Vid: Grace In This

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Title: Grace In This
Creator: thenewbuzwuzz
Rating: Like the BtVS box set, this is rated 15+ for canon-typical sex. The song is fairly sexual, though not explicit.
Notes: Happy Seasonal Spuffy, folks! Can I offer you a full-length fluffy fanvid in this trying time!

Watch on Vimeo

More notes, acknowledgments, credits:

Perfume Genius has a YouTube channel where you can check out the rest of his music. Admittedly, I have listened to this song LOTS and to his other works hardly at all, so I'm not great at following my own advice on this.

Thank you to:
womanaction for introducing me to this song in her Spuffy fanmix "you're the one" back in 2016;
Alessnox for recommending the free open-source video editor Kdenlive in the "vidding" community on Pillowfort;
Double Dutchess for taking eight months to hold my hand through a collaborative vidding project with training wheels back in 2016 (which was basically everything I knew about vidding for a while and gave me the confidence to learn more later), and for the gift of a couple of extra hours of free time last week, which I spent making sure that every intro clip has a fancy effect and the starry overlay at least mostly stays off Spike's and Buffy's faces, whatever else it does.

I guess the 2016 nostalgia is going to have to be my contribution to the "celebrating 25 years" theme. :D It's been about 25 years, right, more or less?

I used the HD episodes from hdbuffy.tumblr.com and some stock videos by Pixabay users DiaoChun, Engin Akyurt, Artyom Saqib, and juwelfahim48.

I also used some fabulous tutorials, notably the inkdrop effect tutorial by Arkengheist 2.0 and a couple of Photolearningism's Kdenlive tutorials. And I kind of followed marnanightingale's guide to cutting and syncing, until I got impatient. Also, for better or worse, I tried to apply this Photoshop pastel effect tutorial to video editing in Kdenlive.

Welp, basically I tried a bunch of new things for this, and some worked better than others! What are your thoughts? :)

Comments

[double_dutchess]

Wow, what a way to start Seasonal Spuffy with such a lovely and gorgeous vid! I didn't know the song, so thanks for introducing me to it -- it's just beautiful, so slow and sensual with deep feeling behind it. And you paired it with the perfect visuals of Buffy and Spike. Turning each other on, sure, but also supporting each other and believing in each other. Showing the grace in their relationship, indeed. I'm going to rewatch this one a lot!

Thank you for the acknowledgements. It's funny, because if there was any handholding in 2016 it was definitely mutual! (Okay, handholding is mutual by definition, but you know what I mean, right?) And me taking eight months just to do that is putting an exceedingly positive spin on things :-)

Those few hours last week were very well-spent if you ask me. I love love love the spreading ink effect you have at the start, it fits the tone of the vid so very well. I also really like the soft look you created that goes so well with the song. But, to be honest I'm not sure I see the starry overlay you mention. Unless it's more about the colouring than actual stars?

Thanks for the links to those tutorials, I'm going to check them out. (Except the cutting & syncing one -- not just because I already know it from your earlier rec, but mostly because I've given up on the idea of ever doing any proper syncing that's not just based on trial and error.)

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Thank you so much!

"handholding is mutual by definition" - you got me there

"But, to be honest I'm not sure I see the starry overlay you mention. Unless it's more about the colouring than actual stars?"
It's hard to see in the embed, but there's a layer of this swirling galaxy clip over parts of the "Touched" cuddle near the end of the vid. It's more visible if you watch in Vimeo, which may or may not be an improvement.

Some of those tutorials were somewhat specific to the Kdenlive tool, but I think the ink drop effect should adapt well to a different video editor -- the features used seem like they could be universal. It's such a fun effect, I'm glad I ran into it while looking for how color even works. For the pastel thing, btw, I used "soft light" instead of "hue" blending, but only because I couldn't figure out how to make hue and transparency work at the same time. :D

Yeah, marnanightingale's tutorial goes HARD on syncing, & while that's something I tried to explore to see if it helps me, it's very fair that you've found your own approach and this isn't it! :) Clearly you don't need that one.

[double_dutchess]

Yes, I can see the galaxy in Vimeo! It's a bit too subtle for the embedded version, at least on my monitor, which is pretty dark. In any case, fullscreen on Vimeo the vid looks even more glorious. I had to sign in to Vimeo to watch it though, because of the mature rating.

I also think the ink drop effect should work in most video editors. I'm not going to steal the idea, but maybe I'll try experimenting with similar effects at some point. Btw, I hadn't yet mentioned another thing I love about the ink effect, and that's how you used it to highlight the important bits and movements of the underlying clips. The part with Spike's hand on the door from Dead Things is particularly excellent!

Thanks for your kind words about the syncing; I'm not convinced you're right though :-)

[thenewbuzwuzz]

"I had to sign in to Vimeo to watch it though, because of the mature rating."
Aw, heck. The Vimeo rating system confuses me. Maybe I should have marked this as "all audiences", but that seems like a bold statement, and then there's nothing between that and "mature"...

"I'm not going to steal the idea, but maybe I'll try experimenting with similar effects at some point."
I think the tutorial author put the idea out there hoping that people would steal it, but if doing the same effect would be boring or awkward for you, that's fair. Looking forward to your future experiments! :) Actually, I had been curious about overlays ever since I saw your "Truth or Dare" vid, so this effect was slightly inspired by that curiosity (though also by me randomly running into the tutorial on YouTube and going, 'damn, that looks pretty').

"how you used it to highlight the important bits and movements of the underlying clips"
Yay, thank you! :) I had fun with that.