Lightning Round

[Creative liberties taken.]

Captured a heap of clips this week for the 10th Edition of the Clip Party. (Early deadline was Monday.)

A recent addition (starting with v8) is the Lightning Round: clips in the neighborhood of 15 seconds and shorter, only made possible once the party was assembled in advance. Lightning round clips can be tougher for participants to select, and if you stop to consider the cumulative cost per second (even at a modest $3 per video rental), especially for those you think will work, but then you get the dvd home and it doesn't make any sense at less than 25 seconds, and it won't work as a longer clip either so it's kind of a total waste, it can get kinda pricey for all involved.

I don't stop to consider it. Because it's the far and away the most fun part of the night to edit.

Here's our first attempt at a Lightning Round.

Length: 5:14

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Mirror V

If there are any child development specialists viewing this, please stop me before I turn my boy into Norma Desmond.

Length: 0:46

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Prevention

No one could have anticipated.

Length: 0:39

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2 Baseballs: Special Edition

Re-edited, or rather de-edited. When I first posted this last summer I was so timid that I overtrimmed the shot, removing twenty seconds at the front end that I feared might try my viewer's (sic) patience. But since the boy and I occasionally sit and view raw movie clips in iPhoto, I had the chance to revisit the source material. I realized I had made a mistake.

Hence: as it was meant to be seen.

Length: 0:55

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[Explicit] A Woman I Don't Even Know

[Contains explicit language.]

Flouting my "Family" designation in the directories at Democracy and iTunes with this one, a letter to a friend's new paramour.

The profanity or two won't bug most viewers, but the boy does have a few fans in the under-10 set.

Length: 3:18

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Security

Seconds after turning on the camera, the boy experienced a seemingly unprovoked anxiety attack, and quickly sprang into action to soothe himself, with the help of a few of his standard accoutrements.

We are growing ambivalent about the chomper (binky), but at this point we're grateful he knows how to ask for what he wants. (Of course, when what he wants is: more TV, we're more likely to say no.)

Length: 1:03

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Hike II

A trek through the bamboo in our overgrown back yard.

And he's quoting, from Jane Yolen & Mark Teague's How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?

The line: "Does he* up and demand a piggyback ride?"

Length: 1:40

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*A dinosaur, in this case an ankylosaurus, who is leaping at his human mother in a pose less evocative of a piggyback ride than of a painful mauling. Other than that, it's a delightful book, and our current bedtime favorite.