Vividcon challenge vid (Children of Men)
Title: Quantum theory
Artist: Jarvis Cocker
Fandom: Children of Men
Format: DivX
Size: 49.3 MB
Summary: “Just as in a stormy sea that unbounded in all directions, raises and drops mountainous waves, howling, a sailor sits in a boat and trusts in his frail bark.”
Download from shiny new website here
Feedback gives me hope
Last night I slipped through time to a parallel dimension
You were alive and happy
Our children played in trees
were strong and wise
and knew no fear
We watched them play together
Somewhere everyone is happy
Somewhere fish do not have bones
Somewhere gravity cannot reach us any more
Somewhere you are not alone
This morning, when I awoke
God was dead but I lived on
I cannot move
but I am free
I found the source of gravity
Somewhere everyone is happy
Somewhere fish do not have bones
Somewhere gravity cannot reach us any more
Somewhere you are not alone
Somewhere in a parallel dimension
Happening now but not within your sight
The force that binds the universe together
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
This one came about by a rather tortuous route. It began with downloading the Jarvis album and falling instantly in love with Quantum Theory, the final track. Around the same time I also happened to be re-reading Phillip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darklyand finding it hitting the same post-apocalyptic kink (it runs deep, I think it all began when I was six years old with The Death of Robin Hood). Dick is a visual enough writer that I began viding the book in my head and planning to acquire the Linklater adaptation in the vain hope that it might look the same (I hadn’t watched the film). Then when the dvd came out it was on special offer with Children of Men, which I’d also read good reviews of, so I ordered that as well. A Scanner Darkly-the movie sadly didn’t work out, it was at once too close to the book and too different from my brain vid, too brown. But I was blown away by Children of Men (I still am) and it had exactly that “hope amidst the ruins” quality that had hit me about the song in the first place. So the solution was obvious really.
It took long enough to put this vid together that at some point I realized it might be finished around the time of the Vividcon deadline. I thought about putting in for the premieres show but changed my mind when I realized that the challenge theme was “Faith.” It's an atheist’s vision of faith, ephemeral and probably illusory - the one thing I knew starting out was that the song had to end on the doubting reprise of the climatic “Everything is gonna be all right” and the vid had to end with the rescue ship and signal fading away leaving nothing but a small boat alone in choppy seas. For the rest it follows the movie, I hope not too literally, but I wanted to celebrate it not re-write it.
ETA: The online version has a slightly different beginning to the con vid. I’d reworked that part so much it needed time away to see what wasn’t right and by that time the deadline was past.
Artist: Jarvis Cocker
Fandom: Children of Men
Format: DivX
Size: 49.3 MB
Summary: “Just as in a stormy sea that unbounded in all directions, raises and drops mountainous waves, howling, a sailor sits in a boat and trusts in his frail bark.”
Download from shiny new website here
Feedback gives me hope
Last night I slipped through time to a parallel dimension
You were alive and happy
Our children played in trees
were strong and wise
and knew no fear
We watched them play together
Somewhere everyone is happy
Somewhere fish do not have bones
Somewhere gravity cannot reach us any more
Somewhere you are not alone
This morning, when I awoke
God was dead but I lived on
I cannot move
but I am free
I found the source of gravity
Somewhere everyone is happy
Somewhere fish do not have bones
Somewhere gravity cannot reach us any more
Somewhere you are not alone
Somewhere in a parallel dimension
Happening now but not within your sight
The force that binds the universe together
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
This one came about by a rather tortuous route. It began with downloading the Jarvis album and falling instantly in love with Quantum Theory, the final track. Around the same time I also happened to be re-reading Phillip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darklyand finding it hitting the same post-apocalyptic kink (it runs deep, I think it all began when I was six years old with The Death of Robin Hood). Dick is a visual enough writer that I began viding the book in my head and planning to acquire the Linklater adaptation in the vain hope that it might look the same (I hadn’t watched the film). Then when the dvd came out it was on special offer with Children of Men, which I’d also read good reviews of, so I ordered that as well. A Scanner Darkly-the movie sadly didn’t work out, it was at once too close to the book and too different from my brain vid, too brown. But I was blown away by Children of Men (I still am) and it had exactly that “hope amidst the ruins” quality that had hit me about the song in the first place. So the solution was obvious really.
It took long enough to put this vid together that at some point I realized it might be finished around the time of the Vividcon deadline. I thought about putting in for the premieres show but changed my mind when I realized that the challenge theme was “Faith.” It's an atheist’s vision of faith, ephemeral and probably illusory - the one thing I knew starting out was that the song had to end on the doubting reprise of the climatic “Everything is gonna be all right” and the vid had to end with the rescue ship and signal fading away leaving nothing but a small boat alone in choppy seas. For the rest it follows the movie, I hope not too literally, but I wanted to celebrate it not re-write it.
ETA: The online version has a slightly different beginning to the con vid. I’d reworked that part so much it needed time away to see what wasn’t right and by that time the deadline was past.