now I'm off preparing everything for the meeting tommorow, err, today in 7 1/2 hours.

I recently bought my first ever (!) package of charcoal. Yup, I'm 21 years old and I didn't even know how exactly charcoal looked. We probably had the worst art teachers at school. When I think about it, we had indeed...

Anyway, as I was curiously eyeing said package, I decided 'to hell with everything I should be doing' and started drawing.

( Read more... )

On a sidenote, I finally wrote a bio for my User Info. Took me long enough. :p

Edit: Almost forgot: A happy New Year to everyone! May you all have arrived undamaged and prepared for another year!

After the project-heavy time of the last few weeks, I really need to do some creative work (hey, the DDLI test officially proved it, when I got the same score on thinking and feeling ^^). Unfortunately I'm still lacking the time to do something that takes some time. Like those 2 to 3-days wallpapers or vidding.

For the first time ever, I decided to put together some icons.

( Teaser: see usericon )

Off to sulk about having a project meeting tomorrow today.

I've got one more wallpaper in store. It was a Christmas present for angela_caida, who wanted a Doctor Who themed one with the "A & B Song" worked in and the emphasis on Nine. Use of Ten was optional.

This is what I put together (shortly before Christmas :) ):

A & B

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After the time for presents was over, we played a game of "Doctor Who Top Trumps". And it took ages for someone to win. Can't believe the Doctor got no darkness points. The Empty Child beats him at darkness! Even Chip!

Any suggestions for now and the future where to post fanart? So far it was always time_and_chips, but without Rose that's out of the question.

(Unfortunately, I don't remember who made the texture I used for the wallpaper. The texture pack was called "WonderLand - Texture Pack 12" and I believe I snatched it for testing from a LJ community. Any idea?

Edit: 1024x768 version added

Let's pretend today's the 26th and I'm not three days late for writing an entry about the Christmas Special, okay?

First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed it! It was fun, fast-paced, with the right amount of emotion and downright sillyness. It certainly wasn't the best episode, but it didn't aspire to be. It was Christmas.

( More about The Runaway Bride )

( Or skip directly to my review of the episode )

Coming up as soon as I have time for it again: Replies to various comments (sorry), at least one picture of the most amazing fannish Christmas presents, squeeage over the season 2 box set, probably a wallpaper and some icons. :)

It's 24th December and the time has come for you to get your present. Ah, as I had too much time to think about this while I made the wallpaper, it won't be that simple. Getting presents is only half the fun when you can't unwrap them. So please imagine this entry to be your very own (strange looking) Christmas present. :)



( Open the present and take a look inside... )

To put an end to the 'Best of Series 2' picspam entries and to finish before Christmas, I finally went through the remaining episodes. Had to abandon the LJs again for the last few days, barely keeping up with reading my friends page every now and then. On the bright side the project is now at a stage where we get a rest for the remainder of the year, there won't be any work done on my flat and all the Christmas presents are accounted for. All I need to do now is wrap the wrappable presents and I'm finished for the holiday. :D

Does anyone know if BFBS in Germany has the same programme as Radio 1 in GB? I realized yesterday (or was it the day before?) they announce themselves as "Radio 1". Then I could tune in to listen in to the DW special on 25th.

Uhm, this was also the moment when the words "Doctor Who", "Christmas Special", the voice of Catherine Tate and finally David Tennant took me by surprise and I was happy not to have crashed the car in shock. ;) Really, since when are there people I have even heard of on the radio, giving short statements about something I even remotely care about? They have to warn me beforehand! ^^ Passing a (small) car accident round the next corner made me laugh though... which sounds somewhat bizarre.

( Enough with the rambling and on to the final five )

I'm ready for the Christmas Special now. Nothing better than refreshing the ending of the season to prepare it for new episodes blending into the whole of the show. Nontheless I still wish they would've left out the bride in Doomsday.

Wow, it's been 170 days since the last episode (according to the voiceover at the end of Doomsday)?

I'm off, trying to catch up with some entries from the last week AND wrapping Christmas presents (including dune_drd's in a way :) ) now. Have a wonderful Christmas! :D

Continuing what I started on 27 November (whoah, that was almost 3 weeks ago!), I finally got took the time to go through the next 4 episodes of series 2 and choose my memorable scenes. Gotta hurry with that now. Only 1 week left till the Christmas Special. And what's the point of a retrospective leading up to a new episode if said episode has already aired and the next hiatus has begun?

( From the Cybermen to the Impossible Planet... )

Started testing Sony Vegas today. I'm still getting accustomed but this has potential. Judging from my first impression there's more possibilities, more control and more room to grow than in Adobe Premiere. Of course I'm still missing a few things but so far I've already discovered the equivalents of tools I couldn't find in the beginning. Nevertheless, my plea for more time still applies. I reconstructed my 3 sec vid, that's it for the moment. :(

Aaah, but most of the wallpapers in my new flat are in place! And the ceiling's finished! Including the halogen lamps, that it's covered in. And it turned out absolutely fantastic! :D

I've been doing a lot of colouring lately for a project that will launch soon (phew, and there's still so much work to be done). Anyway, it reminded me of those cute characters me and a friend came up with. Which must have been 3 or 4 years ago, when we were still in school and had to keep ourselves entertained during maths lessons on calculus of probabilities. And while our teacher kept babbling, our mascot was born. The lowercase p (which sounds much cuter in German, when it's more like "the little p").

Suffice to say, I kept the tradition alive. It will be quite a while until I have lectures again, so I decided to draw some Doctor Who ps now. Ok, I cheated, they are usually not to be drawn when no teacher is present. ;) They're the first ones that are coloured and not completely drawn by hand. But don't expect any masterpiece of art.

( Cut to the drawing... )

misscam, I got your Christmas Card! Thank you so much! *hugs*

Still got a few left. Anybody want one? Otherwise, I'll keep them for next year. :)

Picspam!

To get my mind off the not so far away Christmas Special, I'm rehashing season 2. One favourite scene for every episode.

( Read more... )

Oh well, I didn't make it through the whole series today. Got to get up early tomorrow. As I'm absolutely enjoying this best of, there will be a part 2.

I've been working on a wallpaper again. Which I shouldn't be doing at the moment because there are many other things I should be doing instead. Had to be something that I could put together relatively quickly, still I wanted to experiment a bit. I finally decided on something watercolorish... let's just say, I'm not really pleased with the results. I can't put my finger on what it might be, so I'm wrapping this up.

Maybe someone can put this to good use. Oh, and spoilers for Doomsday. Behind the cut.
( Read more... )

I'm also going to first-awarding nervousness. Entered "What's Left of Me" at the FNVA today... God, there are so many great vids there!

Any Christmas wishlists I have missed?

I realized today why I haven't warmed to Torchwood more. There's simply not one character I can understand / identify with. They are all just there, going after the alien of the week. From what it seems, they don't know much about themselves despite being a rather small group, who's frankly spending most of their time together. What do they talk about all day?

/--Torchwood spoilers for episode 6--\
( Read more... )

That being said, today my package full of Doctor Who stuff from Amazon arrived. *squeeee* Now I can so gush over the Annual, The Inside Story, the Storybook AND my very own sonic screwdriver! :D Ooook, it's a bit plastic looking if you look at it up close, but to hell with that, it's a sonic screwdriver and the blue glow and the sound are absolutely fabulous fantastic! Love it! (says not merchandise buying me *shakes head*) Now I've got a lot to read and the Series 2 DVDs are waiting for me on Christmas. In spite of that, they are sitting on the table behind me and they look so much better than I expected. Also in the package: the Casanova DVDs. They should have written Merry Christmas all over the package instead of amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, anazon.fr and so on. :D The only thing missing is the Doctor Who calendar and that could arrive tomorrow.

Oooh, forget all of the bothersome project meetings, I'm happy now and absolutely in Christmas mood! After watching "Love Actually" there's no turning back. I can't believe it's still more than a month! And listening to "Song for Ten" and "Love Don't Roam" since the CiN concert doesn't help, either. ^^

I can't watch vids the same way that I did before I opened that vidding programme for the first time (without even thinking about starting of going down the vidding lane). Haven't decided yet if it's a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, I notice editing errors/slopiness more often and a lot more detailed than before. And I can't ignore it that easily anymore. On the other the same goes for small details, the ones, that make a good vid even better. Cuts and storytelling, transitions and fades, subtle effects and some of the thoughts that went into all of that. Ruins some vids I enjoyed before and makes others even more awesome. Watching 'old' vids, I constantly catch myself thinking 'That was *really* clever' or 'Whoah, how did they achieve that?' or 'How come I never noticed that before?'.

I don't like, that it kinda takes the innocence our of watching vids. Just leaning back, quietly enjoying whatever's playing on my screen. It also feels as if my eyes have gotten faster, because I can suddenly see images in those scenes with incredible quick cuts, that were nothing more than a blur before. It's just strange. When I think about it, it's similiar to what happened after arting for a while. Perhaps I should have expected it. At the moment I'm still clinging to the old days, when it was different.

On another note, could somebody stop me? Pleeeaaase? I've gone rampant on amazon.co.uk. I was putting together that long overdue order and couldn't resist surfing around a bit. Let's just say, I'm not the kind of person, who buys lots of merchandise. Not only am I now waiting for a few Doctor Who books (like the Annual, which was dispatched a few hours after I placed the order), no, I've also ordered the S2 DVDs (at least I get them from someone else as a gift - who that will be hasn't been decided yet) and something else, I'd never thought I'd buy. It goes with batteries. Has a small light. Wrong colour for a flashlight though. And I dare not say more until it's actually, physically here. And I know how silly that is, but that's how I feel at the moment (and hey, LJ even has a silly mood icon).

Speaking of silly: One big YAAAAY for David and Freema making an apperance on Children in Need! Makes me realize how much I miss new episodes of Doctor Who. :D

Ah, and if you haven't seen it, remember to comment on http://waka-laka.livejournal.com/548754.html?view=7309714 to get someone's friend to donate 10p for Children in Need. Poor guy, he had no idea, what he was getting himself into...

After endless waiting for the final export, I'm once again in the process of uploading my finished new vid. :D The export never depended on luck this much before. A few attempts and a lot of crossed fingers (that there wouldn't be some bad frames this time) later, I only hope that I haven't screwed up my codecs completely with deinstalling, reinstalling and double-installing XviD. And that I didn't miss any displaced frames in the final version.

Despite all of the technical difficulties, I enjoyed making this one very much because it felt very different. I was going for 'different' (ok, and dark and depressing), but in the end that also describes the process. Maybe it had something to do with the song and obviously its influence on the vid, maybe it was because I hadn't used the character and most of the material before. *shrugs* BTW, this was the first time that the beginning of the vid was one of the last things I did.

Anyway, my point is, thank you once again, dune_drd for reccing this to me! I think I was also influenced by your character analysis of Jack a while back. *g* Well, there's nothing I can do now but wait if you like the result... Oh and this time I can also thank angela_caida (that's what you get for getting yourself an account ;) ) for pointing out the editing choices she didn't like. Don't know if you'll notice, but I changed most of it accordingly. (hey, a whole paragraph about special thanks!)


Artist: Linkin Park
Details: 38.6 MB, 3:38
Description: Jack tells Gwen the story of his life before Torchwood - his journey with the Doctor and Rose, dying in the process and finally being left behind.

Watch at YouTube
Download at Megaupload
Download at YouSendIt

Enjoy! And why is it, that no matter at what point I upload to YouTube, processing's never finished when I'm done writing?

Yup, I made the last change in the vid a few minutes ago and now I'm encoding and uploading (and obviously writing).

My original idea was to make an episodic vid. When I was by chance reminded of this song, I thought it would fit "The Idiot's Lantern" quite well. In retrospect I'm relieved that I changed my mind. I don't see how I could have found enough scenes that fitted the mood of the music without repeating myself.

I have to thank the lyrics for that. And probably a quirky mind. When it hit me (and made me start grinning ;) ) what I was going to use for the "first real six-string" there was absolutely no turning back. Tried to keep some of the original idea as well but I'm happy with the broader scope it gave me. There were enough restrictions because of me wanting this to feature (almost) every companion of the New Series but no Nine.



Artist: Bryan Adams
Details: 30.1 MB avi, 3:33 min
Description: The Doctor, the TARDIS and his companions living through their adventurous journeys. Or: what "Summer of '69" really is about. Spoilers through Doomsday.

Watch at YouTube
Download at Megaupload
Download at YouSendIt

Put together a matching icon again. Hmmm, at this rate I should start thinking about switching to a paid account. It's not too expensive and 15 icons are simply too few...

About 5 minutes now till the vid is encoded and I can start uploading. That gives me some time to write the entry to post the video on my journal first. How's that for a spin? :)

I wonder why I never get to do vids to the music I want. Why is there always something that gets in the way? I still don't fully understand how I could get myself stuck with "What's Left of Me". What I wanted to do was a video about the Doctor this time and one with a slow pace for a change. Along came this song and the lines "will you take what's left of me" and "now I'm broken and I'm fading". Anyone else who thinks this is a perfect description for Nine to Ten's regeneration?


Artist: Nick Lachey
Details: 39.5 MB avi, 4:08
Description: The Doctor reflects on the last few months of his life shortly before his regeneration. Will Rose accept him in his next incarnation? And can there be a happy ending afterwards? Angst, shippiness and spoilers up to the ending of Doomsday.

Watch at YouTube
Download at Megaupload
Download at YouSendIt

I really think I should take a break now. 4 vids in about 1 1/2 months... I don't want it to become too much of a routine but to be able to take a different approach. Unless another song comes along that I can't get out of my head. *sighs*

New icon, new icon! Ok, it's just the one... and it wasn't created on purpose but the vid banner looking iconishly at me... it's the thought the counts. (hmmm, where do I remember that from... aha! Babylon 5! Great scene. :) )

Update: the links have arrived!

As always, my journal is the last to know, cause it's the place, where I need some more time to babble a bit about the backstory. Sooo, 3rd vid. I got the song from watching a german casting show (similiar to "American Idol") - for the first time in my life, cause I try to avoid all those reality shows as much as I can. But a friend of mine wanted to watch, so we watched the whole thing. Then this song came on, I had heard it a few times before and I just loved it because it was so uplifting. You know the feeling, when you just want to have something and you don't even know why? Well, that's the one I got in that moment. One week later I had the song. And after listening to it two times I decided it would be perfect for my next vid (I still remember that I promised to make a video with a happy theme and no Doomsday). :)

Started working on the vid - sadly so veeery slow (0:20 after two days). I'm a bit surprised I was able to finish it as fast as I did in the end, but the process was still much slower than with my previous vids. I suppose it's just cause the song has such a fast beat. Even so, I still love vidding. :D Thing I especially loved this time: playing around with time. After all it's a show about time travelling, giving me very right to do that. :P

Ah, before I get ahead of myself, here's the result:



Artist: Melanie C
Details: 33.5 MB avi, 3:27
Description: With all the adventures Rose and the Doctor have gone through, they sometimes come across as something of a superstar themselves. - A mostly lighthearted and fast paced video covering their journeys from "Rose" to "Army of Ghosts" (NO Doomsday in this one and just the beginning of Army of Ghosts :) ).

Watch at YouTube
Download at Megaupload
Download at YouSendIt

At the moment I'm just a bit puzzled and demotivated cause the ratings on YouTube have been going down ever since my first vid. 4 1/2 stars, then 3 1/2 and now 2 1/2 (though it raised to 3 stars a short while ago :)). But no negative comments, meaning I really don't know if I'm doing something wrong. Do I need a longer break or am I developing my vidding skills in the wrong direction? *puzzled*

PS: *notetoself* I really need some new/additonal icons for my journal.

Per request by brienze here's another wallpaper of The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. Titled "The Satan Pit" because a) I already used "The Impossible Planet" as a title for the previous wallpaper and b) it revolves more around the pit than the planet. The request was a montage of

- the Doctor's descend into the pit
- the talk at the table
- a hug
- the black hole
- architecture (ruins and the outside of the drilling complex)

and I managed to squeeze all of that in. :) I hope it's not too far off what you imagined it to look like. I tried to keep the general feel of the previous wallpaper to a certain degree. Got a bit darker and a bit glowier.

The Satan Pit

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Same texture by elli

Yay, finished the wallpaper I was talking about before. It didn't quite turn out the way it was supposed to do (should've been smooth and glowy, instead it got dark and grungy when I went with the style of the episode). That means I can save the look I had in mind for a later wallpaper.

And maybe I managed to get over Doomsday. Maybe. After my latest vid I decided that whatever I did next it would not be about that particular episode. No, instead it would be about something like The Impossible Planet. Now guess what the wallpaper's about. ;) My decision stands: the next vid (whenever that will be) will have a happy theme and the images for Doomsday are as of now simply off limit to me. Let's see how long it will last.

The Impossible Planet

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Texture by elli