VVC Personal Postmortem - My PreReport on the Con

So, work is hell. Seriously - it is just like High School, only without the social diversions. Well, there are cliques and stuff, but the cattiness was much more pointed and interesting in High School. This is just a pale social experiment-like imitation.

I had a meeting with my new boss on Friday. We outlined a plan. I mentioned that maybe I need Ritalin. She looked at me and said that I was just bored. I couldn't deny it. Her goal is to get me to move up to a more challenging position. I didn't let her know that the more challenging positions are still boring as fuck. I'm fully vested (apparently this is important) in January and I have over 20 days of vacation coming to me. I need to keep thinking about that. Oh, and there is a pension.

I hope the vest has sequins.

But! Last night f1renze told me that no one even knows if I had fun at VVC this year and I was all gobsmacked with the horror of people actually considering that it would even be possible for me to be at Vividcon and not a real good time.

Cause I did. And it really does get better and better and better each year. It shouldn't be possible, but it does.

Things I took away this year:

1. I realized multiPOV vids don't work as much for me (unless it is dual POV which I adore or ensemble). Not that I don't get and appreciate them, but the emotional connection is harder for me to make. This is a personal thing - just a me issue, and reflects not on any other vid I saw. I just thought about this a lot over the weekend.

This has made me reconsider a vid idea I had that was Wes/Gunn/Lindsey/Angel and now I realize that I'll be much more connected to the project as a whole if I just do it as a Gunn vid. Now, I've gone from slight excitement to OMG I must vid this NOW.

So yay.

2. I need to do more with After Effects. I knew this before the con, but absolut3destiny's panel just reinforced the need. There is a lot I want to do - and I know what it looks like and all I have to do is confront the fact that I need to sit my ass down and do a few tutorials. Cause it ain't gonna happen by itself.

Also - Photoshop. I am tired of smiling and nodding like I know what I am doing in Photoshop. I need to actually know.

3. Redesign Headtilt. Thank god I don't have to do this alone and I have fabulously wonderful and talented friends offering to help and YAY. But I do need to learn the basics on site maintenance. (Until then - if you want to refer anyone to a vid I made? Send them here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/sisabet/220944.html)

4. Vid more with sockkpuppett. This should speak for itself, but we really connect so well and I think it shows and now that Scooby Road is out there (and OMG - everyone reading this has heard about Scooby Road - right??) it is the time to hound, er - I mean - encourage Lum to consider projects with me. I should also probably quit telling her that the White Album is about Angel. Except it is.

5. Watch more television. I thought I was watching enough pre-con but I was wrong and I walked away with Dr. Who (Lum!) and China Beach source (renenet!) and Veronica Mars (renenet again!) and Dead Zone (renenet!!! I am beginning to sense a theme here). So far I am completely thru Dr. Who (twice!) and almost through DZ first season. Just this morning I hit enough canon that I am anxious to go back and watch "A Day In the Life" by astolat and cesperanza and more on *that* when I get around to reviewing the con discs. But - yeah, TV. TV is good. TV is my friend.

6. Approach the ripping apart of my own vid, before my beta tells me to tear it up, with renewed vigor and zeal. heres_luck and renenet's panel on the beta process really helped clarify this in my head - especially renenet and elynross's exchange about how to the vidder it feels like the beta is tearing their baby apart - we hand them a vid and say "Here. Please rip up my child" but in fact we hand them a very sick baby and they rebuild it. Yes. They make it better. Betas are like Vid Healers. Or Witch Doctors (I like chanting) and sometimes the cure is tough. Necessary, but tough.

Except I have been *extremely* lax on my own part of late. I send stuff to beta that I already know is not working, and part of this might be that I am playing a game of distraction. I am hoping a big whole section of disease will distract my beta from seeing things like... well, that my baby has a completely compromised immune system and needs to be totally rebuilt from the concept up.

And this approach isn't fair to me, my vid or my much maligned beta whose brain is very important to me. I need to treasure it as the resource it is.

7. Watch more vids. I have finally amassed a Vid Library to be proud of and it has only taken three years. I am very happy about this and hope when sweetestdrain has time off from college, we can have a vid party. It'll be fun!

8. Visit Luminosity. We really need to spend more time in each other's physical presense. Driving to and from Vividcon this year was really my favorite part of everything (it was even better than Club Vivid!) and I relied on being able to locate her during the con and having a drink of Bailey's and just discussing all the stuff that was rattling around in my head. Plus, she didn't kill me when I made her watch Scooby Road three times before we got to the con. Cause you can't watch it once. You really cannot. And twice will just make you sad and actually - I think you should just watch it again after the third time, but I think Lum's legendary patience might have snapped at that point. But it isn't my fault it is so wonderful and I get sad everytime the last vid starts playing. The only cure for that sadness is to restart it again, right away and that my friends, is entirely the fault of Luminosity.

9. I am not alone in the love and appreciation of Lord King Bad vids and in fact - I *love* these glimpses into all of our wonderfully cheesey psyches. Especially that of vagabondage whose fluffy-puppyness is exactly perfect for her. My chest gets tight just thinking of it. Beautiful, man. Just beautiful. Lord King Bad Vid Fever: Catch It!!!

10. I want "The Sentinel" fic called "The Joys of Tupperware" and I think I've talked Zen into writing it. YAY. I apparently spent a good portion of the weekend thinking about TS, which is strange as I've never actually watched the show, or read the fic and I've only seen, maybe, three vids to it total. I think somewhere along the line, in my head, The Tick got confused with TS and so the brilliant "Crush Story" vid in premieres kinda morphed into - oh yeah - Jim and Blair are the Tick and Arthur. 'Kay.

My head is a very strange place. I like it here.

OH and a final note:

11. I need more of the "Here's Luck and Renenet Show" LIVE - cause I think I hurt myself laughing at one point.

and on a final final note:

12. There were so many people I wanted to see, meet or spend time with and I never did it and man - crap. So - for next year, I've instituted instructions for dealing with a VVC-Dazed Liz:

Grab me - shake me a little until my eyeballs start to focus and point in the same direction. Point to your name tag. Smile.

I'll do the rest.


Con report to follow.. ish. Con report will followish this post.