Checking in: Haikus, Pechakuchas, Tech?

[lola]

Hello summer school vexercisers!! How’s it going with the first vexercise? Did you decide to try the haikus, pechakuchas, both? If you did the haikus, how do you feel about the short length and the particular 5/7/5 second structure? If you’re doing the pechakuchas, how did you feel about the two different versions? Which version did you like best of the two you made, and why? And if you’ve done both haikus and pechakuchas, how do they compare?

I’ll admit, I’m kind of dying to hear about the haikus especially, and the difference in experience between haikus and pechakuchas, since we’re the first group taking them from theory to practice pretty much, and I do feel like they have a pretty different flow (both creating them and then the final product) than the pechakuchas.  

Also, let’s have a convo about tech! What editing programs are you using? What computers/devices are you using, for that matter? Does anyone have questions about how to get source etc., or how to do certain steps of the process?

Hope you’re having fun vidding/vexercising!

Comments

[nu_breed]

I absolutely LOVE the haikus! I did a triple one because I couldn’t cut my music below a minute and then when I’d done that I was seriously hyped to make the whole vid which I’m nearly finished making. I am waiting till the vid is done before posting the haiku so people can compare but it definitely feels more intuitive than the pechakuchas do in terms of vidding process, particularly around rhythmic editing and matching graphically.

The 5 7 5 was super interesting! It did make for some restrictions and particular with the 1 second clips there were some that could have done with being slightly longer and the 2 second ones shorter to match the musicality but overall I was pretty thrilled!

I also did one set of Pechakuchas and like last time played around with several songs and ended up with 4 (1 an alternate cut of the song I had already used) and I kind of loved all of them for different reasons :) I’m thinking of doing another round of Pechakuchas as a palate cleanser after finishing the vid.

Tech wise I am on an iMac and using Premiere Pro anc Handbrake for conversion (oh and my trusty 4K video/mp3 converter)

[marah_sarie]

The pechakucha was my very first experience making a vid, and I think the strict format really helped me get over the terror of not being sure how to start.

I then went and did the original vexercises 2 and 3 ahead of the summer school, so then coming back to the haiku, and having strict clip lengths again, but so much shorter ones, felt very different! I did a triple haiku, and I think between that and the song I used, it felt much more like there were naturally different sections in the vid, with intro, verse, chorus, giving it more of an actual structure.

I am on a Mac using Final Cut Pro. So far the hardest part of the process for me, by far, has been finding and deciding on songs to use. :) (Spotify's algorithm is probably really sick of me hitting "next" after the first 20 seconds of so many songs...)

[nu_breed]

Really recommend Discover Weekly and Release Radar for sourcing music off Spotify :)

And congrats on your first vid experience! I would have had no idea it was your first, you did such a great job!

[allheadybooks]

I wanted to try the haikus, so I spent a while researching around for 120 BPM songs and in the end went with the first one I tried, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "10x10." Still shuffling shots around--I'll be vidding for Killing Eve this time, the vexercise rounds are a great motivator for me to clip a new source!

Re: tech, I'm on Premiere Pro, and I'm happy to answer any questions folks have about how to use it for vidding! I definitely haven't mined all its capabilities but I have a basic workflow that's working for me. I usually grab source video off a torrenting site, as high quality as possible, and then run it through Any Video Converter to strip out the audio and convert it into a codec/file type that Premiere can handle. I don't actually know anything about codecs but I read a tutorial once and saved those settings so I can do it as automatically as possible!

[seekingferret]

The rhythms of 5-7-5 were weird. I kinda cheated by cutting the song so I started mid line to balance out the oddity of the rhythm, and also a lot of my 2 second clips used internal motion so they were effectively hitting both one second beats. But there's something to be said for a vidding format where you just quickly knock it out and there's not a lot to fiddle with.

[extrapenguin]

The pacing was noticeable. Like with pechakuchas, I used internal cuts, but it felt more ... cramped? I think I'd have wanted to do a tanka of 5-7-5-7-7 plus a longer "dénouement" shot had my music allowed/the source not fit the 5-7-5 so well. Hm. I think pechakuchas made for a better intro to vidding, since the base of the haiku was so short; it's like jumping into writing drabbles before you've made a single ficlet, in a way. *handwaving*

[caramarie]

Making something so short as the haikus was interesting! Even a 1 min vid gives you more time to develop a theme, where these were more showing one particular thing.

The structure dictated more what excerpt of music I used -- so I was looking for a part of the music that aligned with that, to a certain extent, as well as sounding okay at the length. (I used instrumental music, which makes that much easier!)

I use Vegas on PC (plus a range of ancillary programs for converting source etc). I usually like to rip my source myself, but that wasn't an option for the source I'm using. Damn the demise of physical media ...

[seasaltmemories_14]

I mentioned this a bit when posting mine, but I guess if I had to explain things, I feel pechakuchas and haikus use similar structures to teach very different lessons

With pechakuchas I feel you have to commit to the clips you use bc they are so long, and you only get ten of them, so for me it really made me think about internal cuts/sync, rather than hit every beat or line, I kinda had to pick my battles instead, especially bc it had to fit with a second set of audio, still I think those limitations are great for teaching ppl how to edit, in that it really reveals what you value from a vid and kinda forces you to produce something rather than sweat out the details

With haikus, the length is a bit more awkward, like caramarie said, 27 seconds isn't a lot of time to really develop an idea, and even when I tried doubling my length to 54 seconds, it seemed harder to fudge things so I could get all the audio I wanted (although that could just be chalked up to my music tastes)

They way I got around this was paying attention to bpm and honing in on just one idea (helped my audio was the outro of a song and the same line repeated again and again) the further I got in, I also felt my editing style shifted in that what I valued most in a clip wasn't necessary what it showed, but more how I could link it to the next clip, one second isn't a lot of time to process new info, and overall I found myself focused a lot on rhythmic editing, and in the end I think it pushed my style in really cool and interesting direction

TLDR: I feel like pechakuchas are really good for learning the basics of editing/figuring out your style, the haikus felt like they required a higher level of skill but were great specifically in honing my rhythmic editing

[salamandras]

I agree! I was going to add my experience separately, but you summed it up so well I'll just point to yours and nod vigorously.

[nu_breed]

These are all great points!

[salamandras]

In case anyone else has the same problem of their video not running smoothly while working, I wanted to share the solutions that are working for me so far.

I'm using DaVinci Resolve 16 and I have a severely underpowered computer (not meeting most of the program's minimum requirements, which I didn't check before learning the program).

My timeline was stuttering and making syncing music and video impossible and doing all the things explained in this video fixed it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsORNS1PfsI

If there are other or better solutions, I would love to learn them!

[quinnish]

I tried to make a haiku, found a 30-second song which inspired me, and ended up hosing the structure to just make the vid it wanted to be (which was mostly 1 & 2 second clips on the nose! but not 5-7-5). Whoops? I'm going to take another stab at it this week, possibly a haiku or possibly trying out a pechakucha.

I find the idea of trying to vid within these very specific timing constraints really alien and I think I'm struggling with understanding it -- my vidding sensibility is so musicality-based.

I did successfully figure out how to use a new program and how to both shift colors and timing of specific clips! So I feel really good about that.

[aka_rat]

I agree with pretty much everything seasaltmemories_14 said about the differences between pechakucha and haiku. Pechakuchas were easier for me, but the haiku had a better result.

I got curious about trying other clip lengths and patterns, so I made a Vid Haiku Calculator to calculate lengths and bpm. But I haven't actually tried it out.

[nu_breed]

Ooooh that's really helpful! Thank you :)

[laura47]

I am definitely not where I had hoped to be - still figuring my way around Resolve, had issues converting files, etc. I am holding onto "you can do 27 seconds!!!" to keep myself going. I'm putting vidding times on my calendar and hoping I can stick to them!

I'm also not 100% sure on song yet, oops. I might wind up with something instrumental, or the non-lyrics part of a song, to just focus on the clips and how they flow and not get caught up on lyrics.

I'm using Davinci Resolve, which is brand new to me! I've always used versions of final cut, cause that's what i started on in a random undergrad class.... a very long time ago. :) But I just haven't been happy with final cut since i had to move off of final cut express, and vexercises people spoke highly of DVR so here i am! I used handbrake to to convert the source (and much thanks to the vidding discord for help there!)

I'm on a mac, Big Sur, with the fancy new M1 chip - it's, uh, really fast. Like, I haven't yet been able to make it slow down, no matter how much i'm doing. I keep winding up with literally 400 chrome tabs open because it never slows down my computer (which used to make me have to go through chrome)