The Here And Now

One of the things I really miss at Vividcon is  having a "State of Vidding" panel where we gather to talk about events and items  of vidding interest from the previous year. I have suggested  to  VVC that they resume offering it as an annual panel idea. But here are some of the topics  that came up in my private chats with people.  Please feel free to offer up links to any posts, discussions or articles in the comments below. Also feel free to link to this post on tumblr or twitter or elsewhere. Final note: this is a stream of consciousnesses post so most of the nuances and details are missing. These are comments I overheard and they are being offered up without edits, they may be garbled. conflated or may be wholly inaccurate.  Memory lapses, typos and grammar errors abound. Typing remains difficult for me.

 

There was some discussions about it becoming harder to upload vids to Vimeo in the past year due to their content matching system. Someone else said that they had "grandfathered" in existing vids, and the problems were mainly for newer vids. Since Vimeo is the platform of choice for many vidders in our community, I'd like to hear more. Could not find any posts about this, but with our vidding community continuing to be decentralized, not surprising.

 

This was the result of several vague conversations where members expressed a desire to connect with other  vidders outside the well worn paths. Reasons:  Survivalbility  (new members promote growth) as well as supporting creative growth (new vidding techniques and styles).  Plus: more chance to garner squee for your fanworks.  Youtube was mentioned frequently as a place where Vividcon and the Vividcon attendees  need to have a greater presence. See the Youtube section below for some of the ideas. Example of one step to take now:  start subscribing to each others Channels on Youtube. The other idea is to include basic text whenever we post a VVC premiere: "Premiered at Vividcon, a fan run convention about fan vids held in Chicago each August. Vidders and fans of fan vids are both welcomed."  

Vividcon should also start using their existing YT channel to start promoting vids that were shown at VVC that year (showcased with Vidder permission) including linking to a week/monthly VVC Premiere vid as part of a featured vid or playlist.

Finally there was discussion of cross-promotional advertising at  existing fan run conventions (ex: there is  Kiscon convention with a vid show in LA in Sept 2017. There will be a femmeslash convention with a vid show in LA in 2017. Both VVC and our community could be mentioned by the convention organizers, flyers created etc). Outreach might also include going to larger conventions that focus on broader aspects of video editing like Vidcon. Getting vidders onto a  existing Vidcon panel would be a great start, or getting a few vids into one of the shows. Other possibilities:  offering a room party or staffing a table. 

These outreach efforts do not have to be tied to Vividcon and in fact it might be better if they were not. The outreach  could be part of an OTW outreach or even individual vidder community outreach depending on what is needed to gain access to the other communities (Ex: Vidcon panel might need the weight of the OTW to happen).  While VVC is a focal point for our corner of vidding fandom, we need to think larger and offer multiple ways of hooking up with one another and reach out to newer vidding boards/communities in places like Youtube, Tumblr, imzy (see below) or pillowfort.io (when out of beta).

On that note of outreach, Vividcon has playlists for the fanvids that were shown, some with links: http://www.vividcon.info/ To send them a link to your newly uploaded vid go here: And check out the wonderful Fandom Life vid show playlist.  Here is the partial unofficial  Youtube version

 

Vidding Newsletter
A few people thought that it would be great if someone would re-start the periodic Vidding Meta/News Roundup, cross-posted to tumblr and the Vidding LJ/DW communities. Less content now on DW/LJ  so it would be easier to track. Using the tumblr vidding tags is also doable. (I edged away from this part of the conversation lest anyone look in my direction).

Festivids

There was some meta discussion going on in the Festivids community as to what constitutes a "fanvid" for the purpose of excluding a fandom from the exchange. (Festivids is similar to Yuletide where the greater the number of existing vids, the less chance the fandom has to be included).  Are 6 second "Vines" a fanvid? Are trailers a fan vid? More here.  If anyone has other links or summary posts, please drop them below.

 

A new platform, has been created - a cross between LJ and Redditt.  You can set privacy controls, it allows threaded discussions, you can have multiple pseuds and other fandom friendly features. Possible tumblr alternative when  Tumblr implodes, also a great place to have discussion like discussions.  It is currently invite only but more and more vidders are joining  and there are invites floating around. Someone suggested we should start a vidding community there.   Again, any roundup or summary links welcomed.

 

Lots and lots of discussion here. Uploading your vids to YouTube allows both you and the community greater outreach as well exposes us as vidders to new ideas (and vice versa).  

 

Always an ongoing issue. Many issues can be circumvented except for the formal DMCA take down request. You are still limited to 3  DMCA take down requests. Third strike and your account is deleted but you can contest and if you win, it does not count against you.   Someone said that the OTW offers updated template language to contest.  Does anyone have a link? Those who use YT can  comment below but there are existing strategies to deal with 3 Strikes Account Deletion - create a backup channel with a notice on the main channel ("if my account is ever deleted you can find me here"). Create a dummy channel and test upload vids beforehand.  Other issues are country and platform blocking (many vids are blocked on phones). Again there are multiple strategies - link to a proxy website in the notes section of the YT vid directing blocked people where they can view the vid, offer a Vimeo link, or better yet link back to an AO3 placeholder post where you can list the multiple ways to view your vid.  Again, people more familiar with with recent YT policies and workarounds, please feel free to weigh in below. lim has two great posts about Youtube which I have reblogged here and here

(on a personal note: when vidders kept saying they were "contesting" Youtube  I could not tell if they were talking about a "3 Strikes Take Down" or a platform/country block based on the music of video.)

 

Great way to compile a list of recommended vids and they are infinitely embed-able. Conventions should be using them to create playlists of vids to showcase both the vidder and the convention. Individual vidders can also create playlists and you can copy someone else's playlist. Advantage: YT is now accessible to many more Smart TVs allowing people to watch your vids on a big screen in their living room with friends. Examples of individual playlists are: Astolat's VVC 2016 Playlist, my 2016 VVC Playlist, my Escapade 2016 Playlist, My Kiscon 2015 Playlist etc....Downside: Youtube blocks playback for some vids playing on mobile devices (which includes Smart TV) and those missing vids don't show up as missing. Ex: my YT VVC 2016 Playlist has 23 videos on my Android phone but only 18 on my Smart TV. Confusing.

 

A reminder that you can create a AO3 placeholder for each fanvid and then link to multiple streaming/download  locations (if you are blocked on YT or Vimeo). That way if or when you have to move your vids, you only need to update links and embeds in one place. Plus, any AO3 comments or kudos won't disappear if the vid is deleted.

 

Speaking of Youtube comments: you can archive your vids (or any vid on YT) plus all comments with Firefox plugin Youtube Saver. If you want to avoid those pesky YT comments there are other Firefox plugins: No Youtube Comments. Additional YT tools and tips welcomed

 

Some vidders have started uploading high quality uploads under the paid plan.  People like the quality of the HD streaming. Subscription process is confusing and fans still struggle to differntiate between Vidders.net (the legacy site containing 18,000 older 15fps vids) and Vidder Tube (the newer site with HD playing at 30fps). Is not clear if the newer Vidder.Tube has been authorized for embedding on AO3 (Vidders.net is still listed as authorized). Questions about sexually explicit footage being allowed and/or if allowed, what notices and warnings need to be placed on the vids (this last part was muddled - I think sexually explicit material is allowed but must be manually approved by the moderator. And I have no clue what is considered sexually explicit.).  I suggest that people contact the admin directly for clarification of any and all above: admin@viddertube.com

 

Francesca curated an display about vidding as part of a Vancouver, Canada museum exhibit about modern culture. Several vids were shown and she wrote an essay that was included in the museum book. bironic's vid "Starships" was among the vids shown and she brought her copy of the museum book to Vividcon and made photocopies of the vidding article available. I also have copies the essay in PDF format and have been given permission by the author to hand it out ,so email me if you are interested: morgandawn @ gmail.com bironic attended the event in person and has a write-up here .

 

 

I will update this post as I remember more topics discussed.

edited 8/20/2016