VVC 08 Premiere Vid: BtVS

[hazelk]

Your faces, O my sisters! Your faces filled of light!


Title: Scarlet Ribbons
Artist: Sinead O’ Connor
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and a little Angel)
Characters/Pairings: Slayers
Format: DivX
Size: 44.8 MB

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

Major thanks to elynross for betaing a very hungry caterpillar of semi-digested ideas into something like a butterfly.

Feedback shops and sneezes and makes ready to be strong


I’ve vaguely wanted to vid this song for a long time. It has a fairy-tale creepiness to it that’s very evocative. Scarlet ribbons, red shoes, little rivulets of blood trickling down a girl’s face. Just after Christmas I was paying attention to the full lyric for once and for about 5 minutes I thought it could be a Buffy/Joyce vid (no, not like that). But it needed something less literal so Joyce became the mother of all Slayers/Sineya/that girl whoever she was and Buffy became Buffy and Faith and Kendra and Nikki and Xin Rong and Dana and Kennedy and Rhona and Vi and countless, nameless girls around the world.

The tag-line is the title of an Alice B Sheldon/James Tiptree Jnr/Racoona Sheldon short story. I haven’t found an online version but it’s included in the collection “Her Smoke Rose up Forever.”



I peeked in to say goodnight
And I heard my child in prayer
"And for me some scarlet ribbons
Scarlet ribbons for my hair"

All the stores were closed and shuttered
All the streets were dark and bare
In our town, no scarlet ribbons
Scarlet ribbons for her hair

Through the night my heart was aching
Just before the dawn was breaking
I peeped in and on her pillow
On her pillow lying there
Lovely ribbons, scarlet ribbons
Scarlet ribbons for her hair

If I live to be a hundred
I will never know from where
Came those ribbons, scarlet ribbons
Scarlet ribbons for her hair

Comments

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. That was so incredibly powerful, and so beautifully put together. Just a brilliant take on slayerhood.

[charmax.livejournal.com]

Wow, just Wow. It's amazing how such a quiet song can support such an *epic* vid. The enormity of taking on the slayer mantle comes across so powerfully. I love your use of the first slayer and the way we see Buffy evolve from a scared kid to a strong woman and entwines that with all the other slayers.

Awesome! I will have to rewatch it many times.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was incredibly touching and so beautifully sums up the sacrifices of the slayer. What they must give up of themselves. Just... wow.. this one's gonna stay with me for a while. Thank you.

[tenar.livejournal.com]

this is so beautiful. so many powerful scenes of protection and sacrifice. i truly love the juxtaposition of the quiet, gentle (yet gutting) song with the violent images, without letting it turn into a slo-mo melodrama. i like sinead quite a lot though i'd never heard this song - it and the vid will haunt me for a while.

[thingswithwings.livejournal.com]

this was beautiful. I love that Tiptree/Sheldon story, and I think you've captured the essence of it here, with a more positive ending (but not ignoring the pain). You brought tears to my eyes! Such a gorgeous meditation on what it means to be a slayer, the losses, and the bonds that the slayers make for themselves, in spite of everything. Gorgeous.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

This was amazing, and TOTALLY blew the VVC audience away. Definitely one of the vids people were exclaiming about after the Also Premiering show. You are wonderful!

[mishisama.livejournal.com]

Very nice. Powerful and dramatic. The songs somber tone just adds to the creep factor.

[kathyh]

Gorgeous vid. Loved the combination of the images and the haunting song. Fabulous work.

[ann1962]

You hold and carry the tone evenly throughout. Very strong and very cool.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Just saw this recced by selenak, wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. One of the best BtVS vids I've ever seen.

[askye.livejournal.com]

That's an amazing vid. Just amazing brought tears to my eyes and took my breath away.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much and for reccing. It's been such a long time in the making, I got really nervous about it finally being ready to post.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's so true about the song, I think Sinead is very much a less-is-more artist, when she's not belting it out there's so much more to play with. And Buffy as well, it's a very personal story but epic and politcal at the same time.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you for commenting! It's a wonderful feeling when someone gets what you're trying to say.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad it worked for you - it was a daunting song to vid technically but the emotion seemed so right I had to try. It comes from the album of classic covers Sinead did a while back but it's quite different from most of the other songs on that album, none of the big band production style, very stripped down, almost folky.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I read the story so long ago but the title has always stayed with me and I think I had already started making this vid when I had the idea of appropriating it as a tag line. On re-reading it still felt right, although I'd forgotten the details, that story has such a contrast between the present day horrors the woman finds herself in and the future full of sisterhood and connection which you're never quite sure is a dream until the end. It was very like what I wanted to say about the slayer mythology although being a different kind of story they could make the future real. Uh rambling now but thank you. Yes.

[kirbyfest.livejournal.com]

This was one of my favorite vids at all of Vividcon. Thank you!

[elishavah.livejournal.com]

You had people choking back (or just outright in) tears when this showed at Also Premiering, and after when we watched the vidshow again. Thank you for it.

Scarlet Ribbons

[yourlibrarian]

It has a fairy-tale creepiness to it that’s very evocative.

That was exactly what I thought when I heard it. Yet the metaphor is such a great one for Slayers -- what they deal with and what binds them. Nifty idea and I like the way you put it together.

[alchemise]

This is beautiful and with just the right amount of creepiness to tell the story of the Slayers. Wow, just really amazingly well done.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

I love this as a meditation on slayerhood and womanhood and also as a piece of heartrendingly beautiful art.

People were definitely talking about this one at VVC!

[goodbyebird]

Wow. Love the concept, and it's done beautifully. Thanks so much for sharing!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Blushes (and glows a little). Thank you! Really looking forward to all the vids and con reports as they come in. Sounds like it was a blast

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Haunting is a good word - those pipes and it's very much a dreamspace vid (I think I did start dreaming it at one point).