A little ode to pets, because, well, why not.

I actually managed to put this together in a day, which... sort of surprised me, since I've never made a movie before. I suppose I'll just have to do this again.

Jesus motherflipping cripes on a snowboard, this did not want to encode to the site. A million thanks to thesherbethead for getting online an helping me not punch things. <3

As per Joe's request, the SXSW check-signing video, edited snappily. Though may I just say, in the future, hitRECorders, when you are going to post something exciting, please don't do it at 4 AM. Some of us are insomniacs and ignoring the dulcet tones of our laptops going you know you want to open your video editing software... come on.... sleep is for losers... is very difficult.

It's a good thing I love you all no matter what. <3

Some stock footage of me putting on (and taking off) my makeup. Use how you like.

(See, LizSmalls, I do wear makeup! Sometimes!)

This is less of an animation and more of a slideshow storyboard of what I'd like the animation to become. If there's anyone out there who understands Flash enough to make this into something pretty, I'd pretty much love you forever.

Literally, any excuse to show off my gerbils, I will take. This is what a gerbil day looks like, only gerbils have about three mini-days in one normal day.

As promised, a video to The Morning Hollows' In the Rain. It's not a great work of cinematic genius, but I did change out of my pajamas and actually put on a little bit of makeup in order to film this, which makes it, at the very least, a major personal achievement.

Apparently when I say in a re-REC album "someone should do ____!" I mean "Julia, you know what you should do when you have a few hours to kill that you want to do instead of tackling your to-do list? That thing!" So this afternon I dug up a bunch of public domain old-timey footage, pieced it together, and voila! A video for the lovely song-like thing (still doesn't feel like a song to me, still not sure what to call it) "Try Not to Think About That".

You know, if I ever gathered up all the time I spend procrastinating and bored noodling around in various creative computer programs and actually directed it towards something, it's entirely possible I could turn into a productive and contributing member of society at some point in my life.

...nah.

Hey everyone, I know it's a little long, and my camera gives me a lisp, and I'm kind of awkward, but thanks to Joe's recent Regularity I discovered the Pocket Autopsy collab, and I'm super-duper excited about it. So here's a bit of a Regularity of my own, just explaining what I'd like to see and what I think needs to be done. The kinds of stuff I mention I like (and would like more of) is resourced, as promised.

So if you stick out the entire video of me blabbing, first of all, thank you. Second of all, please, please, please help me do this. This is a cool project. I like it. I want it to be awesome(r than it already is).

Never, ever let it be said that I like making life easy for myself. No, instead of choosing just one of the many lovely texts written for the Pocket Autopsy collab, I decided to choose them all. And then mash them into one mega-video. The result, I'm pretty sure, makes no logical or coherent sense. Or, if you look at it from another angle, maybe it's not supposed to. Maybe it's all new-age and pretentious and artsy. Maybe I did that on purpose. I say "maybe" because I've been working on and off on this video for a week, And part of that "on" was the last twelve hours straight with only stops for necessities like food. Is it good? I have no idea. But it's done.

On the bright side, in the process of making this, I did get a very extensive tour through pretty much every video put up on hitRECord. Ever. You only think I am joking.

I was having a bit of a crisis of creativity today, so I went back to the list I keep (yes, there's a list) of ideas for hitRECord that I want to get around to in the nebulous some day, and today's winner was a video version of Rachel's amazing written and spoken word piece. It's edited down because the full thing is seven minutes, but seriously, I didn't think I was up to seven minutes of this. Like, emotionally. Not because it wasn't awesome.

I promised Pammy if she uploaded her voiceover I'd make a video, and I love love love love this video from the Row Your Boat collab that was posted ages ago. Alors, voila! Je fais les deux ensemble.  (...that's correct, right? It's been four years since I've spoken a word of French. I don't know.)

And now for something completely different - a mix tape/CD/playlist/etc, etc! I decided to make a video talking about it both for fun and to test and see how well my webcam works, which is pretty well. Unlike my camera, this microphone only gives me a partial lisp.

Warning: this is nine and a half minutes long (but relatively lo-res so it should not be stuck in encoding limbo). In my defense, I'm discussing thirteen different tracks. That's under a minute per track. So there.

Also, if you thought Joe said "um" a lot, this is a whole new realm of "um"s. Screw an um song, this could be an um symphony. With movements. And that's not including the ones I managed to edit out.

I'm not normally a person who says "um" or "uh" or  "like" a lot. It's just not something I do. This weekend, however, I discovered there is one situation that I am guaranteed to um like a crazy person - when I'm self-consciously talking to a camera about a set list of points. Like when I did my RE-Rec Summer mix. And not only do I um in that situation, but I uh and ah and develop all sorts of crazy verbal tics.

So the math of it is this - I did two takes of me just straight-up talking, both of which were about fifteen minutes each, making it so I had about thirty minutes of footage in total. The original edit was down to 9:30 (which is pretty good, I think). The edit of just my ums (and not even all of them, some of them I said so quickly I couldn't catch just the um) is three minutes. That means 1/10 of all my talking, when I am nervous, is ums.

My only defense is there's a reason I don't do this for a living.

So, people working on the Um Song collab, if you need more people to re-mix, or harmonize, or however it is you would like to proceed, here you go. A plethora of ums.

I promised you it existed! Because I like to pretend you all care desperately, here is how I make a piece of art; a lazy, meandering week-long project that I have boiled down to six minutes.

Here I was, so proud of myself for churning this out so quickly even whilst I had an appointment, and then I come back from said appointment to see... three other people have beat me to it. Dammit, hitRECorders! Must you be so competent and speedy? Can't you just choose one?

Anyway, here's my promotional offering, I like to pretend the funky beats and hella awesome editing will make it stand out, even if it is about a minute and a half (gasp! So long! It's like the Lord of the Rings of promos) when Joe asked for thirty seconds.

But I will take pity liking. Pity works just fine for me.

The nice thing about sleeping on something is the ability to look at it with fresh eyes and realize what you did wrong. Case in point, my last promo video? Really was too lengthy and had too many gratuitous scenery porn shots. So with that in mind, I set out to create a shorter version, whilst merging all the things I liked from the other two popular promos (Attilee's brevity! Matt's editing!) while retaining what I liked about mine. If the last promo was the Lord of the Rings of promos, this is like the Captain Planet of promos. (In that when our powers combine... yeah. I make super-relevant pop culture refrences.)

First attempt at making a re-Rec bumper. I'm not totally satisfied with this, which is why I've marked it as a first draft, and I'm open to suggestions for improvement. I think the music might need changing because it feels sort of slow? I don't know. Critique me! Suggest resources! Et cetera!

Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse. Changed quite a few things. Further suggestions, mes amis?

And we're done! Thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions, e-mailed me different formats of things when my computer was cranky, and were generally fabulous. But most special thanks to Matt, who not only was an excellent provider of resources, but a wealth of suggestions. A bazillion hearts for you, sir, and I owe you big time. Like, a night of free babysitting if you and the missus want a night out in Boston, big time.

Dear everyone who needs to go through this - I'm sorry. This was initially a half-hour long (really!) ramble on every single thought I have ever had about movies, and I managed to condense it down to 13 minutes. The first part is just memories of movies I've seen in theaters, the second is my thoughts on the movie industry. Of which I have a lot. I did try to give this a dark background as requested, but that much darkness made my camera go all grainy and weird.  So so much for that.

Holy crapping crap, Batman, I finished this on time!

So as I have demonstrated before, I do not believe in making things easy on myself, which is why I didn't just try to take one aspect of people's thoughts re: cinema, but to make a giant, definitive multi-subject documentary. In 72 hours. I... do not know why I do these things to myself.

So after lots of sweat and tears and internalization of unspeakable guilt every time I didn't use another magnificent resource, here's my first offering. As always, consider it a draft, and make as many suggestions as your little heart desires. I'm always up for re-working something.

NOTE: I think I have credited all the resources I have used in this. However, with juggling so many, it's highly possible I either mis-credited someone who I didn't end up using, or didn't credit someone I did. If you think this applies to you, leave me a note and I'll fix it ASAP.

In the midst of working on my second version of the RE: Cinema documentary (now with added BFI footage!), this magnificent collaboration got posted. So I took a break and just made a simple movie. So simple. Only two resources, simple.

Sigh. I forgot how easy that can actually be.

See the low-res version for notes and resources and stuff.

Of course after the BFI event, I couldn't just ignore all the great footage and new testimonials put up, so version two, now with better sound editing! As usual, any comments, criticisms, or suggestions are welcome.

NOTE: When you start nearing sixty resources, it's inevitable you're going to miss crediting one or two. If I have used yours and not credited it, please let me know and I'll fix that immediately.

Per Joe's request, version 2.0, now without music. I in no way have the time, energy, or, let's be honest, patience to go back and resource everyone again, so if you need to find a specific resource, either leave me a comment and I will point you in the right direction, or you can go through the resources on the original version.

Edit: And this time I actually included the file. This is why I should never post to hR within an hour of waking up.

Joe mentioned kind of vaguely on Vickie's footage that he wanted a more edited-together video for this song, so voila! This is very much a first draft to me, so comments, criticisms, and suggestions are very much appreciated.

The hitRECord revolution will now be televised.

Additional Notes:

1. No re-recs this week. This video (which I have taken to referring to as "the beast") took up all my time and energy, to the point where I forgot to even look at what people were putting up on hR for most of the week. I'm relying on you guys to tell me what I missed, because there's way too much for me to go through otherwise.


2. I used a butt-ton of public domain resources. If one of them interests you, leave me a note with the time at which it was used and I can probably go back and find it. I tried to keep an organized list of resources for all the public domain I used, but it was way too difficult.


3.   Per usual, I used roughly a bazilion different videos, so if I either fail to resource yours or resource something I didn't end up using, leave me a note letting me know.


4. I consider this a mostly finished product but, as always, I'm open to and welcome revising and suggestions.


5. This video was brought to you by Trader Joe's popsicles, which I consumed a frankly obscene number of in order to fuel the making of this monster. I couldn't have done it without you guys. You were both magnificent and delicious.

Some short clips of dunes, flowers, tall grass, dunes, seaweed, rocks, waves, the sunset, seashells, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And set to music because I find silent stock footage super creepy.

Let's all pretend my inability to hold a camera steady is endearing, okay?

A while ago I was watching old show videos and wondering to myself, "self, why is Dr. Gory making a RE: Cinema video when I already made one?" And then I watched mine. And realized it's seven minutes long. So that is why.

I realized this around Fall Formal time when I was busy doing other projects and I knew no RE: Cinema stuff would be shown there. So it's been on the back burner until this morning when I was thumb-twiddly and bored and decided now was as good a time as any to make a bite-sized version of my behemoth. It pained me to cut so much of it - almost all of my favorite clips and stories had to be cut for the sake of the narrative and time - but for the purposes of making a discussion-opener, I think this works pretty well. As always, notes, criticisms, suggestions, et cetera, are welcome.

If I mis-credit or incorrectly resource something, let me know. I did my best to go back and figure out which clip went with which resource, but it's been a couple of months and I'm only human.

A Slightly Off-Topic Note on Re-RECs Because There's Nowhere Better To Post This: If you are a dedicated follower of mine (do I have dedicated followers? Let's pretend I do), you may have noticed I have stopped doing re-RECs. It may have made you sad. If it did, I have some good news and bad news. Bad news, I'm not going to be doing them for a while. Good news, I'll be back to doing them by around Chirstmas time.

Currently, the issue is that I have a review to write about a late Saturday show, which means that by time I finish writing it either a) it's the very wee-est of wee hours on Sunday morning or b) it actually is Sunday morning. Or afternoon. Or night. It depends on how much I have to say. I tried juggling both that and re-RECs, but it was stressful and exhausting and meant that I spent my entire weekend glued to my computer with a headache and not, you know, actually interacting with human beings. So while I'm writing reviews, I am not doing re-RECs.

I mean, let's be honest, as much as I like to pretend this was actually a concern to people and them now having some sort of explanation makes them feel better, you probably didn't notice. So we'll all live until mid-December, and in the meantime I will not spend my weekend mainlining Aspirin and forgetting to shower. Win-win scenario.

For editing purposes. Resources, notes, etc,  in the music version.

I was pretty sad I couldn't make it to the Halloween show (logistics/work/lack of $$$), so instead of actually being there I shrunk it down to under a minute and made it into convenient video format. My idea behind this was less to capture each performance, but more for the video to capture the energy and feel of a live show - like this could function as a little ad to show to venues who are considering hosting us or people considering going to a show and be like "here is what a hitRECord live event is like".

(She says, having never actually been to a show herself.)

Anyway, as always, I count everything as a draft unless explicitly stated otherwise, so critique/suggestions are welcome. And if I didn't credit you properly, let me know.

I should also note that there are clips from Joe's Thriller performance that I yoinked from the hitRECord youtube video here. Normally this is not strictly kosher for copyright reasons, but a) it's the official hR youtube channel, so it's not like I took it from a nameless person who we can't credit and b) I got rid of the music, thereby neatly side-stepping the copyright issues. I'm pretty sure that makes it okay, legally speaking. But if not, let me know and I'll ask for it to be taken down. Cool? Okay cool.

I wouldn't call this a full-blown alternate version of my last video, more of a very slight adjustment. Per Matt and chariot13's suggestions, I did add some sound, though only Joe's welcome at the beginning. I tried clips from other segments, but they weren't fast enough and slowed down the pace of the movie. Plus, I liked the original feel, like you were almost fast-forwarding through the entire experience, and adding sound bits took away from that. I also swapped out more moon footage at the end for the gloam jack o' lantern, just because it's more of a unique hitRECord thing. They're minor differences, but I'm a big believer in listening to critique and trying anything once.

I'd been chewing over various Occupy Wall Street video ideas for a while in my head, but around the time Joe posted his footage and started the collab I'd settled on the idea of putting the modern visuals with old audio. Initially I was going to do a mashup of great speakers, but I ended up not liking that a) they were all old white dudes and b) it made the whole thing feel very disjointed. Eventually I settled on the LBJ Great Society Speech that he gave at the University of Michigan commencement in 1964. (It's public domain even though the site says it might not be - I called the LBJ Library to check, because I'm that paranoid. As the very nice Texan librarians told me, "all presidential speeches should be in the public domain, so y'all should be okay using them".)This is partially because it's a great, relevant speech, and partially because I really enjoyed telling everyone who wanted a description of what I was working on that I was "basically going to Lydon B. the crap out of their Johnson".

Har, har, I'm hilarious.

Anyway, as always, everything's a work in progress, leave comments and suggestions, blah blah blah, et cetera.

(Note: Archive.org has a great selection of footage from OWS, and I used quite a bit of it. If you're curious, check the resources, I'll be putting a text record with a list of all the videos I used and links to them.)

I wasn't sure what direction people would want to take the RE: Independence collab, so I just babbled for a really long time in three different directions and broke it up for efficacy's sake. In this segment, personal/interpersonal independence! Featuring discussions my being a difficult child, co-dependence in relationships, and my inability to be the "girl" in any relationship.

Part 2! In which I discuss being registered as an independent, political independence (or lack thereof) in America, and a philosophical tangent on independence v. selfishness/the place of independence in society.

Final part! Or: In which Julia alienates everyone with her unpopular opinions on television v. movies, complains about the movie industry, praises indie films.

Version 2 of my Great Society video, hopefully to be used at Sundance (?! Are we still doing re: OWS at Sundance?). This video owes a huge debt of gratitude to MissAmerica, whose Occupy video inspired me to re-work this with other people talking to tie it into the present, and whose invaluable suggestions at the end stretch of editing helped me tie the whole thing together and make it ten times better and more airtight than it started out as. In the results, I've also provided a music-free version for easier sound editing.

As always, if I forgot to resource something, let me know, and suggestions, direction, feedback, and constructive criticism is eagerly welcomed.

For sound editors.

So after watching Dr. Gory's rough cut of what he'd like for RE: Independence, I realized at 3 AM (the hour I get all my best/most stupid ideas) that in my babblings I had a really good base layer for a rough cut of a short about indie films. The problem is, I have a butt-ton of art I need to get done today for Strawberry Bootlaces, a similar butt-ton of snow to shovel, a dog in desperate need of a bath, and I was going to do re-RECs this weekend but that probably won't happen.

So, video editors! I have scrambled and snipped my thoughts into coherence, now it is your turn.  Layer in other people talking about indie movies, cut in some visuals, find me some visuals so I can get to this after the weekend, whatever. Go nuts. Have fun.

Still not under a minute, because I've found that's impossible (my thoughts are just too interesting and nuanced, apparently). But whatever, I got it down to under 3, and this started as ten minutes long, so I think we can all just agree this is as short as it gets.

The public domain resources used, for the curious:

Behind the Lens
Going Places
How Much Affection?
All the King's Horses
Palmour Street
Classic Television Commercials (Part I)
Television Tomorrow
Soundie - The Lamp of Memory
What Is Money?

I just was not feel re-recs this week, you guys. I don't know. I'll be back next week, but in the meantime, I needed me some strange. So I decided to discuss bad advice. I'm aware this is kind of not the point of Marke's collab, but what can I say, I felt that two of my greatest talents - sarcastic ranting and ignoring instructions - were not being showcased to their full extent.

Why do boring old re-recs when I can make a fun, sexy process video?

Actually, process videos are kind of a bitch to do, otherwise I'd do them way more, because I think they're super useful. But I've resolved that I was going to try, I had all this footage, and I was feeling sort of itchy with doing re-recs every week. Also, I really didn't feel like changing out of my pajamas. So a process video it is.

As always, if you are confused by or want to know more about anything I do in the video, ask in the comments! I will reply.