New Firefly vid

[gwyn]

The response to my poll on aspect ratios has been wonderful! I really appreciate everyone's answers, and the comments that were left. If you haven't taken it yet, please do! I think a lot of folks thought I was doing this for personal reasons for a current vid, but I really wanted to know what people thought for a more meta-level discussion about it. (Sure, I get personal information, but that wasn't my only goal.) Anyway, thanks for the interest and the honest answers (though some of you are scary harsh!).

And that segues into new vid announcement for Firefly. After some of the answers to the poll, I'm almost afraid of the reaction, but I ended up opting to leave the Serenity movie clips as-is, rather than bumping them up to TV widescreen to match Firefly's. The lovely and wonderful killabeez told me how to do it in Final Cut, but for me some of those vistas in the movie, and some of the ... I don't know, I guess, beauty of the framing, was lost when I bumped it up. I didn't like the fuzziness, either, and with the added fuzziness of compression for the web (when you're making a vid that's really designed for the TV screen), I just wasn't as happy with the picture. Black bars don't bug me as much as lower picture quality, but I recognize now from the poll that this will make many others unhappy or even scorn the vid, but ::shrug:: You gotta make what you want to make, you know?

This is a Jayne vid, btw. I have this desire to make a vid for every character in Firefly. It's kind of unusual in that it's a serious vid, and I don't see a lot of serious Jayne vids, but this song just screamed at me that it belonged to my original big dumb mean selfish space boyfriend. Thanks to killabeez and mlyn for the beta help and input.

sdwolfpup, this one is for you, in thanks for all your help in everything from Final Cut to compressions to getting me a chance to see the Serenity preview. I hope you like it, since I can't imagine anything worse than someone tipping their hat to you with a vid you don't like!

Black Soul Choir
Artist: Sixteen Horsepower
Fandom: Firefly
File: QT Divx avi, 34MB (as always, I really recommend VLC, linked at the site, to play this and have it look even remotely decent)
Every man is evil, and every man's a liar.

Site is still password-protected, use the link there on the main page to request if you don't already have it. Feedback, squee, crit, and pimpage are always welcome and always in fashion.

Comments

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Wow, Gwyn. that was...yikes. Very compelling and totally made me look at Jayne differently.

uhm, if there was any aspect ration thing going on...I completely missed it. I was just enthralled and I love that song.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Yeah, I figured it would be a pretty different take, but I think there's a bit more to Jayne's cynicism than meets the eye.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

I'm still downloading, so I have no comments yet, but you vidded Sixteen Horsepower. What's more, you vidded Black Soul Choir, which is one of my favorites. I do love 16HP so, and I've never seen any vids to their songs. Yay!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I think Heel on the Shovel is another one that's screaming for a vid -- especially for Deadwood, but I'm still considering interpretations!

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Oh yay, more 16 HP vids! *beams*

I've now watched Black Soul Choir. This was a vid where I was definitely below the reading level - which isn't surprising, as I haven't seen Firefly and all I know of Jayne is that he's got a gun and wears a funny hat sometimes. It felt like a vid for Firefly and Jayne fans who can catch all the nuances, so it's hard for me to say something useful here.

But I should mention that the aspect ratio difference wasn't a problem for me, and the source looked great. I did see it change here and there, but it wasn't in an abrupt, up-down-up-down sort of way, and it didn't hinder my vidwatching at all.

I've always thought of 16HP as the reformationist* depressed cowboys from hell - they have that feel to them, of cowboys galloping across some dark plain with the devil right behind them on a faster horse. I like how you married that to the cowboys-in-space feel of Firefly, and the violence. At some points the vid seemed more cheerful than the song, but I'm pretty sure that is that lack of context again, sorry. *G*

*(if that's a word, I'm thinking of the Dutch reformed churches, with their dark & gloomy form of religion)

[morgantree.livejournal.com]

Loved it, loved it, loved it! And all the issues you raise in your post were completely lost on me, so as far as the general vid-consuming kind of person goes, nothing about the vid seemed strange to me (maybe it's the expert opinon you are looking for, however?). Anyway, can't wait to show it to my Dad, who is a complete Firefly freak and a huge computerphobe, so he'll never find it on his own. (He's also a Deadwood fan, and loved Come to Jesus). Thanks for yet another really great vid!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I hope your dad likes it! That's so cool that he enjoyed Come to Jesus. I love it when folks outside the commonly thought-of lines of fandom get into vids for shows they love. That makes me extraordinarily happy to hear about.

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

Oh, eeeee! *bounces off walls like a freak*

Wow, honey. The couple of things you changed in the part I saw are exactly perfect, and oh, man, the new part just builds and builds and is beauty! And the ending! You did it, you pulled it off! Oh, this makes me so, so happy. *glee*

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you so much for your input, it really helped me a lot. Since I'm still such a linear person, it's really helpful to get fb even just on the first part if I'm not finished, because then I can kind of go back and look at it and take what I've learned from that part to help finish the vid.

That one clip with Jayne looking back at the door in Ariel, and then back towards the camera is still really long, but it was cut in such a funny way that I couldn't do anything more than trim it to the closest I could get away with. I think it's okay, but it's definitely still looong.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

squee!!!!!

I attempted cogent commentary here (http://kassrachel.livejournal.com/380019.html).

And for what it's worth, I would totally not have noticed the aspect ratio thing if I hadn't just taken your poll on it. I think I'd notice a shift from small-screen to letterbox/widescreen (e.g. if some clips were square, and others were long and rectangular), but having the clips move from rectangular with slightly narrower black bars at top and bottom, to rectangular with slightly wider black bars at top and bottom, wasn't bothersome to me at all.

Also, squee!!!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the pimpage and the squee. It really means a lot to me. I'm so glad that we have a fandom in common, too! I've always found Jayne a more complicated character than I think he gets credit for being -- yeah, he's a big violent idiot with absolutely no social skills, but he's got more complexity than he often gets a chance to show outside of eps like Jaynestown and Ariel. But it really came out in the movie, I think -- he's the truth-teller character that Joss always keeps around, the one who's rude but lays it on the line: Cordelia, Spike, Jayne, and Gunn, to some degree.

[feochadn.livejournal.com]

Dude! That ROCKS!
And I am deeply in love with that ending sequence. Perfect song choice for Jayne. Sorry I missed out on giving feedback earlier, but this was a nice surprise! And really: excellent, excellent vid.

As always, I *still* can't see the frame. *g*

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would have liked to run it by you but I figured the likelihood of you not still being swamped was pretty low.

Hey, isn't that Roy Dupuis in your icon? ;-)

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

WOW! Wonderful. I can see some of the places that got tightened from the early version I saw, but you really dazzled with the new stuff, as Killa said. I thought the clips for the second instrumental break worked tremendously well, too. Love the repetition of treatments (Serenity shots for the "whoa"s) and an excellent ending. I actually got goosebumps as it played. Great job hon!

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I gave it a second viewing and noticed something else I just had to comment on. Using Book for one of the last repetitions of "every man's a liar" was just brilliant. I am in awe.

Ok, done now.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

That was something I was planning on going in -- because Book has that mysterious past he won't talk about, that really becomes useful in that scene in The Message... I still just love that whole section of that ep to death.

I'm glad it worked out well for you!

[charmax.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this thank you! After reading the quandary you had about the aspect ratios, your choice to keep the show and the film as they are works for me. It did not affect my viewing or take me out of the vid at all. It's a great vid.

I've not heard the song before so that's also really refreshing. I must check out more of their music!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yes, definitely check out their music -- I think this is their best song, definitely, but they have some really great stuff. It's not every day you get to hear a goth-country hillbilly band, you know?

[mackiemesser.livejournal.com]

Y'know, that happens to be my very favorite 16 Horsepower song, so, really, there's very little that makes me happier than it being used for one of my favorite shows.

The aspect ratio changes were...noticable, I guess is the term I'd use, but only mostly because you'd mentioned them, and so my brain was on the lookout for it. Otherwise, though, I didn't think it affected the flow or emotion of the vid at all.

I'm sadly inarticulate tonight, so, to sum up: cool vid, great song!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It's just such a cool song -- I hadn't been introduced to them before I was driving around a while ago, and there's this great local station that has a number of cool programs, one of which is a new alt country/classic country/hillbilly/folk show and the instant I heard this, I knew it was Jayne. I'm sure others might not have heard Jayne in it, but I did that night. I've since become quite obsessed with the band and sad that they broke up. Sigh. My shows end before their time, my bands break up... bleh.

[mackiemesser.livejournal.com]

They always had the most amazing artwork/liners for their CDs, too. And the songs are just eerie. Back when Bro was in the music biz, he hung out with them after a gig they played in L.A. and he said they were all really cool guys, and he had a great conversation with the guy who was the singer.

It's...frustrating that they would break up just as that style of music is coming into popularity now...

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

I never would have expected a serious Jayne vid, yet you make this work so well for him. The great thing is that even while it is a serious look at the character, it doesn't lose any of Jayne's inherent, well, Jayne-ness. He's got guns, he's fighting, he's not quite as big of a dork in this video, but as a fan you know it's there and it only adds to what you've put together. I love it.

I especially love your takes on "every man is evil, and every man's a liar." Every single instance of that was well-done and made me think. I also love you keep coming back to a few certain key people on the ship each time - Mal, River, and Book - because they each have had the biggest effect on Jayne. And great ending shot. One of Jayne's finest moments.

And I'm happy to have helped you out. :) A vid dedication is pretty awesome though, thank you!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I am relieved you like it (or, if you don't, you're pretending real good, and that'e enough ;-) ). Even with such limited footage, I still think there are so many stories to tell in this fandom, you know? And facets of the character's lives... I've always had this feeling I could show something different for Jayne if I had the right music, the right themes, and so it was a real treat to find that and get a chance to look at the darker side. Not to mention the connections he has to the others and their influences on him.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

SDW's right, you managed to sum up all of the facet of Jayne's character and do it without falling back on the comic relief that he so often takes care of. Watching it sort of feels like cupping your hands around a match to protect the flame and make it burn clearer. Very compelling. And the end is perfect--you hit just the right beats there to pull it up and together.

The changing bars really didn't distract me. It's much less noticable with two different widescreens than with full to widescreen. I think the only time I really noticed it was the one slide wipe from the larger size to the smaller, but noticed definitely doesn't equal was-pulled-out-of-it. If anything you've proven that leaving that in their native states works. :D

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Watching it sort of feels like cupping your hands around a match to protect the flame and make it burn clearer. Very compelling.

That is such a beautiful thing to say, and I feel all "I'm not worthy!" Thank you so much. I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it, and glad that the bars weren't too much of a problem. I know what you mean about the places it's more noticeable, and I think that was one reason I tried to group things together more carefully, so that once the initial "oh, hey" is passed, there are similar clips so it's not too jarring back and forth.

[voleuse.livejournal.com]

Wow! This is beautiful, though I'm not well-versed in the technical aspects of vidding. I really like the various clips you used to illustrate the complexity (gasp!) of Jayne. The song is perfect, as well. Thanks for sharing this!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad that there are folks for whom the phrase "serious Jayne vid" doesn't make them run screaming or laugh their asses off... I know a lot of people doubted that it was possible to show complexity for Jayne, but honestly, I've always thought he had it!

[anoel.livejournal.com]

Finally got around to seeing this vid and I wanted to say how much I loved it. The song choice is perfect, it really fits Firefly and Jayne. I love how you showed some of Jayne's best shots, both the fast and slow ones. The sequences were great and I love how you connected the clips. The end was perfect and the ending clip really sums it all up. Thanks for making and I really hope you make vids for the other Firefly characters.

(BTW I love your vid Cannonball)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you, on both counts! I really love vidding Firefly -- I always worry about overdoing it because there's such limited footage, but if I concentrate on specific characters and try to do them all, I think it opens up a lot more room for vidding.