IJVP #6: "The Perfect Drug" (Battlestar Galactica - 2003)
Previous IJVP vids here.
Wow, where did those two weeks go? :P Now I can spend all of tomorrow sitting in front of the TV finishing my painting for this year's Women's Perspective show. I am a bee with the busy-making, I tell you. But not a European honeybee living in Japan. Because they get massacred by the biggest fucking scariest damn Giant Hornets you have ever seen. Thank you so much National Geographic for the nightmares.
This is technically the I"F"VP part of the IJVP, but let us not bother with semantics, yeah? ;) And as a warning, the Big version is really *Big* this time. Because I could, and the BSG DVDs cost too much not to take advantage of.
Vid #6: "The Perfect Drug"
Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Pairing: Gaius/Six
Requested by: nicole_anell
Downloads: 41.3 MB (848 x 480) XviD (The Massive, but Pretty, One) or 12.7 MB (320 x 240) WMV (The Tiny, but Still Decent Looking, One)
Lyrics
Nine Inch Nails - "The Perfect Drug"
I got my head, but my head is unraveling
Can’t keep control, can’t keep track of where it’s traveling
I got my heart but my heart is no good
And you’re the only one that’s understood
I come along but I don’t know where you’re taking me
I shouldn’t go but you’re reaching, dragging, shaking me
Turn off the sun, pull the stars from the sky
The more I give to you, the more I die
And I want you
And I want you
And I want you
And I want you
You are the perfect drug, the perfect drug, the perfect drug
You are the perfect drug, the perfect drug, the perfect drug
You make me hard, when I’m all soft inside
I see the truth, when I’m all stupid eyed
The arrow goes straight through my heart
Without you everything just falls apart
My blood wants to say hello to you
My fears want to get inside of you
My soul is so afraid to realize
How very little there is left of me
Take me, with you
Take me, with you
Without you, without you everything falls apart
Without you, it’s not as much fun to pick up the piece(s)
Comments
(Someday, just for fun, I will finish a vid at some time other than 5 am. Just to try it on and see how it feels.)
First off, just so you know nicole_anell, this does not mean I've chosen this idea over the Wonderfalls vidlet. Provided I do not collapse from fannish-over-reaching before I get to putting that one together too, anyway. ;D
So why did this one take so frakking long? Part of it was just getting distracted by real life, but a large part of it was also that for the life of me I could not get my head around the "Big Picture" aspect of this one for a very long time. I was really paranoid that it was going to be too good of a fit between the song and the pairing, and I was distracted with wondering how extra shiny I could make it to compensate for that. In the end, I finally found my Gaius head-space and relaxed a little. ;D
This one came together for me in a very distinct layering pattern. I'd lay down some clips (generally very long ones when this first started out for some reason), export it, lay down a few more on top of them, and repeat the excercise. The longest chunk of working on it was just getting past the first 50 seconds or so. Then I started flinging around Level-flashes, copius cross-fades, zooms, and a couple of fake "Battlestar Galactica" jumpy camera pans/zooms to bump up the clips at 1:15 and 1:28. I also finally had the little lightbulb go on over my head in respect to how to better manage the giant (7 hour long this time) .avs file I was taking clips from in the Premiere Pro monitor window. Duh. Put markers at the start of each section I could possibly want. It's like clipping, only faster. Faster to flip through looking for stuff too. Made me happy. :)
Oh, and I added some blurs to the fire section where Six first appears to help him, a zoom (Radial) blur and a Wave on the Six clip. Also, I used an Echo on the glass breaking out of the Raptor window to enhance the actual glass flying a little. And I reversed the speed on the clip of Gaius looking from the empty seat next to him towards Roslin's desk. Plus the normal tweaking of speed here and there.
I love vidding this show. :D And I'm a Gauis and Six fan, so this vid was no hardship in respect to enjoying the content. With Gaius, it's all about the eyes. His shifty, shifty eyes. For me anyway. I seriously can't look away most of the time. He does two things especially well--goofy and terrified. It was painful to leave the goofy behind, but this wasn't the right vid. I also never got to use any of those great flustered looks he gets when he loses control of his eyelids and one starts blinking on it's own and he looks like he's about to have a stroke? Those make me giggle, so not the vid either. And Six? Hot and scary as ever.
I wanted to open the vid before Six moved into his head, then move more or less chronologically. It's not really a narrative vid, but it's not a non-narrative either--certainly not to the extent of Spanish Doll. I think it's a vid that's anchored pretty obviously by the lyrics--hopefully not to the detriment of everything else. But with a match up like this song, it's really really hard for me to get perspective on them sometimes. I also cut much more slowly than I pictured in my head when I first started rolling the song around in my head. So many staccato sounds in addition to the main beat. But I did find a few places where I couldn't resist picking up the pace. Had way too much fun working on the little Raptor crashing section.
As for the song (which for the longest time I couldn't stop hearing "Closer" behind), I edited it down two different times. The final edit was what I got when I found out that we had the Lost Highway soundtrack in the house. It was longer than the version I had. I think this version has a better rhythm. There were no crazy drums for the Raptor to crash to in the first version I made. Just a scratchy distorted section that I was pretty happy to lose. And then there's the end. The end gave me fits. NIN? That's a really frustrating way to end a song. No cookie.
I hope I didn't ignore too many beat-tastic sections. But I specifically wanted a vid that didn't flash around *too* much. See: my obession with Gaius's eyes. And Six's legs, apparently. ;} Most of the time I'm ok with the choices I made, but on some rewatches I can't help but notice the sections I didn't accent them directly. I feel like I should be ashamed for saying that I enjoy the view enough that it really doesn't bother me. ;D He's just so...Gaius.
Comments, critique, and assurances that it's ok to find Gaius really attractive despite his sleaziness would all be welcomed. ;)
Wow, where did those two weeks go? :P Now I can spend all of tomorrow sitting in front of the TV finishing my painting for this year's Women's Perspective show. I am a bee with the busy-making, I tell you. But not a European honeybee living in Japan. Because they get massacred by the biggest fucking scariest damn Giant Hornets you have ever seen. Thank you so much National Geographic for the nightmares.
This is technically the I"F"VP part of the IJVP, but let us not bother with semantics, yeah? ;) And as a warning, the Big version is really *Big* this time. Because I could, and the BSG DVDs cost too much not to take advantage of.
Vid #6: "The Perfect Drug"
Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Pairing: Gaius/Six
Requested by: nicole_anell
Downloads: 41.3 MB (848 x 480) XviD (The Massive, but Pretty, One) or 12.7 MB (320 x 240) WMV (The Tiny, but Still Decent Looking, One)
Lyrics
Nine Inch Nails - "The Perfect Drug"
I got my head, but my head is unraveling
Can’t keep control, can’t keep track of where it’s traveling
I got my heart but my heart is no good
And you’re the only one that’s understood
I come along but I don’t know where you’re taking me
I shouldn’t go but you’re reaching, dragging, shaking me
Turn off the sun, pull the stars from the sky
The more I give to you, the more I die
And I want you
And I want you
And I want you
And I want you
You are the perfect drug, the perfect drug, the perfect drug
You are the perfect drug, the perfect drug, the perfect drug
You make me hard, when I’m all soft inside
I see the truth, when I’m all stupid eyed
The arrow goes straight through my heart
Without you everything just falls apart
My blood wants to say hello to you
My fears want to get inside of you
My soul is so afraid to realize
How very little there is left of me
Take me, with you
Take me, with you
Without you, without you everything falls apart
Without you, it’s not as much fun to pick up the piece(s)
Comments
(Someday, just for fun, I will finish a vid at some time other than 5 am. Just to try it on and see how it feels.)
First off, just so you know nicole_anell, this does not mean I've chosen this idea over the Wonderfalls vidlet. Provided I do not collapse from fannish-over-reaching before I get to putting that one together too, anyway. ;D
So why did this one take so frakking long? Part of it was just getting distracted by real life, but a large part of it was also that for the life of me I could not get my head around the "Big Picture" aspect of this one for a very long time. I was really paranoid that it was going to be too good of a fit between the song and the pairing, and I was distracted with wondering how extra shiny I could make it to compensate for that. In the end, I finally found my Gaius head-space and relaxed a little. ;D
This one came together for me in a very distinct layering pattern. I'd lay down some clips (generally very long ones when this first started out for some reason), export it, lay down a few more on top of them, and repeat the excercise. The longest chunk of working on it was just getting past the first 50 seconds or so. Then I started flinging around Level-flashes, copius cross-fades, zooms, and a couple of fake "Battlestar Galactica" jumpy camera pans/zooms to bump up the clips at 1:15 and 1:28. I also finally had the little lightbulb go on over my head in respect to how to better manage the giant (7 hour long this time) .avs file I was taking clips from in the Premiere Pro monitor window. Duh. Put markers at the start of each section I could possibly want. It's like clipping, only faster. Faster to flip through looking for stuff too. Made me happy. :)
Oh, and I added some blurs to the fire section where Six first appears to help him, a zoom (Radial) blur and a Wave on the Six clip. Also, I used an Echo on the glass breaking out of the Raptor window to enhance the actual glass flying a little. And I reversed the speed on the clip of Gaius looking from the empty seat next to him towards Roslin's desk. Plus the normal tweaking of speed here and there.
I love vidding this show. :D And I'm a Gauis and Six fan, so this vid was no hardship in respect to enjoying the content. With Gaius, it's all about the eyes. His shifty, shifty eyes. For me anyway. I seriously can't look away most of the time. He does two things especially well--goofy and terrified. It was painful to leave the goofy behind, but this wasn't the right vid. I also never got to use any of those great flustered looks he gets when he loses control of his eyelids and one starts blinking on it's own and he looks like he's about to have a stroke? Those make me giggle, so not the vid either. And Six? Hot and scary as ever.
I wanted to open the vid before Six moved into his head, then move more or less chronologically. It's not really a narrative vid, but it's not a non-narrative either--certainly not to the extent of Spanish Doll. I think it's a vid that's anchored pretty obviously by the lyrics--hopefully not to the detriment of everything else. But with a match up like this song, it's really really hard for me to get perspective on them sometimes. I also cut much more slowly than I pictured in my head when I first started rolling the song around in my head. So many staccato sounds in addition to the main beat. But I did find a few places where I couldn't resist picking up the pace. Had way too much fun working on the little Raptor crashing section.
As for the song (which for the longest time I couldn't stop hearing "Closer" behind), I edited it down two different times. The final edit was what I got when I found out that we had the Lost Highway soundtrack in the house. It was longer than the version I had. I think this version has a better rhythm. There were no crazy drums for the Raptor to crash to in the first version I made. Just a scratchy distorted section that I was pretty happy to lose. And then there's the end. The end gave me fits. NIN? That's a really frustrating way to end a song. No cookie.
I hope I didn't ignore too many beat-tastic sections. But I specifically wanted a vid that didn't flash around *too* much. See: my obession with Gaius's eyes. And Six's legs, apparently. ;} Most of the time I'm ok with the choices I made, but on some rewatches I can't help but notice the sections I didn't accent them directly. I feel like I should be ashamed for saying that I enjoy the view enough that it really doesn't bother me. ;D He's just so...Gaius.
Comments, critique, and assurances that it's ok to find Gaius really attractive despite his sleaziness would all be welcomed. ;)