About Tired Eye

I’ve been making vids since around 2003 – I’d started getting into Smallville as a fan and actively participated in a number of forums. This is how I discovered the wonderful world of fanvids, and it wasn’t long before I had a go at making one of my own. I’ve always been keen to learn new software and skills on the PC, so learning how to work with video was a natural progression from the work that I’d already started doing with photo manipulation.

I have a lot of affection for my early videos, as I still remember what it was like when I’d completed them, or learned a new trick. To be honest though, they aren’t great. They’re pretty predictable and not very good quality, which is why I’ve kept them off tired-eye so far.

I started doing AU (‘alternate universe’) vids straight away as my main ‘ship for Smallville was Chloe/Lex, so any video involving a fictional coupling had to have a manipulated storyline. I found it fascinating to be able to create scenes from clips and tell my own story, and I relished in the challenge that increasingly crazy storylines presented.

Things started to change for me as a vidder when I made ‘Drifting Away’ as it was the first video that I made entirely in Adobe Premiere – I’d previously used Windows Movie Maker, and never realised how limiting it was. Drifting Away was the first time I made a strong storytelling video that I was really happy with, which is why it’s the first one on this site. After that, I made Teardrop. This really was the moment for me when I completely fell in love with vidding – the feedback I got was just amazing and really blew me away. My work started to get noticed all over the internet and it really gave me a boost to continue in the ‘unconventional’ direction I’d started on. This has been the driving force for me ever since.

I bought tired-eye.net on 2nd January 2005 after I’d made Drifting Away: I had been hosted previously by the wonderful Megan at sometimes-lucky.net (which is sadly no longer active) but when my videos began to take over my life (and her bandwidth) it was time to buy a place of my own! This was actually pre-Youtube – that makes me feel so old!! I’ve actually run websites since around 2000, and before Megan’s help I used freeservers with all the horrid banners. I actually still have a few sites floating in the ether that I visit from time to time.

The name ‘tired-eye’ took a long time to come up with, and I’d been musing on it for months. In the end, I realised that I spent so much time on my laptop, whether it was doing work, web design, graphics, videos… I stay on as late as possible and as a result, usually view the world through tired eyes…

I’ve previously been known for ‘LEXcite’, which is my original Smallville site… it still holds some of my older videos, that are a little rough to put up here, as well as all my graphics that I’ve created over the last couple of years for the show. I’m still keeping it going, but all my new videos will be released here on the main tired-eye site.

I had a 2-3 year break from updating the site when real life got in the way… I still made videos, such as Hurt, but they never made it onto the site – I wanted to do a redesign and somehow didn’t want to put new material on the old design as it all felt a bit stale. I never stopped thinking about vid ideas either, and I now have a nice ‘to do’ list of things that I want to do in 2010/11 and beyond.

When I started watching True Blood, I fell in love with the show, promptly devoured all the books, and watched it all again. I just knew that I wanted to make vids for the series, and it really lit the fire for me again. I finished off a Doctor Who vid that I’d been working on, and then got Hometown Glory finished for True Blood in just one week – good going for me!!

I continued to make vids throughout 2010 and 2011, all the while planning the next phase of tired-eye – never satisfied and always wanting to make it better. In May 2011, the newest phase of the site began, and now it not only holds my own work and tutorials but also the world’s first fanvid blog and a new section for free ‘sparkles’ and effects created especially for use in fanvids. Tired-eye is all about giving back to the fanvid community, whether that be resources and tutorials for people just starting out, sources of inspiration, or just bringin you damn good vids from all over the world.

I really hope you like this next phase of tired-eye and I would love to hear your comments about the site and ideas for new features… I hope you have as much fun surfing here as I have running it!