epershand

Sign-ups for the VidUKon vidding workshop are now open! In keeping with the last couple of years we've arranged for the vidding workshop to occur in the months prior to the con, to allow everyone a bit more time for creating their individual segments (and for the mods to deal with the new and surprising technical problems that are now a VidUKon tradition).

What Is The VidUKon Vidding Workshop?

VidUKon runs a yearly workshop where participants create a vid that is stitched together from many small segments. Each segment is taken on by an individual or a group of vidders, without knowledge of what the other segments look like or what sources they used. Then, after the mods have stitched together the resulting chaos, the so-called "Frankenvid" is premiered at the end of the con to be enjoyed by all. You can watch previous Frankenvids here: https://www.youtube.com/@vidukon/videos

Sign-Ups

Every VidUKon participant can sign up for the vidding workshop until April 20th. Yes, that's the day after Premieres submissions closes, so that everyone working towards that deadline has a chance to sleep afterwards! Assignments will go out later that week.

By signing up, you are committing to creating one segment of the Frankenvid using at least 2 different sources. The length of the segments depends on the number of sign-ups, but is typically between 10-20 seconds.

When signing up to the workshop, you'll be asked to make a decision on the following points:

* Group signup vs. individual signup

* Preference for song segment

* Source selection

* Pinch hitting

Please note that to participate in the Vidding Workshop, you must have a registration for VidUKon 2026 - so if you want to join in, purchase your Virtual or Birmingham Attendee membership here: https://vidukon.org/

On Signing Up As A Group

While it's perfectly fine to sign up to the workshop and create your segment as an individual, we would like to encourage people to form groups in the spirit of allowing less experienced vidders (or even participants with no previous vidding experience!) to dip their toes into the vidding process and join in on the fun in a low-stakes setting. To that end, there are two ways for people to participate as a group:

You can organize your own group ahead of time, then choose one representative to fill in the sign-up form for the whole group.

You can sign up individually, but indicate that you want to be assigned to a group. We will do our best to group people together who live in similar timezones, to make collaboration between the group members easier. The mods can also help establish contact between the group members in case there are any difficulties.

In both cases, please be aware that we will not organize spaces for the groups to communicate with each other. You will have to decide amongst yourselves how to work together to create your segment, whether that be a 3-hour screen-sharing session on Discord, or a project file being emailed back and forth over the course of several weeks, or something else completely. It's up to you!

Song Choice

The song for the Frankenvid is chosen by the mods, and will not be revealed before assignments are sent out. (Part of the reason for that is that the song choice depends on the number of participants, but of course it's also meant to add to the challenge and general chaos of the process...)

While you can't choose your segment, the sign-up form has an option to indicate whether you prefer a segment with or without lyrics. We will do our best to take everyone's preference into account when assigning the segments.

Source Selection

When signing up, you'll be asked to specify the sources you will use for your segment. This is to ensure that we won't have excessive overlap between the segments. If other individuals/groups have already picked the same source, you may be asked by the mods to pick something else, or to pick a specific season etc.

The number of sources you use is up to you, but it should be at least 2 different ones. Any visual source is fine to use, so please feel free to think outside the box! If you want to change your sources at any point during the process, please let the mods know right away, and we can figure something out.

Alternatively, for those who want a particular challenge or a particularly chaotic time you can select to be assigned sources by the mods. When doing so, you can indicate a "difficulty level" of sources you want to be assigned. The higher the difficulty, the more unusual the source you'll receive; past random assignments have included Lego stop-motion vids, adverts, and puppet shows.

Rendering Guidelines

The final render of the Frankenvid will use the following technical format: mp4, H264, widescreen (1920:1080 aspect ratio), 23.976 fps

We are aware that wrangling a bunch of different visual sources into this format can be a technical challenge. In order to avoid us mangling your vision, please do already submit your segment in widescreen aspect ratio. Whether you want to crop your vid or letterbox it to fit that aspect ratio is up to you.

For selecting the framerate, please follow these guidelines:

If all your sources have the same framerate, please render your segment at that native framerate (e.g. if you use two British tv shows at 25fps, please render at 25fps)
If your sources have different framerates, please render your segment at the highest framerate of those sources (e.g. if you have one movie source with 23.976fps, and one youtube video with 60fps, render at 60fps)

The technical reason for this, if you are interested, is that I will likely have to change the framerate of your segment anyways, and having the most possible frames available makes it easier for me to fix any mistakes (i.e. double frames) that might occur in the conversion.

For those of you who are very comfortable handling different framerates, you may also render your segment down to the final 23.976fps yourself, but in that case I would ask that you please check to make sure you did not create any repeated frames in the process.

Please check with the mods early if you are planning to use a source that has a lower framerate than 23.976 (i.e. stop motion).

If you have any trouble with rendering your segment, please contact us directly via vidukon@gmail.com so we can figure it out together.

On Content And Visual Effects

We want the Vidding Workshop to be a fun and rewarding experience for all participants. To that end, please use your best judgment on what kind of content and visual effects to use, and avoid any obviously triggering content (e.g. police brutality) or heavy visual effects like strobing, stutter cuts etc. which might cause adverse physical reactions. While the Frankenvid will have a list of content warnings like any other vid shown at VidUKon, we also want to do our best to make sure that all participants are able to watch the finished product without discomfort.

If you have any questions about this or additional accessibility concerns, please contact the mods as early as possible. We are happy to make accommodations.

Submission Deadline And Pinch Hits

When assignments go out, you will be provided with a link where you can upload your finished segment. The submission deadline is May 10th. Please be aware that any segments that haven't been uploaded by May 4th end of day will be considered a default and sent out as pinch hits immediately. If life gets in the way and you can't finish your segment in time, please get in contact with us as early as possible.

When submitting, you are also required to provide a text file containing the following information: Sources used, Vidders, Content warnings. For the content warnings, the same rules apply as when submitting a vid to any other VidUKon vidshow.

During sign-up, you can choose to be put on the pinch hitter list. Pinch hitters will not be required to use the same sources as the original assignment.

Timeline & Sign-up Form

Sign-ups close: April 20, 2025
Assignments go out: April 27, 2025 (or earlier)
Submission deadline: May 10, 2025

Before signing up, please make sure to read all the information in this post, thank you!

Signup form: https://forms.gle/XgLKDE3gaDgBC1rn7