So You Want to Vid?

So you've decided that you want to create a fan video. Congratulations! Fan vidding, while not as widely popular as fan-fiction, is a wonderfully rewarding hobby. But how do you get started? Coming to this blog is the first step. We are here to help get you started with everything you need to know. Check out our topics, ask us questions, watch our favorites, and you'll be vidding in no time!

[fanvidbasics]

hi, is it possible to make a living out of vidding on youtube? i've seen some vidders doing so but i can't quite figure out how much they really earn per month? as that's an important factor to know when one wants to quit their traditional job and rely on youtube.

When discussing the financial benefits of YouTube, it’s important to remember that there are many different types of content creators on the platform.  There are those who create entirely original content, gamers who play games online, fan vidders, and so on and so forth. Usually, the ones making money or the ones who are creating original content or are in some way commenting on otherwise copyrighted material. With that said, while the argument can be made that fan vidding is a comment on it’s original source material, the fastest way to get slapped with a lawsuit is to monetize someone else’s intellectual property. Furthermore, if YT’s copyright filters flag either your music or video clips it will not allow you to monetize those videos.  I don’t know any fan vidders that make money off of their videos.  If they do so, it must be through patreon or some other third party donation site. Even if they make a small stipend each month it’s certainly not enough to live off of.

tl;dr - basically, no. Fan vidding is a hobby, not a career.

[fanvidbasics]

Hello! I just discovered your blog, and I must say it's by far the most helpful I've come across for amateur video editors. Do you have any tips/resources you could recommend for people who are especially interested in creating emotional videos? I'm a little bit of a sadist, I want my videos to make people cry, lol. My main concern is slow, quiet parts of songs. How would I make those parts not boring? Slow pans and zooming is getting old. Thank you!

Sad, emotional videos are some of my favorite!  We do have a tendency in fan vidding to believe that long shots get boring.  I’m guilty of this thinking myself.  However, a long clip that carries the emotion you’re trying to portray can be more effective than a slow clip. My beta (and bff vidder) used a full 10 second shot in one of her clips.  And while I’d never recommend someone use a clip that long, it fit so perfectly that cutting it short would have made it less impactful. Do you have a beta?  If you do, and there’s a certain section that you’re worried about, run it by them.  If you don’t then I suggest walking away from the project for a bit (whether that be a few hours, days or weeks) and come back.  If you’re still bugged by the length then shorten it.  If not, leave as is and move forward.

[fanvidbasics]

Do you know of any forums/blogs/generally places on the internet where you can look for beta watchers who vid themselves, share your thoughts on the best techniques, etc.? There is such a large community in regards to fan fiction, but I have know idea where to look for support when it comes to vidding. I feel like almost no one likes my videos and it's starting to get on me. I would love to improve my skills! :)

Finding beta watchers because you want someone whose opinion you respect, but who you also trust enough to 1) tell you when they have issues with things in your video; 2) actually follow their advice (most of the time). For instance, my beta is one of my oldest vidding friends.  We’ve known each other for about eight years or so now. We both beta for each other and trust the other to spot things we might miss.  But we also have the kind of relationship where we offer advice that we know the other is never going to follow (like disabling resample.  One of these days she’ll listen to me though...)

That doesn’t really help you find a beta though does it? Are there any vidders that you already talk to?  Or whose work you really respect?  If there are, I’d reach out to them.  Explain that you want to improve your own videos and would love for them to provide you with constructive feedback.  It’s helpful if you reach out to people with similar fandoms and I’d reach out in private.  A vidder is more likely to respond to a private message rather than a YT comment asking for views (those often get written off as spam and deleted).

A final resort might be to post in the Tumblr ‘vidding’ tag. Lots of vidders post in this tag and you might be able to find someone who has similar interests and can provide the feedback you’re looking for.

Happy vidding!

[fanvidbasics]

Hey im just brough sony vegas 13 and whenever i make videos and i preview it, it just lags any tips?

My first suggestions would be to lower your preview settings.  They range from Best, Good, Preview, Draft. I tend to keep mine on Good, however, if I’m working with a particularly difficult project or very large files I’ll kick it down to Preview.

[fanvidbasics]

Hi ! I'm attempting to do my first fanvid (a multifandom with quite a hard song, I'm crazy ^^). I read some of your blog (thank you for taking time to do that, that is really helpful) but I'm trying to get around the "take a sound without the music" bit. I'm working with iMovie and Final Cut (I would have preferred Sony Vega but couldn't have it on my mac apparently :( ) do you have any ideas how to do that on those softwares or can you suggest me another one on which I can do that ?

Pardon my vagueness, however, I haven’t used Final Cut Pro in about a year so I am telling you this from memory.  When bringing a clip into your project, you can handle it a few different ways. If you drag and drop the clip into your project, you should be able to right click on the clip and I believe the command is “isolate audio file”. If that is not it exactly, it is something very similar. From there, once the audio file is isolated you can delete either the audio or video file as needed.

If you use the drop buttons within FC to drop your clips into your timeline, you can adjust the buttons to drop only audio or only video as you prefer by clicking on the button all the way on the right.

[fanvidbasics]

Question inspired by the last one you answered: Do you have any tips for isolating dialog in a source clip from background music? Aside from the obvious method of fiddling around with equalizer settings in an audio editor, I mean? Backing music is a near-constant presence in most hollywood productions, which makes it hard to use the best quotes from the movie/show. Leaving the audio as-is makes a mess as the source's backing clashed with your song of choice.

I do have some advice, at least for Vegas.  I’m not sure if this applies in other editing platforms as well.  I always rip mkv files. From there, I convert the mkv files into wmv files using my video converter.  Sony Vegas will split wmv files into surround sound, isolating each audio stream so long as your project settings are in surround and not stereo.  From there, it’s simply a matter of isolating the audio stream and deleting all of the extra streams.

Vegas will not split avi files in my experience, but perhaps there’s a trick I don’t know of.

[fanvidbasics]

Many people use dialogues from tv series in fanvids along with the music. How do they do it? Like do they manually extract the dialogues from the main video? Because that's a tedious job to do!

I’m not sure that I entirely understand your question. Are you asking how to pull audio files into a video?

In editing platforms, you generally have both the video and audio files import into the program.  From there, you can isolate either the video or audio file that you want and then import it into your project.

Finding the exact dialogue can be tedious if you keep entire episodes (like I do), instead of clips, but that’s just part of the process of vidding!

[fanvidbasics]

hi, i wanted to start fan vidding but i dont know what apps to use, any suggestions?

If you are new to vidding, I would definitely recommend either Windows Movie Maker or iMovie - depending on whether you have a PC or a Mac. Both of these programs are free and should already be installed on your computer so they don’t require any upfront cost.  I have heard in recent years that WMM has gotten more difficult to use, but YT is full of tutorials. Neither of these programs are highly advanced, but if you find that you enjoy vidding then you can branch out and start looking at other programs.  I hope that it goes well for you!

[fanvidbasics]

What app/software do you think is best for editing videos?

My personal favorite is Sony Vegas, but that is simply because it’s the program I have used the most. Final Cut pro is a solid program if you have a Mac (which I don’t).  I’m not a huge fan of Premiere Pro but that’s because I don’t find the editing process as organic.  Of course there are dozens of other editing platforms out there that I haven’t tried so I can’t vouch for.  There is no correct answer when it comes to the ‘best’ editing software.  You just have to find one that works for you and go from there.

[fanvidbasics]

I'm trying to make a Magnificent 7 (2017) vid for my friend, but the ripping program I've been using (ImTOO) doesn't have a 2.35:1 ratio setting, only 16:9 and 4:3. So I'm getting these giant black bars... What programs can I use that are set up for this aspect ratio?

Unless you have a 2.35:1 monitor, the bars will show up in the file regardless. Converting the file into a different format would also cause unattractive stretching of the program.  For what it’s worth, I would render the file as is, and then change the aspect ratio (or scale if you’re in Premiere Pro) to only “zoom in” to a specific part of the scene and therefore rendering the black bars null and void.  Hope this helps!

[fanvidbasics]

Hi I've been vidding for a couple of years and love it! I'd like to improve the resolution of my videos. What is the best way to do this? I tend to take footage from DVDs using MacDVDRipper (trial version) or MakeMKV (I then convert the mkv files into mp4). Next I open the mp4 files in Lightworks (free version), edit and export at 720p. How can I improve my video resolution? Should I use Blurays instead of DVDs? Change the extraction program? Use a different editing program? Any recs? Thanks! :)

Each conversion process that you go through has to potential to effect your resolution.  It’s good that you are exporting in Lightworks at 720p.  However, double check all of your settings from your ripper to your editing system to ensure that they are all producing files that are at least 720p. If they aren’t, then that is what is causing resolution degradation.  I know it’s not something often like to be told, especially when living on a budget, but with editing software you do tend to get what you pay for. This means that free programs aren’t always going to give you the highest resolution options. If you check your settings and still aren’t getting the resolution you like, it may be time to upgrade.

[fanvidbasics]

Hi! I am new on your blog, and sorry if this question has been asked before. I have problems with the content of the videos. I know how to put it all together and the technical stuff, but I just don't know how to start, which clips would fit together, etc. Can you recommend me something or some ideas? Thank you very much. (And sorry for my probably bad english.)

If you’re trying to figure out your style and what would be aesthetically pleasing, my suggestion would be to watch fan videos.  Watch lots of them. See what works in them.  See what types of transitions work well. Figure out which videos are your favorites and why.

Personally, I am a big fan of parallels. I love videos that have multiple clips with similar actions in them.

Just remember, practice makes perfect!

[fanvidbasics]

what app do we use

I’m afraid that I need a bit more information before answering this question.  App for editing? App for finding music? App for ripping?

[fanvidbasics]

Hi there! This blog has been an amazing help so far, and even though I have been scrolling through it for over an hour, I didn't seem to be able to find my question. Or if it has been asked before, I must have overlooked it, so do forgive me if this is the second time you've been asked this. Anyway, so I want to start vidding, and by now I've gotten quite an idea on what to do, but I was just wondering if you can also get copyrighted on video clips. And if so, what can I do to avoid this?

I’m going to assume your question is in regards to getting copyright claims on video clips through sites such as YouTube or Vimeo?  The answer is always yes, it is possible to have copyright strikes against your account.  Now, more often than not, I find it’s the audio that gets disabled on videos where the video copyright simply results in ads.  However, there is no hard and fast rule for this, and it’s entirely possible for YT to block your video because of the video content.

If this happens and your video gets taken down, you are left with little recourse.  You can always file a dispute.  The results seem to be split evenly between those who managed to get their videos back and those who were unsuccessful.  I’ve never tried to file a dispute myself, but rather just posted the video privately on Vimeo, so I can’t speak from personal experience.

[fanvidbasics]

Hi, I been editing videos for a while now, I have some on YouTube. Which I'm not good at it but I'm not bad either Lol. I just been having trouble with the copyrights and my Sony Vegas when I'm trying to edit it slows down and it's hard see how the Editing is going. I gotta wait to see it until I'm done with it and save it. If not is just go slow while I'm trying edit and see how is it going, Any ideas how I can fix that?

Try changing your preview settings to a lower quality. The picture will not be as crisp when playing, but it should help with the playback.

[fanvidbasics]

Is there any way to use digital media such as context from Netflix or Amazon Prime in editing software?

You would have to first get these programs onto your computer.  You could try screen capture programs, but these must be run in real time.  So the task is tedious.

[fanvidbasics]

Hi! I have recently invested in Sony Vegas Pro 13. I wanted to make HQ fanvids so purchased the DVDs of the TV show I want to use! I just don't know how to successfully rip and remove copyright of the DVDs to my computer for future editing. I know you've listed multiple DVD rippers on this page already, but I would hate to purchase one and have it not include decrypting capabilities and/or not work on SVP13. Is there a DVD ripping/decrypting software that you know works for Sony Vegas Pro?

I used OpenRipper for several years with much success.  They offer a trial download so that you can test the software out first.

I would try free trials of several programs to find the one you like best if you’re not sure they’ll create files that work in Vegas.