I really love this. I love all the linkages there are in it. The way you've highlighted people being alone, by comparing them with each other. The high flyers in their shiny glass prisons and the vagrants and homeless in the old brick tunnels and dark streets, the normal people running through rainy streets and the rich business man dying in an abandoned office building.
With all the setting shots and intro credits you've used, it really brings out London as a character in it's own right. Which I really think it is. Sherlock relies on London being this massive, enigmatic bustling city, so soulless and soulful and full of contradictions.
And then there's the way Sherlock and Watson navigate it slipping in and out of other people's worlds, but never really of anything except their own peculiar dynamic.
The changes of pace are awesome, that wonderful slow section with the cab driver and Sherlock figuring it out, then that cut to the young archivist in The Blind Banker, I love that clip there, at 1.34 the flickering shot to the electro sort of music. That's one of my favourites.
My second is that Moriarty sequence, placing him at the door and him-as-Jim at the door, side by side. And the clip to music choice with the 'Search complete' bit and Moriarty throwing the memory stick in the swimming pool. That's so great, it's got that mix of hilariously absurd and scarily insane going through it with the music changes and the clip choices, that really works for his character.
Then that fast section from 2.36, beginning with the explosion. That's my absolute favourite, I love all the spinning, the crazy frenetic energy of it, and that in particular really nails the Sherlock and John feeling, The both of them running about together and then that final freeze frame echoes the way their first meeting was coincidence, but brought them together in a way that we as watchers knew just had to be.
And I love the fact that everyone's alone, but Sherlock and John find each other and mimic each other - walking shots, searching shots - There's this sense that they at least are alone together.
As well it really parallels Sherlock with the city. The way he knows it inside and out, like he's almost a part of it, just another facet and it's only really through John that he gets to be humanised into a person in his own right.
Or something.
I could go on about technical things like clip choice (Sherlock wiping his violin bow, then the pink lady's jacket, John ducking under the tape on the beat with Sherlock, then on the beat with Detective Sally), but this comment is long enough as it is, and I've probably gone over the top in analysing this, but whatever, I LOVE IT.
The concept for this vid really needed that sense that everyone is isolated. I loved juxtaposing the clips of the haves and have-nots to highlight this. It is particularly interesting that the wealthier characters appear in daylight and the more you work down the pecking order the darker it gets. Light is flooding into the offices and the fancy apartments and the light decreases right down to the barely visible homeless people living in tunnels. It is as if light is a luxury, which I guess in the nineteenth century London of the original stories it would’ve been. It also helps set up a love/hate relationship with London, the faceless metropolis on the one hand and the vibrant exciting city on the other.
I love that Sherlock’s obliviousness to social norms means he is able to walk between these worlds with ease. Watson’s compassion makes it more difficult for him to navigate this world whereas Sherlock “the high functioning sociopath” has no such difficulty. In the world the show establishes it is empathy not the lack of it that is unusual.
I tried to amp up the sense of an unseen menace in those blind banker clips by making the footage more unsettling, more strange. It is the section I reworked most. By contrast the Moriarty section just seemed to vid itself. He is such a gloriously brilliant yet unstable bad guy it seemed like an appropriate place for a touch of humour, signalled by the music and just so right for his character.
I’m glad you enjoyed the final section. Musically it is such a break with what has gone before. It seemed an obvious choice to use the fantastic taxi chasing sequence but I really worried that it didn’t necessarily make sense for the vid. I think by adding the spinning I was able to justify it as Watson unsettling Sherlock’s world view. He is no longer just an observer but is thrown headlong into the action. I love the idea of the two of them being alone together, I think that’s exactly what they are. That their relationship is based on mutual respect but not mutual understanding, since they often find each other utterly bewildering, is really what I love about them and what lifts it beyond hero and sidekick and puts them on an equal footing.
Thank you for the wonderful feedback, it means such a lot that you took the trouble to write it. It also provided me with an excuse to waffle about the vid and the show, so thanks for that.
With all the setting shots and intro credits you've used, it really brings out London as a character in it's own right. Which I really think it is. Sherlock relies on London being this massive, enigmatic bustling city, so soulless and soulful and full of contradictions.
And then there's the way Sherlock and Watson navigate it slipping in and out of other people's worlds, but never really of anything except their own peculiar dynamic.
The changes of pace are awesome, that wonderful slow section with the cab driver and Sherlock figuring it out, then that cut to the young archivist in The Blind Banker, I love that clip there, at 1.34 the flickering shot to the electro sort of music. That's one of my favourites.
My second is that Moriarty sequence, placing him at the door and him-as-Jim at the door, side by side. And the clip to music choice with the 'Search complete' bit and Moriarty throwing the memory stick in the swimming pool. That's so great, it's got that mix of hilariously absurd and scarily insane going through it with the music changes and the clip choices, that really works for his character.
Then that fast section from 2.36, beginning with the explosion. That's my absolute favourite, I love all the spinning, the crazy frenetic energy of it, and that in particular really nails the Sherlock and John feeling, The both of them running about together and then that final freeze frame echoes the way their first meeting was coincidence, but brought them together in a way that we as watchers knew just had to be.
And I love the fact that everyone's alone, but Sherlock and John find each other and mimic each other - walking shots, searching shots - There's this sense that they at least are alone together.
As well it really parallels Sherlock with the city. The way he knows it inside and out, like he's almost a part of it, just another facet and it's only really through John that he gets to be humanised into a person in his own right.
Or something.
I could go on about technical things like clip choice (Sherlock wiping his violin bow, then the pink lady's jacket, John ducking under the tape on the beat with Sherlock, then on the beat with Detective Sally), but this comment is long enough as it is, and I've probably gone over the top in analysing this, but whatever, I LOVE IT.
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I love that Sherlock’s obliviousness to social norms means he is able to walk between these worlds with ease. Watson’s compassion makes it more difficult for him to navigate this world whereas Sherlock “the high functioning sociopath” has no such difficulty. In the world the show establishes it is empathy not the lack of it that is unusual.
I tried to amp up the sense of an unseen menace in those blind banker clips by making the footage more unsettling, more strange. It is the section I reworked most. By contrast the Moriarty section just seemed to vid itself. He is such a gloriously brilliant yet unstable bad guy it seemed like an appropriate place for a touch of humour, signalled by the music and just so right for his character.
I’m glad you enjoyed the final section. Musically it is such a break with what has gone before. It seemed an obvious choice to use the fantastic taxi chasing sequence but I really worried that it didn’t necessarily make sense for the vid. I think by adding the spinning I was able to justify it as Watson unsettling Sherlock’s world view. He is no longer just an observer but is thrown headlong into the action. I love the idea of the two of them being alone together, I think that’s exactly what they are. That their relationship is based on mutual respect but not mutual understanding, since they often find each other utterly bewildering, is really what I love about them and what lifts it beyond hero and sidekick and puts them on an equal footing.
Thank you for the wonderful feedback, it means such a lot that you took the trouble to write it. It also provided me with an excuse to waffle about the vid and the show, so thanks for that.
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