"Safe from Harm" DVD commentary
Feb. 2nd, 2008 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkLots of vid stuff going around the reading list with VVC registration squee. Also squeeful is the new community ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
halfamoon “a fourteen day challenge celebrating female characters in fandom, which will run from February 1 through Valentine's Day.” Contributing in spirit, I finally re-mastered (and ended up slightly re-editing) my Laura Roslin vid from last year Safe from Harm.
Download the shiny new version from here (Right/control-click and Download Linked File) and there’s also some rather long DVD style commentary about it below.
Background
“Laura dreams,” I had the tag line for this worked out even before I’d started clipping. Marianne Dreams was a favourite book as a child and Laura does dream a lot. The tensions between that and her President Roslin aspect were always a big part of what made her so fascinating (I’m so very happy about the return to the visions that the ending to S3 promised) . The vid was always intended as an embiggenment of the dream thing Laura had going in the S2’s Epiphanies, I wanted to use the deathbed sequences from that episode to frame her whole story from the day the bombs went off to the end of the New Caprican occupation (this vid was planned as S3 was beginning). As to what that story was about, if you watch Massive Attack’s own video for this song Shara Nelson’s character spends it climbing the stairs to her high rise home and waiting child on a run down council estate. The kind where the stairwells are littered with needles and hooded young men it’s best not to make eye contact with. Laura is taking her ‘baby’ home rather than going home to meet him/her/it but I think that’s a minor difference. I cut the original track down by a whole verse and one chorus in the middle and trimmed the instrumental parts at the beginning and end but I think it retains that underlying theme and the sense of being under attack from both without and within.
Commentary
The one thing I knew about this vid going in (as well as the tag line) was that it was going to start intercutting shots of Laura being wheeled into surgery from Epiphanies with the clips of the Cylon peace treaty blowing away in the explosion from the original miniseries. I laid down those clips over the wind effect intro to the song and it was one of those times where something looks exactly as you pictured it only better. Images of bits of paper was something I wanted to make recurrent through the vid, Laura being a politician papers and treaties are what her world is made of. As the beat starts up it cuts to the gurney being raced down to sickbay intercut with clips from Roslin’s dream flashbacks to the day it all started and she found she had cancer. One thing I really like about this section was more or less an accident, I wanted to overlay the shot tracking from the sea to Caprica City with the paper from the treaty but I had to shift the treaty shot down to get the fluorescent lighting out of shot but in that position the movement of the paper is almost exactly picked up the swirl of the doctor’s white coat in the next dream clip.
The memories switching to those of seeing Balter with Six is the cue to show the results of his betrayal, this time the treaty is overlaid with a clip of the ocean and the third and last time I use it to the explosion from Dorel’s suicide bomb. So it’s shown over air, water and fire which makes me alchemically very happy although as with the doctor’s coat I didn’t plan it. This second half of the intro shows the New Caprican invasion, the idea was to establish the time frame for the vid before moving into the lyric.
Midnight ronkers, City slickers
I had no idea what ronkers were but wanted to use the Lebonen from Laura’s dream because of the midnight part. It turns out to mean somewhat crusty types so fits well enough both ways. City slickers just screamed out to be pin-striped Baltar and undercover Six before the attack.
Gunmen and maniacs
Aligning the gunmen from the dream with the marines arresting Dorel was quite tricky but worth it and he looks suitably insane pulling the trigger on himself. Cue flying papers and Laura wakes (up until now she’s been sleeping or a dream of herself).
All will feature on the freakshow
Mugshots of the Cylons, this whole section focuses on the external enemy and their corpses. Part of the idea here was that showing those bodies walking again in the next shots of them entering Colonial One would demonstrate their inhuman clonal nature but because the shot foregrounds Six rather than Sharon that’s not readily apparent. But I also wanted the shot of Six and Laura’s reaction to the invasion (And I can't do nothing 'bout that, no, no) in order to echo it later with her own triumphant return to Colonial One.
But if you hurt what's mine
I'll sure as hell retaliate
First lines of the chorus and the retaliation mention is key to the whole vid. Roslin is no Madonna. Having shown the enemy this section was supposed to about what she was protecting, the fleet and the people left on it. The first part mostly shows those she failed to protect, the little girl from the garden ship and later the Olympic Carrier. There’s a downward turn to the clips to the first line, in the second things come back up a gain and Lebonen gets airlocked for real.
You can free the world you can free my mind
Just as long as my baby's safe from harm tonight
You can free the world you can free my mind
Just as long as my baby's safe from harm tonight
Free in the sense of change, blow open, explosions for the first iteration, the revelation that prophecies are real for the second. I discovered during this part that switching compositing mode to “multiply” allows only the white parts of a shot to show up over a dark or fiery background, which made bringing in Roslin’s note-to-self about the Olympic Carrier smoothly possible. Papers-wise this section has the population board (which comes back several times) and the Pythia scrolls, I really love those shots of Roslin reaching for the scrolls in the rain.
“Baby” lands on a clip of Galactica both times but first time around the Galactica shot is more of a filler so it feels as if that “baby” might refer to Billy but I quite like the ambiguity. This section ends triumphant before returning to the sickbay for a change of mood, the Tricky section of the track.
The flashback to the vision of Baltar and Six consorting sets up the narrative for this section in which the enemy comes from within both in the sense of Baltar being a traitor (snake in the grass) and through the corruptive effect of Roslin’s interactions with him. She suspects him but still finds it convenient to let him into power and that ultimately leads to the attempted election fraud.
Tell us what it is dangerous
Friends and enemies I find it's contagerous
And they're spreading through your system like a virus
Yes the trouble in the end it makes you anxious
The beat is twistier in this section, I tried to pick that up in the external motion switching from side to side (also to represent Roslin’s indecision, self doubt). Lot’s of paperword in the ballot section and intercutting with EpihaniesLaura in her near death spasms.
I was lookin' back to see if you were lookin back at me
To see me lookin back at you
I was lookin' back to see if you were lookin back at me
To see me lookin back at you
This part was fun finally bringing Six into play as the power behind Baltar and having to scan through lots of episodes to find the ones where she wore silver besides the S2 Finale.
But if you hurt what's mine
I'll sure as hell retaliate
“What’s mine” focuses on Billy, uses photographs of New Caprican victims to echo the wall of the dead shots in the first chorus and the stowaway from The Captain’s Handto match the little girl lost from the miniseries. Retaliation is the destruction of the resurrection ship but it doesn’t make up for the loss –the overlay of the piece of paper falling in the aftermath of the suicide bombing on New Caprica over Billy’s death was a juxtapostion I originally planned to use for the ending but it fit better here.
You can free the world you can free my mind
Just as long as my baby's safe from harm tonight
You can free the world you can free my mind
Just as long as my baby's safe from harm tonight
This final section was all from the beginning of S3 so most of it needed to be remastered with DVD footage. The first half is relatively unchanged, it basically summarises the occupation, Roslin’s incarceration and the resistance movement. Bad things, (and the falling papers that parallel the treaty shots form the beginning of the vid are the result of her own people’s actions not the enemies) so where I’ve overlaid shots of her on her sickbed her pain is evident. The second half I re-edited especially the ending which had always felt a bit rushed, it needed more chaos on the ground to earn the final victory. There’s a clip of Roslin sleeping serenely that flickers through clips of people running for the ships, the final image of her with spaceships in her hair uses the same clip. That image was another of those happy accidents that on re-watching seemed the perfect picture to end with rather than the masses cheering (Adama) that I had in the original version.
halfamoon “a fourteen day challenge celebrating female characters in fandom, which will run from February 1 through Valentine's Day.” Contributing in spirit, I finally re-mastered (and ended up slightly re-editing) my Laura Roslin vid from last year Safe from Harm. Download the shiny new version from here (Right/control-click and Download Linked File) and there’s also some rather long DVD style commentary about it below.
Background
“Laura dreams,” I had the tag line for this worked out even before I’d started clipping. Marianne Dreams was a favourite book as a child and Laura does dream a lot. The tensions between that and her President Roslin aspect were always a big part of what made her so fascinating (I’m so very happy about the return to the visions that the ending to S3 promised) . The vid was always intended as an embiggenment of the dream thing Laura had going in the S2’s Epiphanies, I wanted to use the deathbed sequences from that episode to frame her whole story from the day the bombs went off to the end of the New Caprican occupation (this vid was planned as S3 was beginning). As to what that story was about, if you watch Massive Attack’s own video for this song Shara Nelson’s character spends it climbing the stairs to her high rise home and waiting child on a run down council estate. The kind where the stairwells are littered with needles and hooded young men it’s best not to make eye contact with. Laura is taking her ‘baby’ home rather than going home to meet him/her/it but I think that’s a minor difference. I cut the original track down by a whole verse and one chorus in the middle and trimmed the instrumental parts at the beginning and end but I think it retains that underlying theme and the sense of being under attack from both without and within.
Commentary
The one thing I knew about this vid going in (as well as the tag line) was that it was going to start intercutting shots of Laura being wheeled into surgery from Epiphanies with the clips of the Cylon peace treaty blowing away in the explosion from the original miniseries. I laid down those clips over the wind effect intro to the song and it was one of those times where something looks exactly as you pictured it only better. Images of bits of paper was something I wanted to make recurrent through the vid, Laura being a politician papers and treaties are what her world is made of. As the beat starts up it cuts to the gurney being raced down to sickbay intercut with clips from Roslin’s dream flashbacks to the day it all started and she found she had cancer. One thing I really like about this section was more or less an accident, I wanted to overlay the shot tracking from the sea to Caprica City with the paper from the treaty but I had to shift the treaty shot down to get the fluorescent lighting out of shot but in that position the movement of the paper is almost exactly picked up the swirl of the doctor’s white coat in the next dream clip.
The memories switching to those of seeing Balter with Six is the cue to show the results of his betrayal, this time the treaty is overlaid with a clip of the ocean and the third and last time I use it to the explosion from Dorel’s suicide bomb. So it’s shown over air, water and fire which makes me alchemically very happy although as with the doctor’s coat I didn’t plan it. This second half of the intro shows the New Caprican invasion, the idea was to establish the time frame for the vid before moving into the lyric.
I had no idea what ronkers were but wanted to use the Lebonen from Laura’s dream because of the midnight part. It turns out to mean somewhat crusty types so fits well enough both ways. City slickers just screamed out to be pin-striped Baltar and undercover Six before the attack.
Aligning the gunmen from the dream with the marines arresting Dorel was quite tricky but worth it and he looks suitably insane pulling the trigger on himself. Cue flying papers and Laura wakes (up until now she’s been sleeping or a dream of herself).
Mugshots of the Cylons, this whole section focuses on the external enemy and their corpses. Part of the idea here was that showing those bodies walking again in the next shots of them entering Colonial One would demonstrate their inhuman clonal nature but because the shot foregrounds Six rather than Sharon that’s not readily apparent. But I also wanted the shot of Six and Laura’s reaction to the invasion (And I can't do nothing 'bout that, no, no) in order to echo it later with her own triumphant return to Colonial One.
I'll sure as hell retaliate
First lines of the chorus and the retaliation mention is key to the whole vid. Roslin is no Madonna. Having shown the enemy this section was supposed to about what she was protecting, the fleet and the people left on it. The first part mostly shows those she failed to protect, the little girl from the garden ship and later the Olympic Carrier. There’s a downward turn to the clips to the first line, in the second things come back up a gain and Lebonen gets airlocked for real.
Just as long as my baby's safe from harm tonight
You can free the world you can free my mind
Just as long as my baby's safe from harm tonight
Free in the sense of change, blow open, explosions for the first iteration, the revelation that prophecies are real for the second. I discovered during this part that switching compositing mode to “multiply” allows only the white parts of a shot to show up over a dark or fiery background, which made bringing in Roslin’s note-to-self about the Olympic Carrier smoothly possible. Papers-wise this section has the population board (which comes back several times) and the Pythia scrolls, I really love those shots of Roslin reaching for the scrolls in the rain.
“Baby” lands on a clip of Galactica both times but first time around the Galactica shot is more of a filler so it feels as if that “baby” might refer to Billy but I quite like the ambiguity. This section ends triumphant before returning to the sickbay for a change of mood, the Tricky section of the track.
The flashback to the vision of Baltar and Six consorting sets up the narrative for this section in which the enemy comes from within both in the sense of Baltar being a traitor (snake in the grass) and through the corruptive effect of Roslin’s interactions with him. She suspects him but still finds it convenient to let him into power and that ultimately leads to the attempted election fraud.
Friends and enemies I find it's contagerous
And they're spreading through your system like a virus
Yes the trouble in the end it makes you anxious
The beat is twistier in this section, I tried to pick that up in the external motion switching from side to side (also to represent Roslin’s indecision, self doubt). Lot’s of paperword in the ballot section and intercutting with EpihaniesLaura in her near death spasms.
To see me lookin back at you
I was lookin' back to see if you were lookin back at me
To see me lookin back at you
This part was fun finally bringing Six into play as the power behind Baltar and having to scan through lots of episodes to find the ones where she wore silver besides the S2 Finale.
I'll sure as hell retaliate
“What’s mine” focuses on Billy, uses photographs of New Caprican victims to echo the wall of the dead shots in the first chorus and the stowaway from The Captain’s Handto match the little girl lost from the miniseries. Retaliation is the destruction of the resurrection ship but it doesn’t make up for the loss –the overlay of the piece of paper falling in the aftermath of the suicide bombing on New Caprica over Billy’s death was a juxtapostion I originally planned to use for the ending but it fit better here.
Just as long as my baby's safe from harm tonight
You can free the world you can free my mind
Just as long as my baby's safe from harm tonight
This final section was all from the beginning of S3 so most of it needed to be remastered with DVD footage. The first half is relatively unchanged, it basically summarises the occupation, Roslin’s incarceration and the resistance movement. Bad things, (and the falling papers that parallel the treaty shots form the beginning of the vid are the result of her own people’s actions not the enemies) so where I’ve overlaid shots of her on her sickbed her pain is evident. The second half I re-edited especially the ending which had always felt a bit rushed, it needed more chaos on the ground to earn the final victory. There’s a clip of Roslin sleeping serenely that flickers through clips of people running for the ships, the final image of her with spaceships in her hair uses the same clip. That image was another of those happy accidents that on re-watching seemed the perfect picture to end with rather than the masses cheering (Adama) that I had in the original version.