#and it just opens up the flood gates for a whole essay ajsdjf

[leqclerc]

how is your workfow when you're making an edit? (the thought process behind it, etc!)

Oh, this is such an interesting question! 👀

Honestly, it depends. The 'simple' gifs are just clips I've seen around that I thought were kind of interesting and worth giffing. It's so funny, because it's always the stuff you giffed randomly, the silly stuff, that ends up exploding and getting like 700-1k notes completely unexpectedly 🙈 Case in point: my top two gifsets on this blog are literally Charles complaining about being called French and Charles struggling with a pen in Bahrain ajsdjedjf

Then for the more complex edits... Not gonna lie, I draw a lot of inspiration from bigger fandoms, usually media-focused (TV show, film fandoms.) They obviously have an advantage over us with the quality and quantity of footage available to them, which lets them do really crazy, insanely creative things. So sometimes I'll pick up on trends that are popular across other fandoms - the colours, the typography, the blending - and try to bring that over to F1blr. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it definitely pushes me to challenge myself and try things that I wouldn't normally do.

Other times it's just a quote or song lyric I saw somewhere that I figured would be cool to use. Then I try to use clips that convey the emotion/message behind that quote or lyric. This is still one of my favourite gifsets that I've made.

Oh, also, I find it helps to find some kind of focal point or "anchor" of sorts for a gifset. For example, I've watched probably hundreds of hours of F1 footage at this point, so I really like picking up on parallels across those clips and recurring themes and things like that. It helps you to focus on something specific - say, Seb interrupting Charles's interviews and Charles saying hello mate to him, or every time they reference a conversation they've had in private or something - and then you just need to find clips that meet that criteria. I'm kind of meh on DTS and the way the editing is kind of disingenuous and designed to create ~drama that seems believable if you weren't there to actually watch the season, BUT for us humble gifmakers on F1blr it can be a good source of footage and/or gifset ideas. Again, I find it helps to focus in on some aspect that will tie the gifset together and then build from there. For example, I made one gifset that showcases all of Seb and Charles's DTS appearances (together) and used a layout to make it look a bit more fun and visually interesting. I also like this one, playing on a similar concept.

And sometimes...I just like having a bit of fun asjdjf Even things like ao3 tags or TV Tropes or Tumblr tags or Tweets or whatever can be used for a more ~lighthearted/funny gifset.

I keep a list of potential gifset ideas on the notes app on my phone as well. Not all of my ideas are documented on there, but sometimes I just jot something down when I get a lightbulb moment of "oh, that could be a cool idea!" before I forget.

As for the actual creation process, it helps to know where your footage is/have some kind of organisation system. I definitely have a few go-to clips that I know are applicable in most gifsets, I know exactly where they are on my computer, I know I can colour them/tweak them relatively easily, etc. There's definitely a lot of trial and error involved ajsdj Sometimes you think a certain clip will work really, really well with your idea and then you just can't get it to work the way you imagined at all. I've had moments where I just DNF on a gifset because I get so frustrated that it's not working out the way I imagined. Sometimes I'll step back from a project, go back to it later with a different idea/angle and then find something that works for me even if it's not exactly like I'd imagined in the beginning.