Kickin' it old skool: Vividcon premieres vid for Miami Vice

[gwyn]

Planning on doing a con report later, and I can't get access to my Club Vivid premiere vid since my hard drive won't mount, but here is the premieres vid and streaming version. I decided this year to go old skool even though I knew it wouldn't connect with people at the con, just because I've wanted to make this vid for literally 20 years and for various reasons, never could. But killabeez apparently likes editing music, so I asked her to edit Red Rain for me, and it finally all came together. The one thing that makes me sad is that Sandy and I used to talk about this vid idea constantly back in the days when we had no way to get decent source, and it's hard to finally make it without her. The best I could have hoped for was that the audience wouldn't laugh, but I expected in a way that some people might find it funny. One person did ask me, very nicely, if it was supposed to be serious or funny, and I appreciated that she asked -- I consider any interpretation of vids as valid, but of course, you don't necessarily want people to sneer at things, either.

Anyway, here it is: (the link to the DL will be a bit delayed until a bit later today)

Red Rain
Fandom: Miami Vice
Artist: Peter Gabriel
Summary: Sonny Crockett's life is basically just one long terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.

Streaming: here

Embedded:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Comments

[thaccian]

As a big MV fan from all the way back in the day, I gotta say this is all kinds of wonderful. I haven't watched MV in a very long time, and now this vid makes me want to just marathon the show ASAP. Thanks for the link.

[gwyn]

You should totally marathon! Just clipping for it was a walk down memory lane, and I watched all the dvds as they came out, so that's sayin' something!

Thank you so much -- I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I am so happy to have finally made this vid. That people are enjoying it is a big bonus!

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

Miami Vice!!!!!!!!!!!

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

I loved it! I loved the choice of music and the selection of the clips. I have S1 of MV but it's been years since I've watched it. I've forgotten a lot of the plots and arcs of later in the series and this just really makes me wanted to begin watching the series again and re-familiarize myself with it. I know the vast majority of the fanfic is Sonny/Rico (which is fine) but I really had/have a thing for Edward James Olmos - Lt. Martin Castillo was so freaking zen! So my favorite pairing is Sonny/Martin although I kind of adore William Russ/Evan Freed and Sonny, too.

*sigh*

I see Miami Vice looking good for the weekend.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane.

[franzeska]

Vast majority? Damn, I wish! Most of the good slash is Crockett/Castillo.

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

Really? It's been quite a few years since I've read any MV. I'll definitely have to give it another look-see!

[franzeska]

There was never that much online, and what I've found has been mostly shorter and less good at... uh... fundamentals (like spelling). There are some excellent gen zines that read like episodes and a bunch of Crockett/Castillo zines that varied. (Sorry, you probably know all that already?)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's definitely a split between timeframes. I don't know why the net has been mostly S/R, with zines being so heavily C/C. I know there are still a lot of C/C fans out there, desperately trying to find more fic. ;-)

And a lot of the zine C/C has never made it online. I found some good stuff in the zine library at Escapade one year, surprised the hell out of me!

[franzeska]

I think the real answer is that there just aren't that many MV fic writers, especially now, so it's down to a couple of people's particular taste. I think there were always people who liked S/R; there just weren't zine editors willing to publish that. I'm not sure why there aren't more new C/C stories though. Maybe it's just that there are so few new stories of any kind. It also seems like the backbone of some of those zines was specific authors who had a strong story in every C/C zine, and since they're no longer in MV fandom, they're no longer inspiring all of the other people to write more C/C.

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

Actually I didn't know that. It's been quite a few years since I've read MV and I came into fanfic pretty much after the zine heyday. So thanks for the info.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad to find that there are pockets of MV fans still out there. You know, the seasons are all so different...they really went to hell in a handbasket during 3 and 4, with a few sporadic good episodes, but then kind of redeemed themselves at end of season 4 with the Burnett arc, then lost it again. By the time it ended, it was a mercy killing. It burned too hot and too fast, you know? But when it was good, it was the best.

Crockett and Castillo are definitely my pairing, and I think you can see that here, but there's no way to avoid the importance of Rico in Sonny's life. There's an interesting split between zine years and Internet years -- the stuff in zines was primarily C/C, while the net seems to favor S/R. I guess they didn't have to live through all those years of PMT being an insufferable twat so they love RIco.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

When did those guys get so young? I'd managed to forget just how many people got shot. I especially like the clip at 4:17-19. (The vid didn't strike me as funny at all, but then I watched MV when it was originally airing.)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I think someone once did a calculation of how many people Sonny himself shoots over the course of the series and it came to like almost 200 something. It was hilarious.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Wow, I seriously can't imagine thinking this was a comedy! The closest it gets is seeing all the baby actors - baby Bruce Willis! baby Jimmy Smits! guys with huge hair! - but it's reaaaaaallly pretty clear that this is a genuinely tragic show with a complex, morally slipping central character! Or maybe you had to be there, IDK!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I think it was more like that my blurb was kind of sarcastic, and between that and the litany of misery, it seemed like I might have been making fun of him. Not so much comedy ha-ha as poking fun at, is what I think she was asking. But my love for Sonny and his miserable life is pure and true. ;-)

[renenet.livejournal.com]

I found the vid very powerful, Gwyn, and I can't imagine thinking it's supposed to be read as a comedy.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I think it was more of a question of poking fun at him, if I understood her question. And my blurb was kinda sarcastic, if true. So I could see how someone might read it as "was I supposed to laugh?". But I was really grateful she asked!

[destina.livejournal.com]

I loved this vid. Full stop. The end.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yay, thank you!!!!

[varina8.livejournal.com]

Good vid. I've always been fond of Red Rain. I get how some could see it as ironic. I haven't see MV since it originally aired but I always felt like Mann was shooting over the top, too

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I think that the '80s were such a different decade, and MV was such a different show compared to anything that had ever been on TV. I have a long treatise in my head that I will spew at anyone unfortunate enough to ask about how much MV changed the face of TV forever, and when we look at it now it seems so OTT, yet at the time it was really unlike anything we'd seen before. It's really interesting in a historical context.

[varina8.livejournal.com]

Did you watch Crime Story at all? I loved the way Mann took it to the far reaches (testing::cough::testing).

[lilly-the-kid.livejournal.com]

I think I only ever saw one episode of Miami Vice, but I enjoyed this very much! Very beautiful and touching. Can't wait for the download link to work, great vid!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I think the DL link is fixed now. Sorry about that -- I left off a " on the URL. Sigh. I am never ever good at that stuff.

[revolutionaryjo.livejournal.com]

What a great song choice for the source! Really enjoyed it.

By the way, I think you might have an extra " in the HTML that goes with the URL for the download on your site.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I've wanted to do this pretty much since I discovered vidding -- it's always fun to return to the era-specific stuff.

Thanks for the heads-up on the html -- turns out I was missing a ". I really suck at this stuff.

[revolutionaryjo.livejournal.com]

Happens to the best of us. :)

[franzeska]

Aww, it was beautiful. I did hear a couple of snickers over what an OTT angstfest MV is, but I think the intent of the vid was clear.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the vid was a distillation of the angst -- I don't see the whole show being that way, not really. I mean, yeah, there's always some kind of horrible thing happening but it's no different than any of today's procedurals (which all take their playbook from MV anyway). But when you reduce it down to a vid about Sonny, it's gonna look like a misery fest.

I thought Anoel's vid review notes were HIGHlarious -- she wrote in one section someone saying "his wife was so shitty." I'm 100% sure it was supposed to be life. Ha ha ha ha.

[franzeska]

Bwa ha ha ha. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was 'life', even if the stunt casting was not so popular at the time.