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Vidding and TV Memes [Jan. 15th, 2008|03:51 pm]

anoel
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[Current Mood |good]
[Current Music |The Wire S4 theme]

Happy Birthday [livejournal.com profile] klia! I love your vids and think you are a kind and awesome person :) And yes, I'm going to try to do these this year since I will hopefully be posting more.

Know what's wonderful? Being out all day (including reading some interesting/inspiring books in the local bookstore) only to come home to read my amazing Flist. Just reading LJ, reading comments and seeing lots of vidding love puts me in such an awesome mood as I saw once again yesterday. It's just nice reading about so many things I'm interested in and that feels like *home* to me in a community way. I love it and don't know what I did before fandom.

If you haven't seen by now (have you been living under a rock?), the The Great Vidding Truth Meme is going around again where you can tell listed vidders anonymously what you think of their vids including (and encouragingly) constructive criticism. My thread is here and I would LOVE to receive any comments especially any thoughts on how I can improve as I'm always looking to get better. But everything is definitely appreciated. So if you'd like to make any comments on any vidders work and maybe find some new vidders, it's a great place for it. I really love to read the various opinions on vidders' work, it's always interesting to see what people think.

That Television Meme which I had to do as they used some Office quotes for titles )

Speaking of TV theme song, I am in LOVE with the S4 theme of The Wire. I can listen to it over and over for hours nonstop. It's just so emotionally resonant especially with the singers. I uploaded it here if anyone needs it. Also, does anyone have the Due South theme with words that I could download? I only have the instrumental and the words make all the difference in this case.
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Everything that is awesome [Oct. 5th, 2007|01:51 am]

anoel
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[Current Mood |jubilant]
[Current Music |the office]

A meme that perfectly fits my mood today:

Rules are easy, just post 10 things that recently made you happy! Tag 10 people and force them to post this meme on their LJs. Do it if you have happy things to say!

1. THE OFFICE. MY SHOW!! It's back every week and it's still making me ridiculously happy and gleeful and I love ALL the characters and it's definitely my favorite show by infinity. Tonight's episode was hilarious and I loved it even more than last week with my FAMILY and the continuity and the relationships and KELLY *hearts* Can it always be Office day please?
2. There might be a Serenity movie!!! Apparently from Alan Tudyk, “They had to put [the new DVD] out because they’ve been selling out of the other one and so Universal’s like ‘So, let’s do another one’. And now… there’s now a chance there’s going to be another movie". OMG SQUEE! I mean, it's not for sure but that still makes me insanely happy that there's a chance. I'm getting the Collector's set for my birthday but I want to encourage everyone who loves Firefly/Serenity to buy it!
3. Pushing Daisies did well in the ratings! Everyone was so worried about them and now it won the time period :D I had faith because it is the only drama in the time period and seriously, the pilot is so beautiful and charming and brilliant, how could people not want to check it out? That being said, I was nervous all day and was very happy to hear it did well. Now the scary part is whether it loses any viewers next week.
4. Justin from Ugly Betty FILLS ME WITH CUTENESS! He is so adorable. And him and Marc are so awesome and make me so gleeful. And Wilhelmina is back to her awesome self. The whole show was hilarious tonight.
5. My boys from Supernatural are back! Still blah about the plot but there relationship is so cute and I adore Dean and the emo pain.
6. Grey's Anatomy is fun again! It's actually funny and there is the awesomeness of Cristina and slash that makes me happy (four instances for my favorite pairings!) and Bailey being super amazing and Meredith not being totally horrible. I prefer to ignore the bad things.
7. The Office did well in ratings on Thursday! It went up against heavy competition, yay! My show is awesome.
8. My birthday next week with a new Office episode!!! BEST present ever.
9. Mr. Bennett and Claire on Heroes continue to make me very gleeful each week. Also M cubed *hearts them*
10. Going to California in one month and a week!!!! Finally I get to go home to where I belong. With the warm weather and palm trees and entertainment capital of the world and the ocean and everything pretty much.

I need sleep. But I am happy to see my Flist full of TV squee. I have been fighting my anti-writing/procrastination nature lately and lack of sleep does not help.
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This is Bull**** (Can't watch that episode now) [Sep. 4th, 2007|08:45 pm]

anoel
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[Current Music |"The Way I Am" by Eminem]
[Current Mood |pissed off]

So I got my Office DVDs today which I've been waiting four months for and of course I can't play them. Just got home from a two day trip without internet access and a long day at work and all I want to do is watch all the extras, deleted scenes and commentary but I can't. ARGH. 4 TV's, 3 computers and one TV/DVD I can't use because my dad won't let me and the other option, the playstation just ate my DVD and won't eject it and I can't get it open because we don't have the right screwdriver. And the three other DVD players don't work for one reason or another. So now I can't watch my DVDs.

Congratulations universe, you WIN.

Good things:

-INTERNET.
-Watched my Heroes DVDs and the extras (minus commentaries/all but disc 1 deleted scenes) which are cool although slightly lacking in terms of a blooper reel. I want to see more of the cast touching!
-Am back in a Firefly mood after watching the DVDs the last few days. Our Mrs. Reynolds and Jaynestown are just love and the Our Mrs. Reynold's deleted scene is hilarious. And then the extras are so much love especially the making of (DAMN YOU FOX) and the theme song. (And now I can't watch the Joss interview on The Office DVD :( ). And then I've been watching my favorite Firefly vids lately especially Rodeohead and a bunch of Firefly mashups I've made
-Vid Mashups. They are so fun to make and sometimes turn out amazing in terms of lyrics and music.
-Finished Wonderfalls which I adore. I stopped watching last time after the third episode which bored me but I needed something smart and fun to watch so I watched the fourth episode and feel madly in love. I think that one's still my favorite although Crime Dog is awesome as well. I just bore quickly of the romantic subplot(s), I'm all about Jaye and her family.
-Dante's Cove which is just...indescribable. I watch for the boy kissing and the beaches and hot sex and we'll just ignore the bad dialogue and acting and everything else wrong with it.
-No school tomorrow or anytime soon. No essays, thank god.

I miss California so much. I want to go *home*.
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Beach trip, coping mechanisms, Queer as Folk, Whose Line and why I vid versus fic [Jan. 16th, 2007|02:20 pm]

anoel
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[Current Mood |contemplative]

Happy Birthday [livejournal.com profile] laurashapiro and [livejournal.com profile] ringwrench! I hope you both have wonderful days full of joy, fannish goodies and cake :)

Last Tuesday I celebrated the last 80 degrees day here by going down to Long Beach for the first time. It was really nice, I loved the marina and the downtown area was great. Plus I went swimming even though the water was freezing since I've never gotten the chance to do so in the ocean in January. It was a very Veronica Mars moment. Even with the recent cold front which hasn't been that bad considering I can handle 60's and tolerate 50s. Still loving that I have tons of free time and can do whatever I want with it. Also a book rec, Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez. I randomly started reading it in a library in Buffalo after using the internet because it had three cute boys on the cover and I figured I might as well slash them. Turns out I didn't need to (which is easily seen by the title but I didn't notice that) and it was a very good book about three gay teens trying to deal with their lives. I had a lot of fun finding parallels to Queer as Folk as there are a bunch of them. There's Nelson, a combination of Emmett and Michael with the PFLAG mom and crush on his best friend, Kyle. Kyle's a much toned down version of Justin with the coming out issues who has a crush on Jason who is not Brian (sadly) but more like a good version of Chris Hobbes (although his family has some Brian issues). It's a fun read, I really enjoyed it.

New Coping Mechanisms:

Get fully invested in watching the entire Chargers game only to see them lose heartbreakingly so...watch Whose Line. (No more football for me)
Feel down or bored or angry (most recently at a Smallville promo that made me want to throw up...one word: Clana)...watch Whose Line.

Replacing Whose Line with The Office or Gilmore Girls works well to. Laughing really does help a lot. I am loving The Office with Michael just being hilarious with his horrible social skills and bad jokes. Best comedy I've seen since Arrested Development and I love the camera work. Supernatural and Grey's Anatomy are still awesome on Thursday nights, I don't really have much to say that hasn't been already said.

On a Queer as Folk note, my personal awards as I go through the episodes in future vid work:

My favorites under the cut )

More reasons Colin Mochrie is made of awesome: not only are three of his favorite TV shows Buffy, Angel and Firefly (can't get much better than that), his favorites are: The musical episode and "Hush" are my favorite Buffy's. The Angel episode where he turns into a Muppet is fun and all of the Firefly episodes. I would have loved to have been a funny vampire on Buffy. Yay for the musical and all of Firefly, of course :)

Whose Line ramblings under the cut )

Oh and I wrote some fic! Whose Line, Ryan/Colin. I've written some other fics at times but have never finished or published any online. It reminded me though why I stick with vids love is to see is the Colin and Ryan show, all improv between them ALL the time. It'd be pure heaven, loads of slash I'm sure and too funny. I really think they are the best at improv in terms of laughabiliand not fic. For one, I'm just not that interested in writing fic as I don't get a lot of ideas and don't find it really enjoyable. It's nice once in awhile though. My biggest problem, especially with fanfic, is that I find it really hard to write the characters. I always feel like the characters when I write them are one dimensional and almost always OOC. I feel I put too much of myself into fics and it doesn't come out as the unique characters. I also find it hard to express what I see in my head and that really, really frustrates me, being a perfectionist. I read so many other amazing fics and I would love to write like them but realistically, it's just not going to happen. And I know practice makes perfect and all that but I'm not all that interested in doing so. I hate taking an idea that I love so much and writing it and then feeling like it's crap and I did what I imagined an injustice. I'd much rather spend my time vidding, trying to be the best vidder I can be and making vids that I enjoy and am proud of and can parse reasonably well how good they are and ways to get better. I'm much more of an idea person anyways, I like making connections and drawing parallels and juxtapositions in the text instead of making up new things. Which I do enjoy but usually more in a imagination sense, another reason why I enjoy reading fic so much more than writing.

The thing is, I get into a show when I love the source. For all my fandoms, I love the characters and the relationships and the storylines and I want to show why I love it so much. That's why I love vidding so much, to visually show why I love it and usually the specific parts I really enjoy. A lot of times my favorite ideas and vids to watch are explorations of a character through a relationship since that's one of my favorite things about shows. My favorite fics are often the same thing and the more interesting takes on characters and meta on the show are usually where my interest lies. But a key difference in why I read fic is because I want to see something that was never shown on screen and often not possible to show. That's why I most read slash when I read fic, because I see a lot of het onscreen (and in RL) that I don't need to see as much of it unless a pairing really grabs me and leaves me wanting more.

This is why even though I LOVE Brian/Justin from Queer as Folk, I barely read any fic for them because I don't feel a need to. I got so much of what I wanted onscreen, so much romance and love portrayed in so many ways that I don't really need the fic. But because I got so much onscreen, it makes me want to vid it a LOT because there's so much to show especially in terms of the ever interesting Brian Kinney. Contrast that with Whose Line which, because of the nature of the show, gets almost no dramatic storylines at all which I love. So I'm shipping a slash pairing that I see so many of the classic romantic, sexual, friendship signs from, even getting kisses along the way, but yet I never see any classic plots. It leaves me always wanting more, of the ship and of the *real* story of them, the dramatics and angst and romance. Everything. And because it doesn't look like there'll ever be a happy ending (for what I want), my need will never be satisfied which always drives me wanting more fic of any kind. It's a much harder show to vid for that very same reason, so many of the things I wish I could vid happened offscreen so I must make do with what I have and through fic.

In conclusion, Dean yay, vidding! (I swear I'll have a new one out this week),
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Cat (+Serenity) Pics! [Dec. 10th, 2006|05:37 pm]

anoel
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[Current Music |vids]
[Current Mood |lazy]

Cause there is no bad when it comes to cat pics. These are my kitties that I'm missing so much:

Pics under the cut )

After hearing about the awesome Firefly cast coming to Flanvention, I can't believe how close they are to me. I must pay more attention to the news so I can hopefully have a chance to meet them.

Also I have an iMeem (like YouTube but with better quality videos) here so feel welcome to create an account and/or friend me.
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Spring Break [Apr. 9th, 2006|08:18 pm]

anoel
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[Current Mood |content]
[Current Music |"Out Here" by Peter Mulvey]

So its finally Spring Break and boy do I need it. I plan on spending it by watching lots of TV shows (mostly Due South and Buffy), reading, vidding and of course, sleeping. I may even try my hand at a bit of writing, not sure.

I'm trying to see if I can finish most of the episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer this week as I've only seen random episodes and vids for the show and figured I need to get the whole experience. Compared to Firefly, I do struuggle a bit with really identifying and loving the characters but I do relate to Willow somewhat and like all the characters, especially Giles and later I love Spike. I will say though, that Angel looks sooo much younger in the first season and that it makes him so much hotter. He's so pretty and has the whole mysterious thing going for him. Speaking of pretty, Fraser has reached the top of that scale for me. I'm on the sixth episode now and I keep repeating how beautiful he is. In that pure, utterly gorgeous and angelic type way. Definitely one of my favorite characters of all time as I can't help falling for his good character and honor and cuteness. And I love all his different environment pain and naivity to the ways of Chicago. Fraser and Vecchio are just too cute together, really funny and although I'm more behind them in a friendship with a light side of slash way, they definitely have their moments. I'm looking forward to the Fraser/RayK episodes though, after falling in love with them by seeing Burning Down the House and Eclipse and am now restraining myself to stay in order. And it is here where I have to rec one of my favorite videos from [livejournal.com profile] heres_luck, "Out here" which shows Fraser's pain so well but also has an amazing sequence with so many emotional stages and final victory. It's blows me away everytime. Also another rec for a story for Fraser/RayK would be one of my favorites, Heavy Bag by [livejournal.com profile] katallison that gets to me everytime I read it. And while your there, End of the Road is one of the most amazing stories I've ever read.

Speaking of fic recs, I just read one of my favorite fics ever that's gotten me back into Duncan/Methos and fic reading. Check out Straight and Low by [livejournal.com profile] lastrega. Found it randomly and got hooked with its funniness and it being incredibly HOT. Some fics just hit my kinks *perfectly*. Walls and seducing always get to me and this one did not disappoint. So now I'm back into DM/M and planning on seriously working on my video that I planned for them last fall. It'll be much better now since I can use my dvds to vid. And I have another vid idea for them which I think could turn out well. Duncan/Methos vid ideas don't come to me very often but when they do, they hit hard. It feels like the song is made for the ship and the voice just calls to me that its completely them. Really want to vid them now, overtaking the two vids that I actually wanted to work on this break. But I don't mind, I just need to vid and stop doing nothing. It's been too long since I seriously undertook it. This couple is actually the one that I'm going to try to write for. We'll see what happens there.

On another note, I got into Chapman University with good financial aid and a nice scholarship and I think I might be going there. Having a great film school right there is extremely tempting...

ETA: I am reeeally excited for VividCon. I can't believe I'm going and that I'll have a chance to be around tons of vid meta, new videos and amazing vidders. Sounds like heaven to me.
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Sophomore Slump [Jan. 29th, 2006|02:52 am]

anoel
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[Current Mood |contemplative]
[Current Music |"The Wings" from the BBM soundtrack]

So I guess the sophomore slump phenomenen really is true. It seems that most of the shows I've watched have been struck with it in one way or another. A recap:

Thoughts on Seasons 1-2 in shows of Veronica Mars, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Lost, Queer as Folk, The OC, Smallville under the cut )

So my conclusion for why the sophomore slump occurs? I think the writers develop a great setup in the beginning and plan that out for the season and then are left out of ideas for the next. They carry the first season too much into the second and cause the second season to lack its own focus. As ideas are used up, the storylines become a bit too much like the old ones. Less time is taken for friendly character interaction and as characters get on the wrong sides of each other, it becomes harder for good feelings to prevail. Characters change to the point that we start losing the love we had for who they were in the first place. New characters can keep the original ones apart and take away the core of the show instead of adding freshness.

I find it ironic that people overlook things about the first season for the reason that the show is finding its legs but yet the first season is often better than the first. And the third season can go either way, good or bad. Here's hoping that my shows will turn out on the good side. Or else new better pilot shows will rise to take their place.
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New Firefly Vid [Jan. 2nd, 2006|11:44 pm]

anoel
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Mood |accomplished]
[Current Music |Garden State Soundtrack]

Here's a new video I made for [livejournal.com profile] serenity_santa for my giftee [livejournal.com profile] jebbypal, taking me most of my break:

Name: All For You
Editor: Anoel
Song: "All for you" by Sister Hazel
Source: Only Firefly episodes, no movie
Description: Mal and his ship, cause and crew.
Size: 22 MB
Link: All For You
Streaming

All feedback greatly appreciated. Enjoy!

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[Dec. 31st, 2005|12:51 pm]

anoel
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[Current Music |"Brighter than Sunshine" by Aqualung]
[Current Mood |awake]

So I saw the fandom meme going around and decided to just fill it in myself for a bunch of my fandoms. Always fun to think about.

Firefly
1. The character I first fell in love with: Mal. Obviously. Was in love with him from the beginning and was oh so happy to find a Joss character that I was hopelessly in love with.
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: That'd be Zoe. Watching the series again, I'm liking her more and more whereas at first she seemed a bit one dimensional to me.
3. The character everyone else loves that I don't: River. I enjoy her funny lines but am meh about the crazy girl stuff. She did get better in the movie but I still don't get the love.
4. The character I love that everyone else hates: Um...do people hate characters in this fandom?
5. The character I used to love but don't any longer: Well I still have a bit of love left but I'm liking Simon less than I did before. I got caught up in the hotness before but he can be a bit of an idiot although it is perfect to make fun of. Although he's great in Ariel.
6. The character I would shag anytime: Mal. Guhh. He is to die for.
7. The character I'd want to be like: Mal definitely. I'm a lot like Kaylee but it'd be fun to be more like her as well. Also it'd be cool to be like Zoe.
8. The character I'd slap: Probably Simon for being so easy to fool. But in a good way.
9. A pairing that I love: Anything with Mal except Book and River ie Mal/Simon, Mal/Jayne, Mal/Kaylee, Mal/Zoe, Mal/Inara, etc. Also I like Jayne/Simon and Jayne/Kaylee.
10. A pairing that I despise: There's none that I really hate, just don't get a few. Not into River so anything with her, I'm not into. Didn't use to like Wash/Zoe but I'm warming up to them.

More (Veronica Mars, Grey's Anatomy, Queer as Folk, Highlander, Nip/Tuck) under the cut )
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[Dec. 4th, 2005|11:19 pm]

anoel
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[Current Music |"Hide Another Mistake" by The 88]
[Current Mood |grateful]

First of all, Happy Birthday to [livejournal.com profile] killabeez. I love all your Highlander stuff and especially all your videos and I'm glad you're around to create them. I hope you have a great day :)

In other news, figuring out the [livejournal.com profile] ga_santa assignments took forever and I wish I was able to make sure people got wishlists they liked but I guess I won't know completely. Some just seemed like perfect matches and others I wasn't sure about. All in all, it took longer than I thought and I'm glad I didn't have to do a ton of people. Guess this is what you have to do when you start/organize something.

On a more positive note, I got my secret santa assignments and I'm excited to begin them. Going to be fun to do things for Veronica Mars and Firefly, two of my favorite true ensemble shows where I love almost all the cast and really enjoy the shows. One of my SS's made a really detailed list and was funny which was nice to see. Hope I can make something good for them. And in return I just got my first present! It's my new icon default :D

Just saw some movies the last couple weeks and am going to see some more soon. I saw Harry Potter and really enjoyed it with some reservations. Also last night I saw Pride and Prejudice and I loooved it. I've read 3/4 of the book and liked it but the movie was *love*. Mr. Darcy is just too hot and I liked Elizabeth, Keira Knightly did a good job with her. And of course, Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth are the OTP! Just absolutely beautiful together and mindblowingly romantic. I loved the touches, the looks, the snark, the beauty and especially the romance. The end scene was to die for and the one before that with the sunset was one of the most artistically romantic scenes I've ever seen, just stunningly beautiful. I need to vid that eventually. I'm looking forward to seeing the Chronicles of Narnia which was one of my favorite books as a kid and I just looved Aslan because, lions rule. And then of course there's Brokeback Mountain because I'm dying to see that. Finally a movie that caters to all my interests. And I read the short story it's based on and that was soo good and made me cry at the end. Cannot wait to see it, just wish it was out sooner in my area. I just cannot wait to see the gay cowboy love! Hee. Going to be so cute.
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Firefly Meme [Sep. 28th, 2005|12:39 am]

anoel
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Mood |excited]
[Current Music |"Pride" by Syntax]

When you see this on your flist, quote Firefly.

Mal: The management here don't take too kindly to sightseers, which is why we're posin' as buyers. There ain't a one of us looks the part more than the good doctor. I mean, the pretty fits.Soft hands - definitely a moneyed individual. All rich and lily-white, pasty all over--
Simon: All right! Fine. I'll go. Just stop describing me.

Mal: “We’re not gonna die. We can’t die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so…very…pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die.”

Yes. Much too pretty. Watch Serenity, the movie, this Friday. *loves on Mal* Going to be awesome!

Also, watch the Veronica Mars premiere tomorrow night at 9. Best show EVER.
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