A Song in the Trees

This year, I made enough of these that I thought it would be fun to do something like the writing meme I usually do. I haven't seen one of these before, but googled around and combined and modified a couple I found.

I posted six vids/AMVs this year, which is a new record and twice what I posted in either last year or the year before.
Swans and Princes - figure skating
I'M A SWAN LAKE - figure skating
Come, O Eclipse - Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer
Stamina - gymnastics
Gasoline - Yuri on Ice
Spin Me! - figure skating

Favorite
Oh, gosh, that's a hard one, but I'll go with Gasoline.

Least favorite
I'M A SWAN LAKE is a joke vid that I didn't put much effort into.

Most successful
Stamina, definitely - Gasoline started to take off in views at some point when The Algorithm started throwing it at people, but Stamina still has more, and proportionally it has way more comments (because, far as I can tell, people see Chuso and they want to go 'CHUSO IS GREAT', which is an impulse I understand).

Most under-appreciated
Swans and Princes. Sure, Eclipse has way fewer views, but also nobody has seen that movie. Although I did get some nice comments on Tumblr (which is a reversal for me; usually vids/amvs get absolute crickets when I try posting them there). Someone even messaged me asking for the spreadsheet, and we had a nice conversation about Swan Lake programs.

Most fun
To make: Gasoline. It was a lot of fun playing with effects and just giving myself permission to try random things and overlays. Although I did get a giggle out of stacking together all the bird-arm clips for I'M A BIRD.

To watch: I vote Spin Me!, though I also enjoy watching Stamina a lot.

Biggest fail
There's always small editing mistakes, but in Gasoline, there are a couple of clips that I ought to have stitched and re-panned manually instead of playing with the speed settings. But I kind of wanted to stop editing it at that point, so I didn't bother.

I am not sure if these are 'fails', but I do wonder if twenty seconds was too long to start the spinning clips in Spin Me (though I like how that section came out). I also wonder if there isn't a better way to communicate what Swans and Princes is before anyone clicks on it, but I've tried changing the title a couple of times and it didn't make any difference. Maybe I should try slapping 'every swan lake' on the thumbnail?

Hardest to make
Swans and Princes involved color-correcting dozens of different videos, often in bad quality or with significant lighting problems, and also downloading multiple full competition streams, so I'm going to go with that one.

Things I've learned

• I still like Swan Lake programs


• Changing colors for effect and not just because the video is smoother and more pleasant when the ice is white is fun and also really changes the atmosphere. Definitely going to try that again in the future.


• A significant percentage of people (30+%) will watch with subtitles on, whether they are lyrics or FS program notes, so making them is worth the effort and not just a nice thing you should do!


• For making a video from a gazillion different sources, like the Swan Lake one, it is REALLY helpful to color-code the clips by movement direction (I did leftwards/rightwards/other)

Trivia that I didn't bother writing in their write-ups

• I'M A SWAN LAKE is the fastest I've ever made a vid, though it still went through a few rounds of editing more than it probably warranted. I truly did get tetris effect'd by the repeated swan arms while making the main video. Now where I heard that stupid meme song, that I don't remember.


• I went back and put some smiling Chuso clips into Stamina after it was mostly done, because it starts with her staring down the vault runway over and over, and I wanted to capture the lighter side of her personality, too. I am also pleased that her last three Olympic beam routines were filmed at the same angle, because it looked pretty seamless when I spliced her back roll sequences together. And I squeezed in that clip of her fussing with her barrette partially because it was relevant to how long of a career she's had and how gymnastics hair styles have changed, and partially because it made me laugh that someone stood there filming a teenager straightening out her hair and then someone else included it in a compilation video of her years later.


• Gasoline had the largest lag between wanting to make it and actually making it of any fan video I've made. It's also the only one so far where the song was the main direct inspiration for the video.


• There is exactly one clip in Come, O Eclipse that is mirrored, because it made the action flow better. Usually I would never mirror clips where someone is wearing kimono, because then everyone will become zombies, but you can't see the front of their clothing clearly in that particular clip. And the video got someone to ask me for the video file of the movie!


• Spin Me! started life a couple of years ago, but I only got as far as plunking down some Satton clips and trying out arranging them on the screen in an an interesting way before I wandered off and made other things instead.