“Minority Report” vid

[hazelk]

Title: Silence
Artist: Portishead
Movie: Minority Report
Format: DivX
Size: 52.9 MB
Summary: I’m tired of the future

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

Feedback is quietly appreciated


Tempted in our minds
Tormented inside lie
Wounded, I'm afraid inside my head
Falling through changes

Did you know when you lost?
Did you know when I wanted?
Did you know what I lost?
Do you know what I wanted?




I didn’t want to make this vid. I wanted, I still want, to make a big multi-source meta extravaganza about robot apocalypses but some of the source hasn’t even come out on DVD yet. Still I had the song all planned out and I’d managed to convince myself that even though Minority Report doesn’t have robots or an apocalypse it would be a good idea to try playing with its precog imagery just to steal the look and maybe try and apply it to actual apocalypse footage later. So I laid the first dream sequence over the intro of my robot music, didn’t so much remix as give it a quick stir to fit the beat and looked.

On which it became clear that wanting to do this really had nothing to do with effect appropriation and all to do with seeing how pretty the damn thing looked set to techno. So the upshot was that I found a new song, tried to come up with an idea that went beyond just “Shiny!” and made this vid. It’s been interesting.

There’s a quote about Fred Astaire to the effect that were you to break down one of his dances to its individual frames he’d still look perfectly graceful in every single one of them. Considered purely visually, Spielberg is like that. The transitions and the lighting, colour and cinematography all look just as shiny under the vidder’s microscope as they do on the big screen. It’s true of other elements as well. Considered as a plot, the fiendish noir plotting works pretty seamlessly, the chase scenes are adrenaline-pumping as well as witty and allusive, the heartbreak is heartbreaking, the pasted-on happy ending calm and redeeming. But all these good things combine to obscure an uncomfortable truth - that at its heart this is a story about Omelas and one for which walking away is not the solution.

In conclusion Samantha Morton is awesome.

Comments

Wounded, I'm afraid inside my head

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Great use of the precogs. The movement is spectacular. You really use the source for all it's worth. The red ball into the blood dripping is one of my favorite parts.

The slow down becomes so languid and beautiful. There's a creeping rhythm you set up with the music and the editing.

Lovelovelove the moment at 3:15 when John tilts over and it cuts to Agatha.

Damn. Run!

Re: Wounded, I'm afraid inside my head

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

The red ball made me very gleeful (and it's all mine), the 3:15 is almost a direct lift from the movie (because Spielberg is that good) but I'm pleased to have been able to have used it. I'm also so happy to hear the slowdown worked - it was the hardest part to vid and absolutely crucial for the story.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

You're right, the source is gorgeous, but it's your editing that had me lost to the rest of the world while I was watching it. :}

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you (is verklempt).

[leucocrystal]

Holy cow, you just blew my mind.

As a big fan of Spielberg's work, that automatically makes me into a pretty tough critic when it comes to the reshaping of something he's filmed. And you're right; every frame remains visually stunning here, absolutely, which is wonderful to see.

Others have already commented on the editing, which -- when it comes to (in this case almost) entirely instrumental vids -- is key, completely. Fantastic work.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

It means a lot to have made something that works for a fan - making this vid really forced me to appreciate just how brilliant he is as a director. I think if I had known that before going in I might never had started :-)

[thelibraniniquity]

Absolutely stunning. Had shivers running down my spine for the first half, and I was drawn in completely right up to the abrupt ending. Awesome stuff.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was daunting having no lyrics to work with for most of the track and great to hear that the story came through

[hollywoodgrrl.livejournal.com]

Wow what a glorious combination of editing, music,a nd source. Fantastic work.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

My problem with Minority Report is that all the individual bits of coolness don't come together into a coherent whole, which you managed to nicely sidestep. I hadn't appreciated that benefit of vidding when faced with a "flawed masterpiece". And it's a very well-chosen music match for the "emotional look&feel" of the movie.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Well they do say a vid is like a visual argument and making this one certainly helped me to clarify my issues with the movie. I remember the first time watching just thinking that it should have ended with Anderton and Agatha's capture but it's really more complicated than whether the happy ending is deserved or not. It wants to be a big Dickensian novel of a movie with its subplots and genre juggling and meta commentary on what film makers do and each part of that, like you say, is good in and of itself but collectively they completely overwhelm its short story origins.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! You made great use of the music; the change when the vocals come in was awesomely executed and there's superb movement throughout the vid.

I'm mostly interested by the way you choose to end the vid - not as the movie ends, but with our protagonists returned defeated by technology, tidily and almost serenely, but no less horrifyingly.

Thanks for sharing!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I'm mostly interested by the way you choose to end the vid
Thank you for being interested in this:-) In some ways it’s ending the vid where I instinctively felt the movie should have ended the first time I saw it but there was a deeper purpose too.

Minority Report was a movie that got under my skin a little and after spending some time trying to figure out where or why it wasn’t quite working for me I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t that the happy ending was unearned or unjustified by the plot and in fact just cutting the story short at the protagonists' capture would leave all the storylines about Anne Lively and what Burgess did to her unsatisfyingly unresolved. The problem was more that, for me, the most compelling part of the movie was its world-building aspect, the idea of this perfect society, this world without murder, utterly dependent on the enslavement and the suffering of the precogs. Like U.K. LeGuin’s Omelas story it’s a potent, if allegorical, critique of Western capitalism but the problem with capitalism isn’t that there’s a Lamarr Burgess figure deceiving the populace into accepting the bargain, it’s something that everyone who benefits from the system is complicit in, consciously or not. So I suppose my vid is an attempt to par down the story to those essentials by depersonalizing the villain but if you do that there’s then also no one person to be defeated and there can be no ‘victory’ for the protagonists.

[malfeasanceses.livejournal.com]

Like U.K. LeGuin’s Omelas story it’s a potent, if allegorical, critique of Western capitalism but the problem with capitalism isn’t that there’s a Lamarr Burgess figure deceiving the populace into accepting the bargain, it’s something that everyone who benefits from the system is complicit in, consciously or not.

Ooh! I agree so much. Love the changed focus of the vid.

[mranderson71.livejournal.com]

I quite enjoyed watching that! The music & visuals seemed like a strange combination at first, but it was this strangeness that kept me watching.

I love the flow going on here & you've crafted some great sequences using internal motion shots. I too also enjoyed the red ball -> blooddrip scene! And the way you ended it was unexpected, but also quite powerful.

Good stuff!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Strange is good :-)

And can I take the opportunity to fangirl you now for Matrix Life?

[mranderson71.livejournal.com]

Fangirl away! :)

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

were you to break down one of his dances to its individual frames he’d still look perfectly graceful in every single one of them
Ohh, interesting! And I see what you mean about the shininess. I haven't seen the movie but it was all very attractive to watch and intrigued me.

(Your robot apocalypse vid sounds very cool too!)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I think it was David Thomson made the Astaire point but I'm not certain. Robots are next but it's all so serious.

WANTS FUNNY VID (POUTS).

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

This is gorgeous, glorious and haunting, wow!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[airolf.livejournal.com]

It's excellent! Makes me want to rewatch the film. also, I miss Tom Cruise pre-Katie Holmes ridiculousness.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And CrazyScientologistTom let us speak of him no more.

[malfeasanceses.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched this movie in forever, but your vid brings back all the best parts of it. The music is wonderful and absolutely fitting. I especially love the moment when a kind of clock ticking sound starts up, and he brings up his wristwatch -- awesome.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And especially for mentioning the clock ticking momment - this is the nearest to an instrumental vid I've ever done and having to take the narrative directly from the musical cues was the most challenging (but in a good way) part.