VID: Moonsea (Doctor Who, Thirteen & various companions)
I was pretty excited to sign up for Space Swap, because a whole fest about space is just the best. THE BEST. I would have been happy to match on any of my offers, but had my fingers and toes crossed that I'd get either Venom or Doctor Who, because they were the two I had ideas for. Seeing the match for Thirteen was a happymaking moment, because I already knew I was going to make a vid.
I've been wanting to vid Season 11 of Doctor Who ever since I finished watching it, not only because I adore Thirteen, but because the cinematography is so darn pretty. Then I had that wonderful click that sometimes comes with projects you're really keen to do when I read Kira_katrine's prompt to explore Thirteen's flaws.
I already had a song in mind -- Phildel is an artist I've vidded to before and I love the haunting quality of her voice. Moonsea was perfect for Thirteen. Originally I thought I'd cut it down. I've talked before about how I tend to think the perfect vidding length is around 2 to 2 and half minutes, and much longer can drag as the vidder runs out of material. However, I'm planning to make a VidBigBang even if it doesn't formally run again (I may even have already started :) and I decided this Space Swap vid was the perfect practice run at a long form. The song is just over 4 minutes, and Doctor Who has enough source footage that I knew there was heaps of good stuff, even if I needed to go beyond season 11. I very quickly discovered that, yes, I really did need to. Four minutes is a lot of time to fill. I mean, I already knew that, but other vids I've done at around that length are things like the Vorkosigan vid (4:15) or the Supernatural racecar vid (3:34), which are constructed realities and so have slightly different rules. Or the Venom vid at 3:19 which has several breaks in the main song. Or Enemy Mine at 3:25, which I broke into chapters. Or Ever After, at 4:27 which is a tragic remix of Cinderella, and I used a fair bit of repetition in it to bring the point home -- this is the closest I've ever come to a longform vid, and it works pretty well given how early I made it.
Given only two of those are even close to the ballpark of a 5 minute (or longer) vid that's needed for a BigBang, I figured I'd probably need to expand my toolkit a bit to be able to vid longform well. And I was right about that! I really like how this vid turned out, but it has some issues. The first half is much slower than the second, and the colour palette isn't consistent. One of my betas commented that it felt like two different vids. I was actually quite pleased by that, because I'd rather two different vids than one that drags in the second half because I've run out of stuff to say. The difference in pace was because I was trying to create build that worked over the whole 4 minute length, and wanted to start off a bit dreamy and then climax on ACTION! But I'm not sure I got the transition as smooth as I could have. The colour palette issue was mainly that I ran out of time because marking took longer than I expected. I don't think either of those things are really terrible, but I will need to make sure I've got lots of time to revise the BigBang vid, because just having more time to tighten things up and re-think stuff would have made a lot of difference.
The takeaways are that:
Title: Moonsea by
cupidsbow
Visual Source: Doctor Who
Music: Moonsea by Phildel
Rating: PG-13
Relationship: The Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/Missy, The Doctor/Jack Harkness, The Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Physical triggers: Flashing lights.
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, such as death by daleks.
Thank you: To
mecurtin and
sjnt for their excellent beta notes!
For: kira_katrine in Space Swap 2019. For the prompt: "Thirteen being less perfect than she sometimes seemed to be in series 11. I don't mean that in terms of competence, more in terms of internal conflicts and such."
Summary: Don’t share the past, if you won’t share your heart.
Downloads: WHO-Moonsea-cupidsbow.rar (MP4, 60.7MB), WHO-Moonsea-HD-cupidsbow.rar (WMV, 151.88MB)
Streaming: Vimeo (Password = space!)
Password = space!
[Dr Who] Moonsea from cupidsbow on Vimeo.
Doctor Who
1x13 The Parting of the Ways
4x12 The Stolen Earth
4x13 Journey's End
5x4 The Time of Angels
5x5 Flesh and Stone
9x1 The Magician's Apprentice
9x2 The Witch's Familiar
Season 10 Christmas Special, Twice Upon a Time
11x1 The Woman Who Fell to Earth
11x2 The Ghost Monument
11x3 Rosa
11x4 Arachnids in the UK
11x5 The Tsuranga Conundrum
11x6 Demons of the Punjab
11x7 Kerblam!
11x9 It Takes You Away
11x10 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
Season 11 New Year's Day Special, Resolution
This entry was originally posted at https://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/452041.html.
I've been wanting to vid Season 11 of Doctor Who ever since I finished watching it, not only because I adore Thirteen, but because the cinematography is so darn pretty. Then I had that wonderful click that sometimes comes with projects you're really keen to do when I read Kira_katrine's prompt to explore Thirteen's flaws.
I already had a song in mind -- Phildel is an artist I've vidded to before and I love the haunting quality of her voice. Moonsea was perfect for Thirteen. Originally I thought I'd cut it down. I've talked before about how I tend to think the perfect vidding length is around 2 to 2 and half minutes, and much longer can drag as the vidder runs out of material. However, I'm planning to make a VidBigBang even if it doesn't formally run again (I may even have already started :) and I decided this Space Swap vid was the perfect practice run at a long form. The song is just over 4 minutes, and Doctor Who has enough source footage that I knew there was heaps of good stuff, even if I needed to go beyond season 11. I very quickly discovered that, yes, I really did need to. Four minutes is a lot of time to fill. I mean, I already knew that, but other vids I've done at around that length are things like the Vorkosigan vid (4:15) or the Supernatural racecar vid (3:34), which are constructed realities and so have slightly different rules. Or the Venom vid at 3:19 which has several breaks in the main song. Or Enemy Mine at 3:25, which I broke into chapters. Or Ever After, at 4:27 which is a tragic remix of Cinderella, and I used a fair bit of repetition in it to bring the point home -- this is the closest I've ever come to a longform vid, and it works pretty well given how early I made it.
Given only two of those are even close to the ballpark of a 5 minute (or longer) vid that's needed for a BigBang, I figured I'd probably need to expand my toolkit a bit to be able to vid longform well. And I was right about that! I really like how this vid turned out, but it has some issues. The first half is much slower than the second, and the colour palette isn't consistent. One of my betas commented that it felt like two different vids. I was actually quite pleased by that, because I'd rather two different vids than one that drags in the second half because I've run out of stuff to say. The difference in pace was because I was trying to create build that worked over the whole 4 minute length, and wanted to start off a bit dreamy and then climax on ACTION! But I'm not sure I got the transition as smooth as I could have. The colour palette issue was mainly that I ran out of time because marking took longer than I expected. I don't think either of those things are really terrible, but I will need to make sure I've got lots of time to revise the BigBang vid, because just having more time to tighten things up and re-think stuff would have made a lot of difference.
The takeaways are that:
- For a longform vid, you want a source that has a real depth. A film series, like Star Wars for instance, or a TV show with at least three seasons. A single movie really won't cut it unless you can find a way to thematically repeat visuals without being boring, and one season of a TV show probably won't either.
- The chapter idea has a lot of merit. I've been moving more torwards that in my vids lately anyway, and I think it's ideal for longform vids. It means you can tackle sections and get them to almost stand alone in terms of their visual interest. You just have to make sure you build to the strongest chapters for the climax, and still have something left for the grace note at the end.
- Thirteen's face is a gift.
Title: Moonsea by
cupidsbow
Visual Source: Doctor Who
Music: Moonsea by Phildel
Rating: PG-13
Relationship: The Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/Missy, The Doctor/Jack Harkness, The Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Physical triggers: Flashing lights.
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, such as death by daleks.
Thank you: To
mecurtin and
sjnt for their excellent beta notes!
For: kira_katrine in Space Swap 2019. For the prompt: "Thirteen being less perfect than she sometimes seemed to be in series 11. I don't mean that in terms of competence, more in terms of internal conflicts and such."
Summary: Don’t share the past, if you won’t share your heart.
Downloads: WHO-Moonsea-cupidsbow.rar (MP4, 60.7MB), WHO-Moonsea-HD-cupidsbow.rar (WMV, 151.88MB)
Streaming: Vimeo (Password = space!)
Password = space!
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
[Dr Who] Moonsea from cupidsbow on Vimeo.
Doctor Who
1x13 The Parting of the Ways
4x12 The Stolen Earth
4x13 Journey's End
5x4 The Time of Angels
5x5 Flesh and Stone
9x1 The Magician's Apprentice
9x2 The Witch's Familiar
Season 10 Christmas Special, Twice Upon a Time
11x1 The Woman Who Fell to Earth
11x2 The Ghost Monument
11x3 Rosa
11x4 Arachnids in the UK
11x5 The Tsuranga Conundrum
11x6 Demons of the Punjab
11x7 Kerblam!
11x9 It Takes You Away
11x10 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
Season 11 New Year's Day Special, Resolution
This entry was originally posted at https://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/452041.html.