Here in heaven, you will finally understand

[gwyn]

This is mostly for a couple friends.



I had listened to this song obsessively since it came out. It didn't seem like a vid song, though, just a song I loved. Then for a while I didn't listen to it, but after my sister died in March, I started listening again. We were watching Deadwood S2 this spring and then later rewatching S1, and I kept thinking of this song, particularly about William and his accident, which wrecked me completely. The idea kind of formed in my mind but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I was insane. For a while, I combed through my video collections to see if anyone had ever done anything even remotely like this. I rewatched tons of vids, yet I couldn't find anything, even way back in Ye Olden Dayes, that was thematically similar.

And I realized that maybe the reason no one had ever done a vid like this before was because, well, it couldn't be done. Maybe no one was stupid or crazy enough to do something this odd. Maybe they had more sense and realized it wouldn't work.

So, of course I told my idea to Jo, since she is also crazy and likes the "maybe no one has done this because it can't be done" challenge. And she thought for a while and said, "No, I haven't seen anything like that before, either, but it sounds cool and can I collaborate?" And I was like, HELL yes. In a way, it felt like Darkness, Darkness to me. In the "it takes a village" dept., movies_michelle had the S1 box set, and was able to record the S2 airings on HBO because alexfandra had permaloaned her her dvd recorder, and melina123 had provided the first few eps that Christy wasn't able to get... what would we do without our fannish friends?

It's not that I think I'm Miss Thang Bleeding Edge girl. But I do have these unusual concepts from time to time that I don't see in fannish vidding much. And this one seemed weirder than normal -- an unseen narrator who could be at various times a loved one in heaven, an angel, and Jesus himself, speaking to a specific person, about death and suffering with a distinctly religious, although somewhat ironic, tone. Then you use that narrator to speak to an entire cast of characters, and focus on their suffering and deliverance... it just wasn't exactly the usual song screaming, fannish video right here! I've never seen a specific voice directed at an entire cast before.

Initially we both thought we'd use a lot of slo-moing of faces and dissolves and have it be all elegant and stuff. But I started laying in clips before Jo got down to work on it, and I never really found the chance for dissolves. We did use slo-mo in a couple places, but the rest is just straight clips, unadorned, and there isn't a dissolve in the entire vid. Really, except for the slow and the sepia tone, this vid could have been made on VCRs. And I don't know what to say about that. Maybe that's why people never pimp our stuff, or whatever... maybe it still seems too VCRish or not fancy enough to get all the squee that I see about other vids all over LJ. Darkness was similar in that it was 1,000 times easier to cut on a computer, but honestly, there was nothing fancy in it at all. I just don't always see the embellishments, and Jo and I both tend to prefer straight cutting when possible. And maybe that makes us less than cool, but... it is how it is.

I wanted to use the sepia to bookend the vid, even though I realize it is a cliche of sorts. Western, sepia... gee, ya think? But partly I wanted to have that sense of opening an old book, seeing these lives spread out before us. And I knew I wanted the narrative, what there is of it, to pivot on Seth's violence and Bill's pain and his eventual death. Even though Bill is only in the first four eps, his presence resonates across the first two seasons, and his relationship with Seth has a great deal to do with how Seth reacts to so many other things, and the types of events that Seth gets caught up in. Talk about it taking a village -- Final Cut Express doesn't let you keyframe filters, so there was no way for me to make the sepia fade out or in. But thanks to laurashapiro and apparently barkley, who doesn't even know she helped me, there was a trick that totally worked a treat, which Laura taught me one night in chat. And I also learned about the pen tool, which I hadn't tried before.

I <3 collaboration. I mostly make vids myself, so when I get to collaborate, I just love it. There's that great discovery when you're working with a clip and you hate it and they like it and you can't figure out why till you try it a different way after bickering for a half hour, and then it ends up being just perfect when you gave up and did it totally altered. There's that little frisson when your collaborator tells you to do something you didn't think of, and it works, or you pick up what they're trying to do, and it works even better, and you get going like a train, just chugging along, clip after clip. I love that.

It is a very harsh vid. But the show is very harsh and to stay true to that, you have to recognize the hardship and pain of these lives. Sometimes we would laugh about it to the point of choking because it just seemed so OTT, but we also see great beauty in the way violence looks on film. Neither Jo nor I are cavalier about death and suffering -- anyone who's read this LJ knows I am not, and Jo has had her own severe losses -- but we also see something revelatory and beautiful in how it is portrayed on film, especially in Deadwood. Their lighting, framing, the way people move through the camera's eye... it's stunning, and heartbreaking. One of my favorite clips is just Joanie sitting there in the dark of her ruined hopes, and Jo and I both fell in love with the tableau of Mr. W dropping Alice Krige's (I can never remember the character's name!) body to the ground after he's killed her. Maybe those clips shouldn't be beautiful, but they are.

The two clips that inspired all this, though, were William's accident on the "angels to dance around your shoulders" line, and Al killing the reverend on "here in heaven, you will finally understand." I knew from the beginning those were the must-do clips, and I love how they worked out here. Al's murder of the preacher was one of the most shocking things I've ever seen -- not because I'm all "shocked! I tell you!" but because it is so tender and agonizing and strange, with him giving the lecture about what it means t be a road agent. I've never seen anything like it, and that makes it all the more beautiful to me. I wanted Al's near-death on the "when you're dying" line also from the beginning, but all the rest of the clips fell into place along the line.

I think this is the best vid we've made together yet. It might not impress many others, but... I'm so very happy with it, and that's what matters in the long run.

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree that this is the best vid you two have done. Before it was even done playing, my heart was racing and I was trying to think of what I could say to pimp it. And today I had to go back to my post and put in a paragraph about your unique POV, because I think that's a fascinating part of the vid to hear about and might bring in more viewers interested in innovation.

Their lighting, framing, the way people move through the camera's eye... it's stunning, and heartbreaking. ... Maybe those clips shouldn't be beautiful, but they are.

Absolutely. When I see a scene or tableau that I think is gorgeous, it doesn't matter what's going on; it's the design sensibilities put into it. One of the things I absolutely want to use for a BHD vid are the ending shots of the cargo plane's door closing on the coffins inside, and a deleted scene of Garrison standing in the hanger looking out at a huge expanse of empty desert. I don't even know why that second shot is so powerful, except for the design behind it. So I think you and Jo pick up on that--the violence is so powerful that the scene is designed until it's perfect. The line of Alice's arm being held by Mr. W, the line of her body on the floor; the emptiness created by Joanie's chair being set far right of center in the shot...that stuff works. You got it. :)

And it certainly doesn't hurt that this show is magnificently written and performed. I probably told you already, but I was floored when I watched Al kill the reverend, and started sobbing when he said "You can go now, brother." That just wrecked me, and watching it again wrecked me again. When you can remind viewers of what floored and amazed them about a scene, that makes the vid much more powerful than it would be just on design and technicalities alone.

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

With all due respect, I really wish that you weren't so negative about your work and always unhappy about feedback. I have always found both your writing and your vids to be far above the ordinary and have said so. Your vid on Deadwood is no exception. I have only been able to watch the first episodes of the show because I was so turned off by the filth, both of the town and the language. I realize that this is historically accurate but I think I was not quite in the frame of mind to watch the show at the time. However, I recognized it as a masterpiece of its kind and intend to return to the series but at a slower pace. Your vid is a masterpiece equal to its subject; the pacing, cuts, choice of images and music were powerful and haunting.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

That's a fair criticism, and I thank you for laying it on the line, and also for the kind words about the vid. This is a really small fandom, like many of the others that I'm in, but there's way more negative reaction to this one because it's a western, and most people have the same reaction you did. It's very hard to want to share your joy in something when the reaction is frequently "Ew." But it's not the fb per se that I'm negative about, it's the way I feel about how hard it is to get the word out, let people know you made something really cool, and to try to encourage them to give it a try. Daily, I'm confronted on my flist with pages of support and recs and links to fic or vids that the stuff we've done has never had. On occasion I've flat out asked people that if they liked a vid, could they just let others know there's a vid for this really rarely vidded fandom, and it doesn't happen. It's dispiriting -- I can only assume that even though people say they love the work, it's still not good enough for even a dispassionate, plain link. In one of my very small fandoms, recs and links and fb have been used as a weapon against those of us who aren't in the cool kids clique. So, yes, my frustration lately shows. I love what we did here, but without support from others, all the announcing in the world won't get the word out, sadly.

Earlier this month I posted a digitally remastered vid that I've been asked over and over to remake. It cost me a lot of money in X-Files discs and a huge amount of time to remake it. I get stats when I log in to mess with my vids page. Hardly anyone has ever DLed it. I felt kind of... hoodwinked by all the people who asked me to do that. remaking it wasn't even something I wanted to do; its condition as an old vcr vid wasn't keeping me up at night, believe me. I like producing work that I'm proud of, but it's hard sometimes when you know that you're trying to share it with people but they don't want it. T

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

I am sorry for your frustration and can only imagine how hurtful it must feel. It's certainly not something that you need and it's certainly not something deserved! Put it down to the juvenile taste in the blankey-blank ungrateful fandom. But now that you've mentioned the X Files vid, I will have to down load that one too. I have a dial up so find that I have to download in the wee hours of the morning or my connection times out before I finish the download. I am really blown away by your skill; the vid that you did on Teresa brings a lump to my throat every time I watch it.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

I just watched your vid after a pointer from thefourthvine in relation to death-and-violence vids in general (and in specific, one that I did a while back).

The thing that grabbed me about yours, perhaps because I was looking for it after some discussion with TFV, was that we got to see the *results* of violence -- its effects on family, friends, women, children... the bruises and blood and pain and coffins and heartache. Not just shiny explosions and bullets that go "pop" but don't make holes. I'm not sure I can really say I *like* watching pain and gore and loss, but it makes me feel more human than watching sanitised fake-o-death on TV.

Anyway, I haven't actually seen any of Deadwood, and I'm not sure whether I want to now (that's not exactly a pimping vid, yknow?) but I'm definitely glad I watched your vid, and I think you did a great job on it. I love good meaty, serious vids that make me think.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

No, definitely not a pimping vid! I've been surprised, though, by the willingness of people to give it a try even though they don't know the show -- initially I would have said that it would be meaningless to someone not at least tangentially familiar with it, but now I'm not so sure. Though, I said the same thing about our Miracles vid, Darkness, Darkness, and that turned out to be a wierd recruiter vid I could never have anticipated. Maybe there are just more people out there who aren't right, either.

I think that is defintely Deadwood's greatest strength as a show, what you mention about consequences. For instance, Wild Bill Hickock's death has lingering effects through the second season for many. It never shies from showing what life is really like for people in a harsh landscape (this is partly why I love westerns so much), but it also has these moments of the divine... I'm not sure how to explain it well. It's a tough show to watch, but it rewards a patient viewer to the Nth degree.

So, thank you for giving the vid a shot, and for the kind words. I'm always thrilled when people are interested in something they might necessarily try otherwise.

[spookycat4.livejournal.com]

WOW~ That is a lot of dead people. Seriously, the words fit perfectly and I was about halfway through it before I realized that everyone was dying and then I was WOW! Very different and very much worth watching.

Kim

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It IS a lot of dead people! Though some of them don't actually die... they just look like they're death warmed over, or they'd have to die to get better. But thank you and I'm glad you enjoyed it -- we see dead people is not always a come-on for people, so I'm always glad when someone's willing to give it a try!