[VID] Breakeven - House/Cuddy/Lucas
Okay, this, for real, is one of my babies. They all are, but this one especially just because it's been in my life for so long. I had this song picked out before we even got into this stuff, it hit me just after reading spoilers and I just hoped that enough fitting source material would come out to match. I got lucky - it did. Also, huge kudos to my wonderful mother, who is not only my personal video beta, but too was a huge help tonight when it came to this artwork. I told her I needed a shot of Cuddy to put in the middle and she was all, "OH!! OH!! What about the one... *facepalm* IDK WHAT EPISODE IT IS, but they're outside his office, and she's looking up at him and she's got a tear and I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS EXACTLY ABOUT BUT I CAN SEE IT and it looks so much like she's just frustrated and ripped apart and giving up..." I first went for Joy and she was like, "No. NO." and then I totally knew what she meant. ♥ It was also her idea to make a point of cutting through her heart.
I cried a little the first time I watched this back. Not because I was glad to be done or anything, but because it was only then that I fully understood just how much this situation sucks. Not just for House, but for everyone. And god, THAT is why I love this art. I know I've said it before, but it is the way that I make sense of things that are too complex for me to personally verbalize. I can cut and move and organize and pair up and break down and then seeing it dance back at me with rhythm just completely clears everything up for me. And not only that, but it pushes me so much deeper, things occur to me on the editing board that I never would have thought of in real-life, in plain thought. I swear to god, I would not love things even half as much if I didn't edit them.
(click for youtube link)
DOWNLOAD
.MOV - 120MB | iPod - 17MB
(NO idea why the mov is so big. I'll try and figure it out & replace it - sorry!)
A House/Cuddy/Lucas video (spoilers up to mid-S6) that compares House & Lucas, and how one is able to make Cuddy happy and one is not in the same given situation. Also looks at House/Lucas - House lost more than a love interest when Lucas & Cuddy started dating, he lost a friend. The show doesn't really play up to that aspect and I think there's a lot of potential there so I tried to tap into that a little bit (as well as the fact that House & Lucas have a lot in common). Set to "Breakeven" by The Script.
Notes & Commentary
0:12 - Okay, another thing I don't think the show plays up enough: House brought Lucas into her life. He is (indirectly) responsible for his own unhappiness right now, and I don't know if he can see it or what but we can, and to me that just makes it sting all the more. Put yourself in that situation. Ouch. :(
0:28 - Ahh. The desk section, as I lovingly refer to it. The point of this is to set up the fact that House & Lucas are so damn similar (breaking into her desk, flowers and sentiment, etc), and to show that even in spite of that, Lucas is going to eventually be able to make Cuddy happy where House cannot.
0:49 - I find that a lot of the time, videos start to develop a "thing", a little touch or effect or leitmotif that sort of develops even if I didn't begin the video planning to emphasize/construct it. For this video, it's exhaling/sighing. It's not *technically* necessary to advance the story, but I thought, "Why can't I leave it in?" I tried it, I loved it, it became a beautiful tool. Off the top of my head, I think there are three more you'll see throughout so watch for those.
0:54 - shallow note: the twirling of the rubber band with this music. It took awhile to get right but I could tell it would hit if I could just get it to line up at the right beginning. There's something I've been dealing with lately that I haven't really talked about because it literally shakes up the entire way I've lived/viewed my life, but I discovered a couple of weeks ago that I have synesthesia. So I think that's what this was - I knew the movement and music would go together if I just could find the right starting frame. I will probably talk about this in the future when I fully understand and come to terms with it. It's not bad, I think in some ways it's a blessing, especially when it comes to this stuff, it's just a bit weird to me right now. I wanted to mention it though because that's where this bit came from. ♥
0:57 - one more tiny leitmotif. I'm not sure how much technical notes (as opposed to conceptual/theoretical meta whatever) do for you, but there you go.
1:01 - another instance where the skeletons of the situations are the same, but emotions are different. Her smile with Lucas as she falls onto the couch with him, paired against her blatant fucking FROWN with House as she falls onto the couch with him. The contrast is unreal to me. And that's the entire point. Can we really get upset with her after looking at this stuff right next to each other? Lucas may be dull but can you really blame her for wanting to be pulled down onto a couch because someone else wants her there, not having to sit herself down because someone else needs her there, needs her there just to take care of him? She deserves to be taken care of too. And it's like, I get it now.
1:08 - parallels and briefly introducing the friendship. Both men are musically inclined and where House once had someone to play with, he now plays alone.
1:18 - fun fact: this was the first clip I ever added. I do not vid in order, never have, never will.
1:43 - ♥
1:56 - again, another 1:01-type situation. Lucas blows her a kiss. House, again, just has to be taken care of.
2:02 - I was worried that this part would seem random or make no sense. I almost killed it, but left it because it's been a personal thought/theory for awhile now, and that is my whole point of editing, so let me explain where it came from. When Cuddy sent House to the wrong place for Thanksgiving, I admit, I was pretty much livid. But the idea behind this section is that in Unfaithful, they played their huge little power-play game about Rachel's party, but you know she did honestly want him to come. I know she didn't end with that, but he could have shown up anyway. She wanted it, she was waiting for it, and it's not that unreasonable for her to expect it, given his penchants for 1.) disobeying her wishes, 2.) stalking her and invading her life. She opens the door with so much hope but no, "he's really not coming". Cut to the Thanksgiving incident. I realize that she probably just sent him to the wrong place to protect her new relationship and well-being, but at the same time, how was she supposed to know that he'd even follow through and actually go? Why not screw with him at this point, if you're of the mind that he doesn't ever show up to your family events anyway. I don't know. I've mentioned this in the past and people have not agreed with it, which is more than fine, I'm probably exaggerating things or reading them wrong but it's what I honestly believe and it makes sense in my head.
2:08 - I think another reason why this kills House so much is because he can see just how alike he and Lucas really are. To get personal for a second, I was hung up on somebody for a really long time. We never dated but tension was there and so much was there but it never happened. I watched him date girls who were so much like me, from obvious things like hobbies, even down to tiny things like their favorite quotes, OCD things & small habits. I'd look at them sometimes and think, why not me, then? I feel a lot of that in this situation. Obviously he and Lucas are very different - mostly when it comes to handling Cuddy - but they do have a lot in common, and I think the bare bones of their personalities are very much the same. You can see it reflected even better back in season 5, when Lucas was House's friend and not Cuddy's lover.
2:30 - MY GOD MY GOD MY GOD, THEY EVEN CALL HER THE EXACT SAME THINGS. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW BADLY I FREAKED WHEN I FOUND THESE BITS.
2:36 - okay, let me just say, Wilson is my favorite editing tool of all time. He always says exactly what I want in a third-party voiceover, when it comes to House/Cuddy. He was a fantastic help in Underneath as well.
2:45 - this was, obviously, my favorite section to work. The sexual stuff was obvious candy. But beyond that, it just... ugh, god, there is so much pain here and how poetic is it that House has this conversation in front of Lucas and that Lucas is the one who catches him when he falls. I know House ended up masquerading like he didn't mean any of it, that he was acting on behalf of his agenda, but that's exactly what it is - a mask. I'm sure he loves that he can speak his true heart yet still be safe because he has something to hide behind. You know he was genuine, though, you do.
3:02 - this is a shift in the video for Cuddy. I wanted it to look like in that moment, they both thought back to what happened last time they stood like this, in these places.
3:15 - technical note: this dialogue is not from this scene at all, so when I had it play over the shot in the hall, it didn't sound right. It sounded too close, I needed it to be farther away and it was hard because I haven't grasped audio too much beyond basics yet. I've never really needed to. So I had to spend a lot of time just playing and trying a million things before I found a combination of effects that helped it sound a little bit more realistic. It's still not perfect, I'm sure, but it's good enough for me, it doesn't feel so sticky anymore. I keep her "because it's easier this way" as it was, because for her shot, she IS close enough where it sounds reasonable.
3:22 - refer to 2:45; I got a bit ahead of myself when I elaborated up there, lol. ;)
3:30 - Cuddy begins to question her choice. Before, she was saying "just ignore [House]", now she's considering it and the idea that she may not be as happy with Lucas as she thought she was. Her guilt and confusion is starting to weigh on her, and dare I say confuse her, since it appears to have been so clear-cut and easy for her up until this point. Now she's the one who isn't breaking even. I meant to imply that she left Lucas to go think, while House is simultaneously doing the same.
3:45 - I dreamt this parallel, I swear to god. I don't think I literally dreamt it, it was just some whispy vision in between sleep and consciousness. I had to get up in the dark, put it on a post-it flag, & stick it to my laptop screen to deal with later.
3:52 - I love the idea of them both thinking about the same thing, and House having the balls to find her and have them both just inherently know what's up. I even love him scaring the shit out of her. Has that ever happened to you? You're thinking so hard about someone and at that exact moment, they show up or call? And it scares the hell out of you, the coincidence and power of it all?
4:01 - again, a shift, and a throwback to 0:54. The rubber band is used as a tool of role-reversal, to demonstrate that she's in the same position now as House was at the beginning of the video - the thinking and the wanting and the hating what went wrong.
4:07 - ♥
4:14 - House and Lucas are now on equal footing. I'm not sure she wants either of them too much at the moment, or at least that's what I'm choosing to portray. At this point, she's just so sick of all of it, everything, she needs to work herself out first and nobody is helping or facilitating that.
4:18 - oooh, ambiguous ending, have one. "It's worth a shot" - take that to mean whatever you want it to mean. You can take it to mean that the "it" in question is a relationship with him, which means that his comment pulls her even further into guilt and complication and frustration. Or you can take it to mean that the "it" in question is her relationship with Lucas, which means that House has grown up to some extent, and has realized in these past 4 video-minutes that he loves her enough to want her to be happy, even if he can't be the one to give that to her. I still haven't decided which one I'm going to personally believe but that's why I love this - everyone can feel what they want. (If you want to share which meaning you think fits for you, I'd love to know and talk about it, seriously). Her little head shake at the end implies that it's still open-ended, she is still screwed up and lost in decision/thought about the whole issue. Now she's the one who's falling to pieces.
♥ as always, I'd love your thoughts. ♥
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!
♥ ♥ ♥
AND. IMPORTANT: I have embedding turned on. I only ask that if you do embed this somewhere (like fanpop), you link me to it, just so I know and am able to check on it and see how it's doing. ♥ Feel free to do so, that's all I ask.
Like what you see?
+WATCH || JOIN alchemic_dreams
+Subscribe to my channel
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I cried a little the first time I watched this back. Not because I was glad to be done or anything, but because it was only then that I fully understood just how much this situation sucks. Not just for House, but for everyone. And god, THAT is why I love this art. I know I've said it before, but it is the way that I make sense of things that are too complex for me to personally verbalize. I can cut and move and organize and pair up and break down and then seeing it dance back at me with rhythm just completely clears everything up for me. And not only that, but it pushes me so much deeper, things occur to me on the editing board that I never would have thought of in real-life, in plain thought. I swear to god, I would not love things even half as much if I didn't edit them.
(click for youtube link)
DOWNLOAD
.MOV - 120MB | iPod - 17MB
(NO idea why the mov is so big. I'll try and figure it out & replace it - sorry!)
A House/Cuddy/Lucas video (spoilers up to mid-S6) that compares House & Lucas, and how one is able to make Cuddy happy and one is not in the same given situation. Also looks at House/Lucas - House lost more than a love interest when Lucas & Cuddy started dating, he lost a friend. The show doesn't really play up to that aspect and I think there's a lot of potential there so I tried to tap into that a little bit (as well as the fact that House & Lucas have a lot in common). Set to "Breakeven" by The Script.
Notes & Commentary
0:12 - Okay, another thing I don't think the show plays up enough: House brought Lucas into her life. He is (indirectly) responsible for his own unhappiness right now, and I don't know if he can see it or what but we can, and to me that just makes it sting all the more. Put yourself in that situation. Ouch. :(
0:28 - Ahh. The desk section, as I lovingly refer to it. The point of this is to set up the fact that House & Lucas are so damn similar (breaking into her desk, flowers and sentiment, etc), and to show that even in spite of that, Lucas is going to eventually be able to make Cuddy happy where House cannot.
0:49 - I find that a lot of the time, videos start to develop a "thing", a little touch or effect or leitmotif that sort of develops even if I didn't begin the video planning to emphasize/construct it. For this video, it's exhaling/sighing. It's not *technically* necessary to advance the story, but I thought, "Why can't I leave it in?" I tried it, I loved it, it became a beautiful tool. Off the top of my head, I think there are three more you'll see throughout so watch for those.
0:54 - shallow note: the twirling of the rubber band with this music. It took awhile to get right but I could tell it would hit if I could just get it to line up at the right beginning. There's something I've been dealing with lately that I haven't really talked about because it literally shakes up the entire way I've lived/viewed my life, but I discovered a couple of weeks ago that I have synesthesia. So I think that's what this was - I knew the movement and music would go together if I just could find the right starting frame. I will probably talk about this in the future when I fully understand and come to terms with it. It's not bad, I think in some ways it's a blessing, especially when it comes to this stuff, it's just a bit weird to me right now. I wanted to mention it though because that's where this bit came from. ♥
0:57 - one more tiny leitmotif. I'm not sure how much technical notes (as opposed to conceptual/theoretical meta whatever) do for you, but there you go.
1:01 - another instance where the skeletons of the situations are the same, but emotions are different. Her smile with Lucas as she falls onto the couch with him, paired against her blatant fucking FROWN with House as she falls onto the couch with him. The contrast is unreal to me. And that's the entire point. Can we really get upset with her after looking at this stuff right next to each other? Lucas may be dull but can you really blame her for wanting to be pulled down onto a couch because someone else wants her there, not having to sit herself down because someone else needs her there, needs her there just to take care of him? She deserves to be taken care of too. And it's like, I get it now.
1:08 - parallels and briefly introducing the friendship. Both men are musically inclined and where House once had someone to play with, he now plays alone.
1:18 - fun fact: this was the first clip I ever added. I do not vid in order, never have, never will.
1:43 - ♥
1:56 - again, another 1:01-type situation. Lucas blows her a kiss. House, again, just has to be taken care of.
2:02 - I was worried that this part would seem random or make no sense. I almost killed it, but left it because it's been a personal thought/theory for awhile now, and that is my whole point of editing, so let me explain where it came from. When Cuddy sent House to the wrong place for Thanksgiving, I admit, I was pretty much livid. But the idea behind this section is that in Unfaithful, they played their huge little power-play game about Rachel's party, but you know she did honestly want him to come. I know she didn't end with that, but he could have shown up anyway. She wanted it, she was waiting for it, and it's not that unreasonable for her to expect it, given his penchants for 1.) disobeying her wishes, 2.) stalking her and invading her life. She opens the door with so much hope but no, "he's really not coming". Cut to the Thanksgiving incident. I realize that she probably just sent him to the wrong place to protect her new relationship and well-being, but at the same time, how was she supposed to know that he'd even follow through and actually go? Why not screw with him at this point, if you're of the mind that he doesn't ever show up to your family events anyway. I don't know. I've mentioned this in the past and people have not agreed with it, which is more than fine, I'm probably exaggerating things or reading them wrong but it's what I honestly believe and it makes sense in my head.
2:08 - I think another reason why this kills House so much is because he can see just how alike he and Lucas really are. To get personal for a second, I was hung up on somebody for a really long time. We never dated but tension was there and so much was there but it never happened. I watched him date girls who were so much like me, from obvious things like hobbies, even down to tiny things like their favorite quotes, OCD things & small habits. I'd look at them sometimes and think, why not me, then? I feel a lot of that in this situation. Obviously he and Lucas are very different - mostly when it comes to handling Cuddy - but they do have a lot in common, and I think the bare bones of their personalities are very much the same. You can see it reflected even better back in season 5, when Lucas was House's friend and not Cuddy's lover.
2:30 - MY GOD MY GOD MY GOD, THEY EVEN CALL HER THE EXACT SAME THINGS. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW BADLY I FREAKED WHEN I FOUND THESE BITS.
2:36 - okay, let me just say, Wilson is my favorite editing tool of all time. He always says exactly what I want in a third-party voiceover, when it comes to House/Cuddy. He was a fantastic help in Underneath as well.
2:45 - this was, obviously, my favorite section to work. The sexual stuff was obvious candy. But beyond that, it just... ugh, god, there is so much pain here and how poetic is it that House has this conversation in front of Lucas and that Lucas is the one who catches him when he falls. I know House ended up masquerading like he didn't mean any of it, that he was acting on behalf of his agenda, but that's exactly what it is - a mask. I'm sure he loves that he can speak his true heart yet still be safe because he has something to hide behind. You know he was genuine, though, you do.
3:02 - this is a shift in the video for Cuddy. I wanted it to look like in that moment, they both thought back to what happened last time they stood like this, in these places.
3:15 - technical note: this dialogue is not from this scene at all, so when I had it play over the shot in the hall, it didn't sound right. It sounded too close, I needed it to be farther away and it was hard because I haven't grasped audio too much beyond basics yet. I've never really needed to. So I had to spend a lot of time just playing and trying a million things before I found a combination of effects that helped it sound a little bit more realistic. It's still not perfect, I'm sure, but it's good enough for me, it doesn't feel so sticky anymore. I keep her "because it's easier this way" as it was, because for her shot, she IS close enough where it sounds reasonable.
3:22 - refer to 2:45; I got a bit ahead of myself when I elaborated up there, lol. ;)
3:30 - Cuddy begins to question her choice. Before, she was saying "just ignore [House]", now she's considering it and the idea that she may not be as happy with Lucas as she thought she was. Her guilt and confusion is starting to weigh on her, and dare I say confuse her, since it appears to have been so clear-cut and easy for her up until this point. Now she's the one who isn't breaking even. I meant to imply that she left Lucas to go think, while House is simultaneously doing the same.
3:45 - I dreamt this parallel, I swear to god. I don't think I literally dreamt it, it was just some whispy vision in between sleep and consciousness. I had to get up in the dark, put it on a post-it flag, & stick it to my laptop screen to deal with later.
3:52 - I love the idea of them both thinking about the same thing, and House having the balls to find her and have them both just inherently know what's up. I even love him scaring the shit out of her. Has that ever happened to you? You're thinking so hard about someone and at that exact moment, they show up or call? And it scares the hell out of you, the coincidence and power of it all?
4:01 - again, a shift, and a throwback to 0:54. The rubber band is used as a tool of role-reversal, to demonstrate that she's in the same position now as House was at the beginning of the video - the thinking and the wanting and the hating what went wrong.
4:07 - ♥
4:14 - House and Lucas are now on equal footing. I'm not sure she wants either of them too much at the moment, or at least that's what I'm choosing to portray. At this point, she's just so sick of all of it, everything, she needs to work herself out first and nobody is helping or facilitating that.
4:18 - oooh, ambiguous ending, have one. "It's worth a shot" - take that to mean whatever you want it to mean. You can take it to mean that the "it" in question is a relationship with him, which means that his comment pulls her even further into guilt and complication and frustration. Or you can take it to mean that the "it" in question is her relationship with Lucas, which means that House has grown up to some extent, and has realized in these past 4 video-minutes that he loves her enough to want her to be happy, even if he can't be the one to give that to her. I still haven't decided which one I'm going to personally believe but that's why I love this - everyone can feel what they want. (If you want to share which meaning you think fits for you, I'd love to know and talk about it, seriously). Her little head shake at the end implies that it's still open-ended, she is still screwed up and lost in decision/thought about the whole issue. Now she's the one who's falling to pieces.
♥ as always, I'd love your thoughts. ♥
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!
♥ ♥ ♥
AND. IMPORTANT: I have embedding turned on. I only ask that if you do embed this somewhere (like fanpop), you link me to it, just so I know and am able to check on it and see how it's doing. ♥ Feel free to do so, that's all I ask.
Like what you see?
+WATCH || JOIN alchemic_dreams
+Subscribe to my channel
x | x