Vid commentary: Let The Sun Fall Down
I don't know if anyone actually wants to read this sort of viddish navel-gazing, but I guess that's what the cut is for -- so you can scroll merrily on past :) The shiny audio commentaries look very cool but are not for me...I'm afraid I'd go all "this one time, at band camp" and not be able to stay on a linear track through the vid. You get a bunch of unsexy text instead.
The vid: Let The Sun Fall Down (Friday Night Lights)
The opening and Football/Dillon
The opening of the vid is comprised of establishing shots of Dillon, hopefully shots that convey its character and how the Panthers are woven into the town's fabric. Funny story -- I did a draft of the opening some time back (before I had finished rewatching/clipping) and then I sat down to watch an episode and realized I had basically reconstructed the first season opening credits. Which, hey, there are some great shots of Dillon in that credit sequence (mostly from the first episode), so it's no wonder! There were many changes after that first draft and though I didn't discard shots that I felt strongly about, I kept the credits in mind from that point forward.
After the town shots, we get into more focused pregame atmospherics with the team, all building to the first chorus. Did I mention that I had to create a spreadsheet for logging/tagging footage? Because, yeah, there's something I've never done before. I tagged things I knew I'd need, like scenes with interesting/significant stadium light shots included. I used five of those light shots in the intro. LIGHTS! They fill me with glee. And better, they are visual cues to the upcoming game and tie into the theme of sun falling down/night surrounding.
The second verse and "that old dark cloud"
While I was still in the planning stage, I thought that I would work a lot of different characters and their "dark clouds" into this verse. Ha! Nothing like editing to cure you of crazy notions! The verse is only 25 seconds long and in my head it must have been two minutes or something. It was immediately clear that to shove a bunch of characters and their individual woes into that verse would create a very fractured and disjointed section...and the choice to use Jason and his injury was obvious. I'm almost always too ambitious during planning and think that much more can be squeezed into a vid than actually makes good sense on the timeline. But to balance that out, I've gotten pretty good (and quick!) at jettisoning those bad ideas as soon as I see they don't work in practice. Using Jason in this verse made perfect sense because his injury connects very easily and naturally to the whole team and town, and I was able to bring them all into that section via a connective thread that wouldn't have existed with other character struggles.
The bridge
This was where I did get to work in some individual moments and given how much footage I ripped, I had quite a few to choose from! The moment where Buddy comforts Lyla under the bleachers was a must...Buddy *is* Dillon in so many ways, so he needed some face time. More importantly, I think it's a moment that translates even if you don't know the context -- a father comforting his daughter and "the world will keep on turning." Plus, bonus that it takes place at a game, underneath the bleachers...football is never too far away. The scenes with Matt's dad leaving were, I thought, again something that came across without necessarily needing to know specific context. On one level, a serviceman waves goodbye to his loved ones as his bus pulls away. The actual situation with the Saracens is much more rich and complex than that, so hopefully it adds another layer if you know FNL...and I wanted Matt and Grandma because I love them like whoa, so everybody wins ;)
The structural idea of the bridge, no matter which character moments I ultimately decided to use, was to show the struggles and then to end the bridge by going back to the game and showing how those same folks are lifted up by it. Lyla, Buddy, Grandma and Matt are shown again, transformed.
The choruses, where the sun falls down
This is where the concept for the vid originated and is the heart and soul of the whole thing. Back in late September (and ARGH!!! the vid didn't get finished until December!), I bounced the idea for the vid off the ever-helpful and discerning obsessive24, because I knew she'd tell me if it was too esoteric. And here's what I said to her about the concept via email:
This is obviously designed as a relationship song -- one person sings to another, saying "shut out your troubles and find comfort here." But the idea that I'm tossing around is sort of a twist on that...using the song in a broader way to show what football provides for Dillon (players, coach, school, town). The simplest way of summing it up (though I wouldn't want to be painfully literal about matching certain lyrics) is that *football* is the singer, and all of these folks have some aspects of big suck going on in their lives...but Friday nights are the way they escape/transcend/put that behind them for at least a short time, and that's why the game is of such critical importance.
I think what appeals to me visually is the idea of sun falling down/night surrounding and the fact that the show builds up to Friday *nights* (sunset shots of the field and the lights coming on, etc.). I also like the idea of "whisper you a lullaby" and how that might be applied in game night terms...cheering crowds, the band, cheerleaders. Mostly, I like the idea of this gentle, intimate, tender song and wondering if I can edit the game sequences in a way that matches it. I had a lot of fun in the last vid with sharp, violent, hard movement (which was built into the song style itself) and so it would be a change of pace to see if I can make football...lyrical.
Reading that months later, I'm pretty happy with how it worked out.
Using Mud Bowl for the last chorus was not the original plan. I concentrated on ripping game footage that I could mix and match during editing. The crowd/band/cheerleader shots were interchangeable for both home and away games, but you'll notice that the actual game footage in the first two choruses is all home games/blue uniforms. I knew I could get away with mixing different games as long as I didn't have them switch uniform colors in the middle of a sequence ;) Anyway, because of that mix-and-match idea, I didn't rip any of the Mud Bowl game footage (just some post-game celebratory stuff). Not even the crowd shots in that ep would mix with other footage. But when I came to the last chorus, I was at a bit of a loss because I didn't want to repeat what I'd done with the first two iterations. And I also REALLY wanted to work in a scene of neighborhood kids playing football with Coach and Smash...love the innocent joy of "just playing" in that scene. And it was "just play" that led me to Mud Bowl. That's what the episode is about: stripping away the trappings and playing for the love of the game. What could be better for the vid?
Tech
I used After Effects for a couple of masked fades in the opening (most visible on the Coach Taylor fade at about 0:14); the "breeze blow through the pines" effects shot at 0:25 (the flag is applied to the stadium layer with a blending mode and the stadium shot has some blurring/warping/zooming going on underneath the flag...you don't really see that, but it was one of those cases where it didn't look right when that shot stayed static under the flag's movement); stadium light tweaks between 0:32-0:37 (blending modes, blurs, glows, motion).
The football footage of the play where Jason is injured (starting around 1:12) is filtered to mimic the previous scene where Tim is watching the game tape of that moment -- I wanted it to look kind of like a continuation of that scene (and also to NOT look like the "happy" football scenes used elsewhere). There's a color filter to match the blue tone, a bit of grain and then some sketchy lines to give it a broadcast feel.
I'm a big fan of motion in vids, but FNL's shaky documentary-style filming was a challenging type of movement to work with! I found myself looking for moments of stillness to break up the constant jostling. And there isn't a lot of vidder-created motion in this vid (compared to others I've done)...I mostly worked with what the footage had to offer, sometimes enhancing it a bit (like the shot of drums at 0:59, where a swinging left/right movement already existed, but I punched it up slightly).
This is long and my journal is public, so I feel compelled to add: Dear Boss, I may have posted this on work time but I swear it was written on mine!
The vid: Let The Sun Fall Down (Friday Night Lights)
The opening and Football/Dillon
The opening of the vid is comprised of establishing shots of Dillon, hopefully shots that convey its character and how the Panthers are woven into the town's fabric. Funny story -- I did a draft of the opening some time back (before I had finished rewatching/clipping) and then I sat down to watch an episode and realized I had basically reconstructed the first season opening credits. Which, hey, there are some great shots of Dillon in that credit sequence (mostly from the first episode), so it's no wonder! There were many changes after that first draft and though I didn't discard shots that I felt strongly about, I kept the credits in mind from that point forward.
After the town shots, we get into more focused pregame atmospherics with the team, all building to the first chorus. Did I mention that I had to create a spreadsheet for logging/tagging footage? Because, yeah, there's something I've never done before. I tagged things I knew I'd need, like scenes with interesting/significant stadium light shots included. I used five of those light shots in the intro. LIGHTS! They fill me with glee. And better, they are visual cues to the upcoming game and tie into the theme of sun falling down/night surrounding.
The second verse and "that old dark cloud"
While I was still in the planning stage, I thought that I would work a lot of different characters and their "dark clouds" into this verse. Ha! Nothing like editing to cure you of crazy notions! The verse is only 25 seconds long and in my head it must have been two minutes or something. It was immediately clear that to shove a bunch of characters and their individual woes into that verse would create a very fractured and disjointed section...and the choice to use Jason and his injury was obvious. I'm almost always too ambitious during planning and think that much more can be squeezed into a vid than actually makes good sense on the timeline. But to balance that out, I've gotten pretty good (and quick!) at jettisoning those bad ideas as soon as I see they don't work in practice. Using Jason in this verse made perfect sense because his injury connects very easily and naturally to the whole team and town, and I was able to bring them all into that section via a connective thread that wouldn't have existed with other character struggles.
The bridge
This was where I did get to work in some individual moments and given how much footage I ripped, I had quite a few to choose from! The moment where Buddy comforts Lyla under the bleachers was a must...Buddy *is* Dillon in so many ways, so he needed some face time. More importantly, I think it's a moment that translates even if you don't know the context -- a father comforting his daughter and "the world will keep on turning." Plus, bonus that it takes place at a game, underneath the bleachers...football is never too far away. The scenes with Matt's dad leaving were, I thought, again something that came across without necessarily needing to know specific context. On one level, a serviceman waves goodbye to his loved ones as his bus pulls away. The actual situation with the Saracens is much more rich and complex than that, so hopefully it adds another layer if you know FNL...and I wanted Matt and Grandma because I love them like whoa, so everybody wins ;)
The structural idea of the bridge, no matter which character moments I ultimately decided to use, was to show the struggles and then to end the bridge by going back to the game and showing how those same folks are lifted up by it. Lyla, Buddy, Grandma and Matt are shown again, transformed.
The choruses, where the sun falls down
This is where the concept for the vid originated and is the heart and soul of the whole thing. Back in late September (and ARGH!!! the vid didn't get finished until December!), I bounced the idea for the vid off the ever-helpful and discerning obsessive24, because I knew she'd tell me if it was too esoteric. And here's what I said to her about the concept via email:
This is obviously designed as a relationship song -- one person sings to another, saying "shut out your troubles and find comfort here." But the idea that I'm tossing around is sort of a twist on that...using the song in a broader way to show what football provides for Dillon (players, coach, school, town). The simplest way of summing it up (though I wouldn't want to be painfully literal about matching certain lyrics) is that *football* is the singer, and all of these folks have some aspects of big suck going on in their lives...but Friday nights are the way they escape/transcend/put that behind them for at least a short time, and that's why the game is of such critical importance.
I think what appeals to me visually is the idea of sun falling down/night surrounding and the fact that the show builds up to Friday *nights* (sunset shots of the field and the lights coming on, etc.). I also like the idea of "whisper you a lullaby" and how that might be applied in game night terms...cheering crowds, the band, cheerleaders. Mostly, I like the idea of this gentle, intimate, tender song and wondering if I can edit the game sequences in a way that matches it. I had a lot of fun in the last vid with sharp, violent, hard movement (which was built into the song style itself) and so it would be a change of pace to see if I can make football...lyrical.
Reading that months later, I'm pretty happy with how it worked out.
Using Mud Bowl for the last chorus was not the original plan. I concentrated on ripping game footage that I could mix and match during editing. The crowd/band/cheerleader shots were interchangeable for both home and away games, but you'll notice that the actual game footage in the first two choruses is all home games/blue uniforms. I knew I could get away with mixing different games as long as I didn't have them switch uniform colors in the middle of a sequence ;) Anyway, because of that mix-and-match idea, I didn't rip any of the Mud Bowl game footage (just some post-game celebratory stuff). Not even the crowd shots in that ep would mix with other footage. But when I came to the last chorus, I was at a bit of a loss because I didn't want to repeat what I'd done with the first two iterations. And I also REALLY wanted to work in a scene of neighborhood kids playing football with Coach and Smash...love the innocent joy of "just playing" in that scene. And it was "just play" that led me to Mud Bowl. That's what the episode is about: stripping away the trappings and playing for the love of the game. What could be better for the vid?
Tech
I used After Effects for a couple of masked fades in the opening (most visible on the Coach Taylor fade at about 0:14); the "breeze blow through the pines" effects shot at 0:25 (the flag is applied to the stadium layer with a blending mode and the stadium shot has some blurring/warping/zooming going on underneath the flag...you don't really see that, but it was one of those cases where it didn't look right when that shot stayed static under the flag's movement); stadium light tweaks between 0:32-0:37 (blending modes, blurs, glows, motion).
The football footage of the play where Jason is injured (starting around 1:12) is filtered to mimic the previous scene where Tim is watching the game tape of that moment -- I wanted it to look kind of like a continuation of that scene (and also to NOT look like the "happy" football scenes used elsewhere). There's a color filter to match the blue tone, a bit of grain and then some sketchy lines to give it a broadcast feel.
I'm a big fan of motion in vids, but FNL's shaky documentary-style filming was a challenging type of movement to work with! I found myself looking for moments of stillness to break up the constant jostling. And there isn't a lot of vidder-created motion in this vid (compared to others I've done)...I mostly worked with what the footage had to offer, sometimes enhancing it a bit (like the shot of drums at 0:59, where a swinging left/right movement already existed, but I punched it up slightly).
This is long and my journal is public, so I feel compelled to add: Dear Boss, I may have posted this on work time but I swear it was written on mine!