WisCon Vid Party

I think the best thing is: get a beta, particularly someone you feel comfortable with, if you can. You don't necessarily have to listen to a beta's suggestions, but I've found that it's invaluable for me to have a beta say "this is what this vid says to me" or "this part was confusing." It can be really hard to hear if it's not what *I* thought the vid was saying or if I'm really attached to that part, but I usually sit with the beta comments for awhile, brood about it, and then come back with excited ideas about how to fix it. Now I find I get *more* excited about revising, about being full of ideas about making things even better and how to address problems that a beta pointed out. Sometimes what helps me is to not work on the vid for a little while when I know it's time to make big revisions--a few days at least or even weeks, depending--and then come back to it with fresh eyes and new motivation.

I have less input on the question about effects though, as I feel very much the same: I don't even think about adding most effects, because I don't think of adding things I don't even know how to do. I do watch a lot of vids though, which widens my ideas about what's possible, in terms of effects? And I'll go ahead and ask someone how they did X, if it looked neat? And then someday I may end up including something like it in a vid.