[Equilibrium vid] Words of the Dead

[permetaform]

(I would recommend using VLC Player to play the vid, it's free; or if you stil have problems playing the vid you can look at this guide.)



Please right-click and save as! (all feedback and critique are adored and will be responded to)

Words of the Dead | .avi (720x480, 29.9mb)
_{Source: Equilibrium
Song: "The Chemicals Between Us", by Bush
Summary: Preston's dead haunts him still (always).}

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Thanks: Much love to morgandawn, lierdumoa, and laurashapiro, for betas and audiencing and encouragement.


Chemicals Between Us by Bush

I want you to remember
A love so full
it could send us all ways

I want you to surrender
All my feelings rose today

And I want you to remain
The power of children can amaze
I'll try not to complain

I know that's a pisser baby

The chemicals between us
The walls that lie between us
Lying in this bed

The chemicals displaced
There is no lonelier state
Than lying in this bed

I want you to remember
Everything you said
Every driven word

Like a hammer
Held to my head

The chemicals between us
The walls that lie between us
Lying in this bed

The chemicals displaced
There is no lonelier face
Than lying in this bed

The chemicals between us
The chemicals between us
Lying in this bed

We're of the hollow men
We are the naked ones
We never meant you harm
Never meant you wrong

And I'd like to thank
All of my
lovers
lovers
lovers
lovers
lovers
lovers

The chemicals between us
The army of achievers
Lying in this bed

The chemicals displaced
There is no lonelier state
Than lying in this bed

The chemicals between us
The chemicals between us
Chemicals

The chemicals between us


Notes: This vid took both forever and 2 months. Or rather, 2 months stretched over the course of a year. I...gah, I give up. This really should've been done in Adobe After Effects, but I was crazy and stubborn and in the end too lazy to redo my work elsewhere.

My computer had it's revenge tho, in massive export problems. Fun times.

One of the most interesting problems was attempting to make the lyrics more audible with certain cuts. Dunno if the solutions succeeded, but it was an entertaining experiment in any case. Other interesting problems include trying to include massive amounts of relationships in only 4 min., the solution as near as I could make it is to basically have an intro section the length of an entire verse and chorus (PLUS the intro). Usually I'd only story intro during the song's intro, but the world I was trying to include was too big.

I...really really don't want to imagine attempting to remaster this sucker. ::facepalm:: Or at least, not before the next evolution of whatever programs' gonna replace After Effects. Because honestly: way. too. tedious.

I think...this is actually the first vid I posted this year. Wow, I'm lagging. ::wryyyyy::

_{[main vid index]}

Comments

[geekturnedvamp.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to watch this as soon as I get home... seriously, I have been excited about it ever since you said you were making an Equilibrium vid!

[permetaform]

heee! yay! and...god, awfully sorry about the really long wait. ::points at icon::

[lea-ysaye.livejournal.com]

I think after this the only sensible option is to pack up and leave vidding to those who really can do it (like you). One word: Brilliance!

[permetaform]

::FLAILS:: what! no! ::stomps feet and pouts:: you're not allowed to! =D

(and thank you!)

[marquesate.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. Effing. Goodness. I just watched it, about 5 times in a row. I cannot find the words for how speechles I am (contradiction in terms, eh?) This is so utterly profesisonal, so perfect, so sleek and brilliant, I am gobsmacked.

You have true talent, skills and determination. You should be a professional, this video is breathaking.

[permetaform]

heee!! ::GLOMPS:: thank you. I'm sorta looking at it right now and hating it 'cause I've stared at it so long that I lost all sense of if it's any good. ::glomps again:: thank you so much for your compliments, it means much to me.

[jb_slasher]

Oh, wow. *jaw drop* Dude. The gun shot. And all. Perfect. Timing. WOW. Awesome video! :)

[permetaform]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it, the gun shot's actually something else originally...and, well my betas turned to me and was like, "not so much". After some mental swearing I switched it around. =) God bless the betas, every one.

[permetaform]

=D ::glomps:: I'm so glad that it holds up under scrutiny and...wow...I'm sorry I made you teary?

[bionic.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! This is an amazing video! It's so tight, so professional... I loved it! Seriously, you are THE BEST. Completely blew me away.

[permetaform]

thank you! I'm glad you liked it so much!

[myniamh.livejournal.com]

Wow. Awesome. Lots of big impressed words! =D
I've been looking forward to this after you posted about the exporting disaster. Very good job getting it done.

[permetaform]

=D Thank you! I'm glad you liked it and happy that it lived up to your expectations!

WOW!!

[askye.livejournal.com]

I love your vids, in fact I was introducting my future SIL to vids and showed her Gravity as an example (and she loved it).

This is a fantastic vid! I've only seen Equilibrium once, I saw a bunch of vids first and it was one of those movies where I was told the vids are better than the source. I think that's true but knowing the canon just makes vids like yours so much more powerful. As soon as Survivor is over I'm going to watch this some more.

Love the effect with Sean Bean, love. Also the relationship bewteen father and son (like when Christian Bale dropps the vials and his son flips the ceral over the bowl). love love love this vid!

Re: WOW!!

[permetaform]

Oh! Wow, please give my thank-yous to your future SIL for the complement!

I'm glad that you liked my vid and that it makes sense to you with the context of the movie.

The effect loved Sean Bean, he looks good glowing, ;D, and I'm glad that the interrelationships worked for you!

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Wow. Umm, wow...I'm rather partial to the movie anyway (total badassedry and triple prettiness gets me anytime) but this...it's not subtext, it's not even slashy, you made it into a love story. Gorgeous.

[permetaform]

Heee! I'm so glad you liked it, and that you found it to be a love story. I was trying to be careful of it, because I didn't want to bash any of the canonical relationships, and yet to protray this...this...I dunno, that...if they could have loved, if they had the ability to love, this would be it.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

PIMPED. So pimped. And I am still just as stunned and overwhelmed and transported as I was when you showed us the rough. You are really just fantastic at this.

I use ghost!Qui as being my most appropriate icon for the content.

[permetaform]

::glomps:: Thank you! And I'm glad that it still...::flails:: I dunno, at certain points I just kinda loathe it and lose all perspective on it. I'm glad it still works, I guess is what I'm trying to say? Something.

::glomps again:: thank you.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Holy cow. What a wonderful vid. The timing, the structure, the effects, all utterly perfect. (I especially love the ghosting effect you've got around the Bean and I shudder to think of the work it took to achieve it.)

Brava!

[permetaform]

::bounces and squees:: I'm especially glad that you liked it because I loved your equilibrium vid. I'm glad that the effect worked for you, and that the structure worked too especially because of all the relationships I tried to cram in. Thank you!

[chikkiboo.livejournal.com]

I... wow.

I'm not even familiar with your source material here, but your sense of timing has fucking FLOORED me. I'm AMAZED. It's like every single thing in the entire video is perfectly timed to the music. The shooting + snowglobe bit? AMAZING. And when he's in white and shooting people all bang bang bang, a bit later - did you mess with THAT so that the shooting is in time, too? Because it looked like it to me. And I mean those are just the two things that stood out the most, I was going "wow!" at your timing like constantly. I'm so impressed.

[permetaform]

::points at icon:: I'm a total beat whore, I helplessly time things. XD And actually, the shooting/snowglob section was one of my favorite bits to vid. =)

Thank you! I'm glad you liked the vid!

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

This is *fantastic*. The intercutting, the effects and timing, the repeated images, and the connections between everyone--just, really really wonderful. Worth the year you spent on it without question. :D

[permetaform]

Thank you! ::glomps:: It's awesome hearing that from you 'cause I adore your vids. I'm very glad that the connections between everyone was clear for you 'cause I'm not naturally a narrative vidder.

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

this is amazing. i love that i can tell that there's a story. i'm usually pretty bad about recognizing stories in music videos--of the fan made variety, anyway. but this is great, this is like--the ultimate collage, with no ragged edges and just--ghosts, everwhere (which were so excellently done). what a great way to recontext the movie into a fanfic of sorts.

[permetaform]

::glomps!:: It's always a relief to me to know that my vids are accessible to people who don't know my source; I know I tend to vid obscure stuff and am always trying to make sure people aren't bored despite that.

And yeah, I sorta did imagine this as a fanfic ::bounces::, actually my main inspiration for the vid is laceymcbain's Care In The Holding, and am glad that you found it as having no ragged edges 'cause I was experimenting with toeing the line of AU.

[glitterdemon.livejournal.com]

i don't know the source (though god only knows why - i love the actors in the movie), but this is absolutely gorgeous. thank you for sharing it.

[permetaform]

Thank you! I'm glad you found it accessible despite not knowing the source; I try to have a stand-alone story in all my vids, and am always sorta relieved whenever I get a response that mentions that it's good despite a person not knowing the context.

[nightengale.livejournal.com]

YOU KICK SO MUCH ASS.

will download later :3

[permetaform]

=D ::GLOMPS::

[obsessive24.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. I'm just speechless. This is amazing. I've been looking forward to what new vid you're coming up with, but this just blew me away beyond measure. Spectacular ghost effects aside, the pace of it, the way you use speed changes to maintain such an incredible sense of dynamic and drive, and all the colours, repeated images and symbols - it's so potent and incredible. Equilibrium is visually striking and it's easy to make a good vid out of the footage that you've got, but what you've done here has gone so much beyond that - you've constructed such an intricate journey, full of parallels and connections and such amazing emotion. It's just... wow. Absolutely fantastic.

[permetaform]

Wow. Thank you for such extensive feedback and for the rec! It makes me glee that you recced it because I admire your work.

I'm glad that the sum of it is effective emotionally because I've been trying to work on that; that it's more than just pretty effects. I'm glad that the journey works for you, that you can discern a journey, because I wasn't sure how much of it worked because of the wierd structuring that made the vid non-linear.

So again, thank you for letting me know, thank you for sending this feedback. ::hugs:: =)

[charmax.livejournal.com]

Excellent, excellent vid!

[permetaform]

thank you!

[mranderson71.livejournal.com]

*cut n pasted from my reply in Vidding*

That was a truly refreshing take on Equilibrium - I thorughly enjoyed watching that!

The ghosting effect was inspired & served your story telling aspect of the vid extremely well. Quality for the file size is impressive too...I see in the properties its Xvid but I didn't think it was possible to get a 3.50 song @ 720x480 in at 30 meg with that quality.

You could have probably shaved a meg or 2 by cropping the black & the top & bottom too, but still...Im in awe of the quality of this vid.

Nice job!

[permetaform]

=) thank you for the heads up about the image! unfortunately, I got home from the convention too late to cuttag the image and the post was deleted. I'll try to repost it again.

I'm glad that you thought it was a refreshing take! The problem with movie vids versus tv vids is that there's only about 2 hrs of source versus however many hours in a season, so the footage can get really old really fast if you're watching a lot of vids. I tried to compensate for that fact in this vid and am glad that it seemed to have worked!

Heh, I tried a version without the ghosting effect on my betas and they were confused by the story and the POV. It was a combination of self-preservation and insanity. ::wry grin::

The process that I used to encode my vid is that suggested by this tutorial. Xvid is actually based off of the Divx codec, so it should play on the DVD players that plays .avi's. Unfortunatly, the resolution of the movie is a wierd variant of widescreen (::rolls eyes:: can't they just make it consistent?), and so to prevent distortion I sized the vid's width up to 720 and added black bars to make it 480 vertically; which is the resolution of the basic TV monitor.

Thank you for your feedback, I've seen your name around and I think I saw one of your vids that morgandawn showed me.

[little-sparks.livejournal.com]

Absolutly stunning, wonderful work.

[permetaform]

thank you!

[fireflykiwi.livejournal.com]

Stopped by because it was recommended, and all I can say is WOW. I am truly amazed.

[permetaform]

thank you! I'm glad you liked it!

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

Here via obsessive24's rec. That was stunning! I've seen several Equilibrium vids but never the movie itself, and even *I* got chills seeing Sean Bean walk out beside Christian Bale for the big fight scene near the end. Beautiful symbolism there. Even setting aside the effects, the overall style of clean, sharp motion and flow was just mesmerizing. Love detail shots, the closeups on the hands, and so forth - they give the piece a very intimate feel.

Wonderful work.

[permetaform]

thank you for pointing out the rec, and thank you for your feedback! I'm glad that it makes sense and that it was still effective despite your not having seen the movie.

And thank you for the comment that the vid was intimate. I was trying to show multiple relationships between the characters and at one point I was getting really worried that I wasn't giving it enough of a sense of 'smallness' 'cause I was trying to include the 'world' so much. Your comment then came very much as a relief. =) Thank you for giving me your thoughts.

You're a God

[jade-kadir.livejournal.com]

I saw a rec by obsessive24 who's got a good eye for good vids, and I have to say that this one is the best vid I've seen ... ever ... hands down. The vid was crisp and I loved the effects used, like the ghosting and the time dialation. It ws also highly emotional for me. The song was an inspired choice given the plot of the film, which may be something that people who haven't seen the movie are missing out on, but it was an excellent choice. Overall, watching this was a sublime experience and I too shall pimp your vid to my friends as it should be required viewing for all people everywhere. Thank you so very much for making it and I look forward to more quality vids in the future.

Re: You're a God

[permetaform]

Thank you for your feedback! I'm happy at the fact that you found the vid highly emotional 'cause it's something that I struggle with sometimes. I'm very glad (and a little awed) that you found the vid to be so good. Thank you so much for such lovely feedback!

(btw, I peeked in your journal and it seems that you've watched Pirates of the Caribbean? I've made a vid to that too if you're interested; it's older work tho.)

[astolat]

AAAaaA GODDAMN YOUUUU NOW I FINALLY HAVE TO WATCH THIS MOVIE. rarr.

Spectacular. I so want to know how you did the effects -- did you actually hand-edit frame by frame to insert Sean Bean into those scenes? I have already gathered some sense of the movie via fannish osmosis, and the song choice is perfect; the intercutting of the snowglobe and the book of poetry (even while I'm probably missing some significance) leading up to the gunshot is just fantastic. Also, I love that one shot of the martial arts practice -- something about that is just perfect, and the one shot where Bale is on his knees crying out on "lovers" before the final fight sequence with Sean Bean's ghost at his side.

(PS: I just rewatched Welcome Home also after seeing this several times, and that vid still makes me get all teary every single time.)

[permetaform]

HEEE!! I FEEL NO SHAME; YOUR BOOK MADE ME CRY FOUR SEPARATE TIMES.

Heh, actually I 'cheated' for most of the effects; Sean Bean was actually in most of those scenes. I don't trust myself to edit frame by frame and be able to maintain a smooth motion with any degree of accuracy. Instead I took the basic glow effect (opacity 30%, brightness/contrast +35ish, blue tint) and constrained it with a 16 pt. garbage matte around Sean Bean...then I keyframed it so that the glowy area followed him when he moved. I tried to keep the scenes out of context (when I needed it out of context) by changing the color...most of the golden sections where Bean was following Bale were originally blue, and thus hopefully unrecognizable at casual glance. (and the slight-of-hand via fast cutting helped as well =D )

In a couple areas I took the Sean Bean from the previous clip and extended it a bit, with a bit of the bottom-non-blurred portion on the layer beneath it. The non-blurred portion has a layer that's just the edge, with gaussian blur, because Premiere is stupid and doesn't let you blur the edge of your garbage matte.

the snowglobe-gunshot sequence is one of my faves...possibly because it worked with the least amount of anguish ::wryyy:: ditto with the 'lovers' sequence.

The martial arts practice was actually a later clip when I stared at the vid and realized I wasn't adding enough 'world' to it. After a certain amount of teeth gnashing I found the clip and went yay!

(::awed and pleased:: I'm very glad that Welcome Home stands up to repeated viewings and that you found it to be emotionally effective. I try to make my vids emotionally accessible, so it's awesome to hear you find it works for you on that level)

[bionic.livejournal.com]

ok so I commented already but MY GOD, I can't stop watching your vid. The clips, the song, EVERYTHING is PERFECT. I'm in love. So in love. YOU ARE THE GREATES EVAR.

[permetaform]

awww ::GLOMPS:: thank you!