New vid: Avengers

[gwyn]

So I made this Avengers teamy vid for Escapade:

Worth Fighting For
Artist: Santigold (Disparate Youth)
Fandom: Avengers-verse
If we go, we go together.

You can download it there at my site, and it's streaming here:

Sorry it's taken me so long to add the lyrics, but here they are (I'm reposting this with today's date since it was such a long delay)

Don't look ahead, there's stormy weather
Another roadblock in our way
But if we go, we go together
Our hands are tied here if we stay

Oh, we said our dreams will carry us
And if they don’t fly we will run
Now we push right past to find out
Oh, how to win what they all lost

Oh ah, oh ah
We know now we want more
Oh ah, oh ah
A life worth fighting for
Oh ah, oh ah
We know that we want more
Oh ah, oh ah
A life worth fighting for

So let them say we won't do better
Lay out the rules that we can't break
They wanna sit and watch you wither
Their legacy's too hard to take

Oh, we said our dreams will carry us
And if they don’t fly we will run
Now we push right past to find out
Oh, how to win what they all lost

Oh ah, oh ah
We know now we want more
Oh ah, oh ah
A life worth fighting for
Oh ah, oh ah
We know that we want more
Oh ah, oh ah
A life worth fighting for

In their heads, hedging their bets
In their eyes it shows
When the beacon breaks, what then?
You ask and they don't know
Oh tell me that
I turn my back well the odds all stand beneath me
And they all said I was misled
But now the odds all stand beneath me

Oh ah, oh ah
They're frozen to the core
Oh ah, oh ah
A life worth fighting for

Oh, we said our dreams will carry us
And if they don’t fly we will run
Now we push right past to find out
Oh, how to win what they all lost

Oh ah, oh ah
We know now we want more
Oh ah, oh ah
A life worth fighting for
Oh ah, oh ah
We know that we want more
Oh ah, oh ah
A life worth fighting for

(We hear them run, but don't hear what you say
Now here we come, can't throw nothing in our way

We hear them run, but don't hear what you say
Now here we come, can't throw nothing in our way)

Notes about this vid: I'm actually pretty pleased with this despite the fact that it's absolutely nothing like the vid I wanted to make. I DLed the HD source for all the Avengers movies, and it turned out that, after a lot of help from killabeez and tweaking and trying to understand the aspect ratio shit, my old computer didn't handle this well at all. Too late someone suggested working with a crappy lo-res file, and anyway, I can't really figure out the details of that. I gamely struggled on after one fiasco after another with trying to get a new copy of Final Cut that I could use my new computer for -- it became almost a comical tech nightmare, the kind of thing people build sitcom episodes around. Seriously, if you don't believe me, ask mlyn.

The weirdest thing of all was that it was like vidding on VCRs again. I had fucking ROLLBACK. This is something people today know nothing about, because it doesn't exist in computers. BUT IT DID IN MINE. In the VCR editing days, you pressed pause before laying in a clip, and then once you had your source cued up, you hit the pause button to, you know, unpause it, and the heads did this little roll backward as they re-engaged. My old deck was exactly 11 frames of rollback, so when I hit pause, I jog shuttled ahead 11 frames, but most people never knew how long it would be, so it was always a crapshoot, laying in clips.

And to cut Avengers, every time I'd cut a clip, I would find upon laying it in the timeline that it was wildly off from where I'd cut it. The whole thing was just astonishing to me. And I never knew where it would land, so I was basically editing blind, going through the timeline, adjusting and cutting frame by frame -- I couldn't just place my edit point and cut, I had to slip and roll and frame by frame it to find the actual point where a cut would go. To top it off, each of the Avengers-related movies worked fine in terms of edit points, but THEY HAD TO BE RENDERED each time I made any adjustment in them or touched them, just to see if the edit worked.

I really was basically making a vid blind. It reminded me of back in the days, when poor sakana17 made an X-Files vid and I think her music track wouldn't play or something, so she was cutting a vid without sound half the time. I always say that the worst day computer vidding beats the best day VCR vidding, but this time it was like some deja vu confluence of the worst of both worlds. I was in tears more than a lot of the time. And I'm still behind the 8-ball for the next two vids I need to make.

Anyway. It came out surprisingly well, considering I couldn't take advantage of the repeated "dum-dum-dum-dum-dum" staccato beat in the song, and I couldn't do ANY effects, even a dissolve. Even making credits turned out to be an ordeal of a workaround. It's by no means what I envisioned, but at least I don't totally hate it, which is something. I think it was the highlight of the con for me this year, though, that at least it didn't bomb at the show and some folks seemed to like it.

Comments

[kass]

Oh! Oh, I love this. So much beautiful motion -- the fling of a hand, the spray of a deck of cards, electronic images spreading to fill a room. So much beautiful emotion. The way all of their struggles are intertwined. This is fabulous! <3 I wish I could've seen it on the big screen last night.

[gwyn]

Yay!!! I wish you coulda been there too. I was just really glad it wasn't met with resounding silence!

[dine]

oooh, this is lovely! I wish I could have seen it there, and told you in person how much I like it - fantastic vid, as always

[gwyn]

Thank you, so glad you liked it! Aw, your icon is giving me all the Steve feels.

[sinensis]

hey, it's me. :) I added you to both my LJ and DW circles--I'm not sure which is your primary home. My content is the same across platforms, so read whichever one is your preferred.

Watching the Oscars with you guys was AWESOME.

[gwyn]

It was wonderful meeting you -- I can't tell you how thrilling it is to meet someone doing that kind of work, which has always fascinated and awed me.

I tend to crosspost everything these days -- I want to quit LJ, but I can't quite because so many communities are there that I'm in, and there's no equivalent at DW.

[fiercynn]

I love this! Steve is not usually the one that I connect with the most of the team, but somehow this made me want to hug him frantically. <3

[gwyn]

Heee -- I have to admit, my Steve feels were really amped up when I made this, which surprised me a lot. Also Thor -- I have an entirely new picture of him that I didn't before, it's weird. Vidding does that to you, though.

So glad you liked it!

[kuwdora]

god I love this vid so much. ♥

[gwyn]

Yay!!! So glad to hear that! And oh, wow, your icon is ... wow!!! Me like.

[keerawa]

I enjoyed that! The idea that these people all have a life worth fighting for, and the way you showed - very nice indeed. And having read your notes I am impressed you pulled it off despite all the technical challenges!

[gwyn]

Thank you!! I'm still kind of boggled it came out at all. The funny thing is, I'm actually working on an Iron Man vid with the same problems, but at least now I know what it does.

[calvinahobbes]

This is so awesome. It made me ridiculously excited for Avengers again, and I am super ready for Iron Man 3 now! :D I can't believe how much the technology was against you and you still managed to make this, wow!

[gwyn]

Wow -- I'm only almost a year late, but I never got these comments in my in box, and I'm so sorry I never responded. Thank you so much for the comments on the vid.

[kabal42]

Great vid! The "worth figthing for" theme was wonderful, it resonated so well throughout the vid - and of course it works fantastically for heroes like these. I can't imagine how frustrating vidding like that must have been, but you did a wonderful job, that's for sure *applauds* Now I have to go watch it again :)

[gwyn]

I'm so sorry it's taken me almost a year to reply to this -- I never got these comments in my in box and I feel like such an idiot for not checking. Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you so much for the lovely comments!

[umadoshi]

I really enjoyed this. *^^*

[gwyn]

Man, I feel really stupid, but I never got a bunch of comments in my in box, and so I had no idea that I'd been rude and not replied to a bunch! Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you and I'm so glad you enjoyed the vid.

[starlady]

This is really great! The team aspect is so lovely.

I would never gave guess it gave you such a hard time editing. :D

[gwyn]

Awww, thank you so much!!! I really loved how it turned out, despite everything, because I have such TEAMy feelings and they make me so happy!

[dariaw]

This is great - I love the editing and song choice and the clips you chose.

[gwyn]

Oh, thank you! It's not hard to vid these guys, they are full of fabulous expressions and actions.

[nagasvoice]

Really beautiful vid. Went and clicked around enjoying your others too. You pick amazingly rhymically strong songs to carry the weight of the emotions, it's really powerful.

[gwyn]

Aw, thank you! Music is the foundation on which vids are built for me -- I know that a lot of people have other things in mind when they vid, but for me it's always gotta be the music.

[magnifica7.livejournal.com]

It seems like they're dancing to the song... Beautifully done!

[gwyn]

Oh wow, thank you! It's always so wonderful when you hear a comment on an older vid!!

[kore]

Not to sound creepy, but I was feeling crappy earlier and rewatched this vid a couple of times and it really picked me up. You really caught something about how it's Team the Best Team for me and how they fight on despite all the odds against them, almost better than the movie did I think. In the vid it's really crystallized and the song amps it up even more.

[gwyn]

Aw, thank you so much for this. This vid didn't turn out to be what I had wanted it to be, but I still have a little place for it in my heart, for those reasons--team the best team. (Back before all this other nonsense started!!)

[mrs-laugh-track.livejournal.com]

eeeeee so good. I just love them all so much. Also wow the sense of MOVEMENT in this is incredible. Just really really good.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

YAY!!!! So glad you and S like this, honestly, I think I would have despaired if you hadn't.

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, fantastic!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you! ♥

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

That was really beautifully constructed, Gwyn. Such wonderful lyric ties all through, with lovely and clever use of motion. I think my favorite moment (of many) was that kiss connection at 3:32. Just perfect.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, Brad! I actually thought about taking Tony kissing Pepper out from the beginning to bring that into the kiss stuff at the end, but it seemed to fit better earlier, I'm not sure why. Sometimes being restricted by what you can do helps you focus on things, like the motion.

[mackiemesser.livejournal.com]

A really seamless melding of all the sources. I was struck by how it was very "action-y" but also had a very strong emotional element.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yay, thank you! It was definitely tough to balance the emotional and the action -- the movie is very long on action, but the character stuff was often pretty static. I would have to say Avengers is the toughest of all the (other Marvel) movies to vid!

[kirbyfest.livejournal.com]

Love it!!!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yay, thank you!

[deejay.livejournal.com]

*squees all up in here* \o/

Re:

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Squee is good! You might be happy to know I'm using all the clips since they're in the bin to make a Tony vid for Club Vivid. ;-)

[tipitiwitchet.livejournal.com]

Oh my, this is so pretty! I love the way it moves (I am an infant - need movement and colors!), and the way you give everyone in the cast a chance to step forward. It's lovely!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!! I always love the vids where I can focus on movement and energy -- those are the most fun to make, I think.

[ceares.livejournal.com]

very nice! terrific use of music and scene choice to create something both bittersweet and triumphant.

[sperrywink]

That was sunning. I loved how the emotions of The Avengers was capture din the bit where they were breaking down.