hazelk | New BtVS vid

Entry tags:

New BtVS vid

Title: Just
Artist: Radiohead
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and not a little Angel)
Characters/Pairings: Faith
Format: DivX
Size: 49.5MB
Summary: Back to the start

Download here (Right/control click and save target as/download linked file)

Extreme thanks to

bradcpu for betaing (it’s a Faith vid – who you gonna call)?

Feedback really hurts (but in a good way)

I can't really remember when I got the idea that “Just” was a Faith song. I know that at first it was more about the music than the lyrics, it had that mixture of inchoate self-directed rage with moments of extreme stillness in the aftermath that seemed very Faith. But a vid needs something a little more specific than that, and this came initially via an outtake from the VVC vid yet to premiere. I’d put together a sequence of falling glass/falling knife that I really liked but in the end had to admit didn’t fit anywhere. Not being able to let it go I had the idea of matching it to “Hanging out the 15th floor” in the second verse of “Just.”

That was a start, still a vid is more than one lyric/image match so I starting thinking around the song for more and got a little stuck on the first line “Can’t get the stink off.” Which is such a direct match for the 'out dammed spot scene' from Consequences that it seemed too obvious and with an AtS season one sequence in the next verse I kind of felt that if I started that way what I’d end up with would be just a summary of the story rather than a vid. The real breakthrough came with the idea of matching that first line not to Consequences in S3 but to the shower scene in Release and from that the whole idea of telling the story in reverse, funneling it down to Finch’s killing rather than branching up from that point.

Can't get the stink off
He's been hanging round for days
Comes like a comet
Suckered you but not your friends
One day he'll get to you
And teach you how to be a holy cow

You do it to yourself, you do
and that's what really hurts
You do it to yourself, just you
you and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself

Don't get my sympathy
Hanging out the 15th floor
changed the locks three times
He still comes reeling through the door
one day I'll get to you
And teach you how to get to purest hell

You do it to yourself, you do
and that's what really hurts
You do it to yourself, just you
you and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself

You do it to yourself, you do
and that's what really hurts is
You do it to yourself, just you
you and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself, yourself, yourself.

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Excellent character study. I really enjoyed it.

Thanks!

My favorite thing about this vid is that it's saying something very insightful, but it manages to come across as a very direct, straightforward statement that's impossible to misread. That's *incredibly* hard to do.

Faith is such an enigma, and I really feel like you've cut through to the heart of her with this.

Also, wow! That final (S3) segment just knocks me out every time. All of the events of S3 look so different in the context of your statement here.

Thank you for the rec! That S3 section is so key to the vid and I didn't really plan it. I had to make it to get just how alone Faith was during that period. All the other sections there's Buffy or Angel or Wesley as, well many things, but also as shadow selves but at first she didn't even have that. Just her and no-one else.

Holy crap. You think you see one Faith vid and you've seen them all, but holy crap, it feels completely brand new.

and I freaking absolutely positively adore the movement in this vid. Oh my god. Amazing amazing, times infinity.

Thank you! Faith moves with such a passion, I loved making this.

Yes, I like how that funneling worked, all moving back to this key point (at least one we know about in canon), all these different moments linked and repeated. And at least within the vid, a cycle Faith can't break out of.

at least within the vid, a cycle Faith can't break out of
Yes, exactly :-) Part of the idea for this came from the No Future comic. I really liked the way that there she did get the chance to back and face another accidental killing but to respond differently.

And what that vid made me realise was how the fight in the pond in S8 ties back to Buffy's dream of Faith dragging her underwater in S3.

Yes, exactly. The vid is pretty solidly Faith POV so *Buffy's* dream is strictly a little out of context but I was trying to play with whole Faith=Buffy=Faith confusion thing. I mean it's practically cannonical that Faith is Buffy's shadow but Buffy is also Faith's (shadow that is).

(One of the fun things about fanvids is the way they make me like songs I never would have otherwise listened to.)

Beautifully executed flow of imagery. Like others have said, it's nothing we haven't seen before yet it all comes together fresh, on fire.

I love this character, and your vid did right by her *and* did her right.

your vid did right by her *and* did her right
This makes me so happy to hear, I was very nervous about that aspect of vidding her. Thank you for commenting!

Wow, that was fantastic. Here by way of Brad's rec. Loved the sharp, fast editing, and the strong theme. A really good look at Faith's psyche.

Hi! And thank you :-)

That was really awesome. Very cool fragmented editing and it's the perfect song for Faith. Loved the flashes. Awesome job!

Thank you! I really wanted to get across the fragmented aspect of her psyche so I'm very glad you brought that up.

The way this played out with the song is just indescribable. Your juxtaposition of the scenes as time went by and then looped in on itself was absolutely stunning. I just loved it.

Thank you! I thought about editing the song down but every part of it seemed to have something to contribute to the story so I'm really glad I didn't.

Sorry, went "Eeek!" over your icon. :)

So glad you didn't cut it down.

Wow, that was really intense. I love the reversed timeline, because its still just as linear and packs as much of a punch seeing where it led to before seeing where it started. Great character meta for Faith and gorgeous editing/beat-work throughout.

I'm always truly impressed when people vid Radiohead WELL because their song structure is so unique and fluid sometimes--pulling off a cohesive visual narrative from a song like that is doubly impressive.

*applauds*

Thank you! The song was great to vid, I've not used Radiohead before but there was so much there in the music it was if it were challenging you to do it justice.

That was *so* cool !
you've used the song so well, and it's a song I love, and you've used the energy of it for the fight and violent shots, it was just great. I haven't seen so many Faith vids, but I really liked the angle you approached her character from here. You really captured her and used all of her scenes in a way it's built such a coherent character study.
Awesome !

Thank you! This song still gets to me - you know how when you vid something you become so immersed in the music it feels like you know it backwards but this one always had more to give.

That was brilliant - and it doesn't hurt that it's set to one of my all-time favourite songs (and the lyrics fit perfectly). Fantastic intercutting of scenes too - the ME crowd always liked using lots of recurring visual cues for characters, and you used Faiths' (knives, bloody hands, dancing, violence, anger, outsider vulnerability) extremely well here.

Gonna watch it again now.

Yes, exactly :-) Faith is like ME's gift to vidders and I never realised until I had to clip most of her arc for a Slayers vid. There were over 100 clips and I ended up only being able to use two which was just wrong.

Hey!

Great vid! Hope you will check out and mabey enter my awards site!
http://www.freewebs.com/divine_chick/

divine_chick

Thank you. Will check it out :-)

Gorgeous vid! Both in its execution (because it's very accomplished technically), and in its storytelling. Must re-watch a lot!

(Don't have a Faith icon - shame on me - so this one will have to do.)

Thank you :-) And thanks for the rec!

I really like the decision to set things going backwards -- it makes the footage look fresh again, and Faith may just be the character I've seen the most overvidded. Nice job. :)

Cheers! I guess Faith vies with Spike for character most vidded. Maybe he'd look better backwards? Preferably in heels.

This is just beautiful, perfectly cut and timed. You always vid to music that I love and know well -- I was surprised when I saw you'd chosen this song but you've convinced me it was made for Faith.

I especially loved the way you moved backward in time, it really made the footage feel new and all Faith's angst and injustice more painful. Faith has always been one of my favourite characters in the Buffyverse; the movement and feeling in this vid really reminded me of why. I appreciated the way you wove in secondary characters too, and especially enjoyed seeing Wesley's character arc in reverse.

Fabulous.

Thank you! I made the vid in more or less linear order and it was like getting to know her (Faith) all over again. The Wesley relationship is really interesting too, especially considering how oil and water they were at the beginning.

As others have already said, the reverse narrative works SO well and puts a fresh spin on this topic. I also love the use of movement -- you've taken Faith's physical violence and made it musical!

Thank you! Faith + movement + music = OT3 :-)

Oh, very nice! This is a really fresh perspective on Faith's story -- I'm impressed with how many clips you used that I haven't seen in other vids, and how you made the more often seen clips feel new with careful, quick cutting and of course the reverse chronological order. I love how Buffy is the axis around whom it all spins.

Excellent stuff.

Thanks! I like the Buffy/axis idea. The final part is the absence of Buffy and the first two are her aftermath.

You've got it all covered here. Very well done! *memmed*

Thanks!

Oh wow, I LOVE this so much!!! Just brilliant.

Thank you!

really gorgeous - I've seen a lot of faith character study vids, but I think you've got something new to offer here. I love the way it works backwards from season 4 angel back to season 3 buffy, from faith's supposed redemption after she escapes from prison back to her supposed tainting when she kills Finch, the way that those two stories are paralleled. Like I said, there are a lot of Faith vids out there, but you managed to find footage that I haven't seen vidded much before, and used it to tell a much fresher story - the shot of the mayor with the snake at the dream-picnic was really inspired, I think. Overall, it's a lovely piece; I'm glad to finally have a vid that compares those two "out out damned spot" scenes. :)

Thank you! It was daunting vidding a character with that weight of vidding history - Heresluck's Superstar is one of my all time favourites - but the backwardness did help to highlight some connections like the two spot scenes that I hadn't fully grasped myself before now. The mayor snake picnic thing was another, I'd been trying different images to introduce him, threw those two on the timeline and the whole snake/temptation metaphor just fell into place.

Came here via a rec from

chasarumba. Love the video. I like the way you worked the time line. It made the material seem new and different. I enjoyed all the cuts and emotional flow of the video, too. Awesome job.

Thank you! I really enjoyed making this one ;-)

I gasped at that last image--at how wonderfully you built the argument, working backward to that defining moment. Amazing job with both story and editing!

Thank you! I laid that image down right at the beginning of the vid and got very paranoid about half way through that it was going to end up being a little anti-climatic. I'm really glad it worked for you.

This is wonderful! :) Going backwards made each layer that was uncovered feel particularly insightful. I think you added an amazing amount of weight to your narrative with that choice.

And musically speaking, when the bodyswitching section hit I swear I got goosebumps. :D Loved those red flashes as well!

Thank you! The bodyswitch is the vid in its purest form but it took quite a few tries (and help from brad) to get that break in the music right. The template for the flashes comes from the show (but I feel I can still take credit for matching two frames of blipverts to its source).

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