[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

[kylielee1000.livejournal.com]

Thanks for a great vid. I saw it at muskratjamboree and was unfamiliar with the source material, so while everyone else was watching the next vid I was frantically writing down the name of the film so I wouldn't forget. And the love I feel now that I've seen it! The fanfic I want to write! Thanks for pimping me into it.

I am not much of a vid person (because I find that I have to be very familiar with the source material to be able to see any emotional resonance), so thanks for creating a vid that didn't rely on the source to create its own story. If that makes sense. The vid was able to transcend the source and say something to me on a totally different level. Needless to say, I've DL'd the vid. I've watched it before and after, and it's like two different vids for me--the uninformed and the informed viewing.

[permetaform]

wow. thank you so very very much for the awesome feedback. I'm so glad that it made sense without any knowledge of the source, 'cause I tried hard to make it clear in that way. I have a problem also with feeling emotional resonance with source I'm unfamiliar with and I'd wanted the vid to be very approachable.

I'd be very excited if you wrote fanfic for it and would love to see it if you do.

I'm kinda curious, if you don't mind me being chatty, as what was the difference for you (as an audience) between the two vids, the before and after. I've watched it so many times that I fear my assumptions about it might be horribly biased and so being able to watch the vid completely objectively to see what a completely unaware audience might get from it is...well, not really an exact science. XD

[kylielee1000.livejournal.com]

what was the difference for you (as an audience) between the two vids, the before and after

The before: I had NO IDEA what the film was about but was taken by the suppressed emotion of all of it and the stunning visuals (the set design, the costumes, lots of black, white, and silver). The repeated explosions (of the globe smashing, of the prozium ampoules smashing, of the cereal hitting the table) indicated that some kind of explosive feeling lay just underneath the surface, and it was clear to me that Preston was the one feeling it. The image of Preston trailing his hand along the wall with the spaced bullet holes really got me--I immediately wanted to know more. The main things I remember from the three or four viewings I saw of the vid before I saw the film were the masses of people versus the individual; the striking architecture that dwarfed people; objects exploding and hitting; and the link between Preston and Mary. In terms of visuals, I particularly loved the way you altered speed, speeding up and slowing down to draw my attention to something.

The after: The same sense of claustrophobia and tamped-down feeling was here, but now it had a context: Preston and Partridge, Preston and Viviana, Preston and Mary, all of them representing something different to Preston, yet somehow conflating. This was made particularly clear by the ghostly images of characters that you manipped in. It added a whole layer of extra meaning: Partridge and Mary took on the same aspect, then were linked overtly in the photograph. Whereas before I thought it was about Preston and Mary, now I knew it was equally about Partridge and Mary, and what they had lost. The ending, where Preston examines the photo, took on a whole layer of emotional resonance along these lines. The explication of the yellow ampoules (prozium, perfume) also interested me, as did images of his children's faces, which I hadn't really noticed before (as if they were merely random people).

I'd be very excited if you wrote fanfic for it and would love to see it if you do.

It's in beta. If you'd like to see it, please email me at kylielee1000 AT gmail DOT com and I can send it to you. It's about 10,000 words. I will probably post it in a week or so (I sent my beta the film but she hasn't gotten it yet), but I'd love more comments, particularly from people familiar with the source.