BSG vid rec
Have now seen up to Downloaded in S2 of BSG and it was so good I’m taking a breather. Thoughts to come but first a vid rec:
A Day Like Today by laurashapiro
Lee Adama was a character I never particularly cared for in the first season but he’s slowly grown on me and this vid pushes that evolving appreciation to a new level. I mean I wouldn’t say I loved him but I feel for him now. Laura’s site is password protected because it’s worth it.
Titles and opening shot come before the music starts. A single shot of Lee in the cockpit drifting slowly up screen blank faced establishes the subject of the vid before fading to black. The song starts up, the colour palate has changed and everything’s moving much more quickly. Music is gently percusive, a xylophone?, the notes start strong then fade quickly not an instrument that lingers and the motion matches. Shots of people’s hands, feet, faces turning away, Kara, Roslin, Adama all walking away. No Lee yet , this is about him wanting to but never ultimately connecting with the key characters in his life, he’s almost the negative space in the story.
A new instrument cuts in and his plane pulls into view intercut with Kara then Roslin also come or coming to rest then his father gazing at a photograph of one of the brothers as a child. Sustained clip of Apollo to make clear as the vid does repeatedly that he is the subject - others may get more screen time but only he gets to be full face to camera.
First line of the lyric “Welcome back…I was always right here,” focuses on Lee and his father, military duties, combat. Switches to Laura, Kara , Adama again, the vid resists the temptation to alternate them with Lee, lets them communicate with one another, objective gaze. Clips of all of them behind barriers (Kara’s helmet, bars for Adama and Roslin) going into the instrumental link to the chorus then Adama gets shot last thing before it starts. Lee behind the bars for Roslin and Kara, “Love you to death, kissing his father in a coma and Zak’s image haunting his interactions with his father and Starbuck equally.
Next verse “to be something beautiful,” a ship flying freely “can’t get today out of my mind,” it goes into tailspin, this is from the battle he didn’t care if he came back from. On the repeat of the lyric Kara is the beautiful one, but in the context of her affair with his brother, the day is another military funeral.
“Messages to you”, heroism for his father, brief almost romantic attraction to Kara, her ship jumps, she walks away. The music builds in the second bridge conflict, arguments, a fight. The chorus is cathartic peole look straight into each others faces for the first time, smile, embrace. But it ends again on two repeats of “love you to death,”he walks away from his father then in the final shot he and Kara sit back to back, touching but not connecting, as he turns his head away for the last time.
I think the thing I love best about this vid is the consistency at multiple levels. The parts are very good but it’s more than the sum of them. The idea of reaching out, almost connecting but turning away at the last minute is there in the percussive notes of the backing xylophone, mirrored in the cutting as the motion flits from clip to clip and in the overall structure that builds to that happy last chorus and yet backs away from it at the last.
A Day Like Today by laurashapiro
Lee Adama was a character I never particularly cared for in the first season but he’s slowly grown on me and this vid pushes that evolving appreciation to a new level. I mean I wouldn’t say I loved him but I feel for him now. Laura’s site is password protected because it’s worth it.
Titles and opening shot come before the music starts. A single shot of Lee in the cockpit drifting slowly up screen blank faced establishes the subject of the vid before fading to black. The song starts up, the colour palate has changed and everything’s moving much more quickly. Music is gently percusive, a xylophone?, the notes start strong then fade quickly not an instrument that lingers and the motion matches. Shots of people’s hands, feet, faces turning away, Kara, Roslin, Adama all walking away. No Lee yet , this is about him wanting to but never ultimately connecting with the key characters in his life, he’s almost the negative space in the story.
A new instrument cuts in and his plane pulls into view intercut with Kara then Roslin also come or coming to rest then his father gazing at a photograph of one of the brothers as a child. Sustained clip of Apollo to make clear as the vid does repeatedly that he is the subject - others may get more screen time but only he gets to be full face to camera.
First line of the lyric “Welcome back…I was always right here,” focuses on Lee and his father, military duties, combat. Switches to Laura, Kara , Adama again, the vid resists the temptation to alternate them with Lee, lets them communicate with one another, objective gaze. Clips of all of them behind barriers (Kara’s helmet, bars for Adama and Roslin) going into the instrumental link to the chorus then Adama gets shot last thing before it starts. Lee behind the bars for Roslin and Kara, “Love you to death, kissing his father in a coma and Zak’s image haunting his interactions with his father and Starbuck equally.
Next verse “to be something beautiful,” a ship flying freely “can’t get today out of my mind,” it goes into tailspin, this is from the battle he didn’t care if he came back from. On the repeat of the lyric Kara is the beautiful one, but in the context of her affair with his brother, the day is another military funeral.
“Messages to you”, heroism for his father, brief almost romantic attraction to Kara, her ship jumps, she walks away. The music builds in the second bridge conflict, arguments, a fight. The chorus is cathartic peole look straight into each others faces for the first time, smile, embrace. But it ends again on two repeats of “love you to death,”he walks away from his father then in the final shot he and Kara sit back to back, touching but not connecting, as he turns his head away for the last time.
I think the thing I love best about this vid is the consistency at multiple levels. The parts are very good but it’s more than the sum of them. The idea of reaching out, almost connecting but turning away at the last minute is there in the percussive notes of the backing xylophone, mirrored in the cutting as the motion flits from clip to clip and in the overall structure that builds to that happy last chorus and yet backs away from it at the last.