a different take
Very few people actually reacted well to his videos.
college au. connor ft. emily & aaron.
word count : 5130
Beginnings were always the hardest. New beginnings meant changes. Huge changes that threatened to overthrow the very familiar and comfortable life. Sure, there were optimists trying to convince others that changes weren’t all bad. This could be nothing more than an exciting new chapter of his life. Find the silver linings and all that.
Except that’s hard to do when the beginning already involved loud blonde classmates who spent half the class either snoring away or arguing with the professor on the various camera techniques that can be used on a scene. Someone should tell the blonde that while it is subjective, the professor with more experience in the industry was probably the one who knew better. Still, that didn’t keep him from trying to push his ideas on to Connor when they were partnered up together for an assignment.
So if someone came and told Connor, that Aaron was the start of something beautiful in his life, he would like to kindly tell them to shove off because Aaron was nothing more than a headache that he couldn’t quite shake.
No, if Connor was to trace back to the beginning, it would be to one of those times he and Aaron were partnered up once more for an assignment. At that point, he was beginning to suspect all his lecturers were some kind of sadistic people who enjoyed torturing their students.
They were doing it at the studio for dance students, because neither of them could keep their voices low enough to satisfy the librarian. Ryan, a dance student who’s a year older, already used to their visits merely nodded at them through the mirror. His dance partner barely spared them a glance. Connor huffed as he followed Aaron to a corner at the back of the room and set up his laptop. The blonde had begun launching on to a new tirade on something Connor didn’t really care about.
It took a while to actually get things rolling but by the end of it, they progressed a lot more than Connor had first expected. Which meant, he could actually spend an extra hour sleeping if he finished his essay tonight.
He was just packing up his things, when Ryan’s dance partner, a red headed girl, came up to him with a blinding smile, “Hi!”
“Hi,” Connor said, slowly. They don’t talk often because Emily is a very pretty girl and Connor doesn’t do well with pretty girls. Somewhere in the background he could hear Aaron snickering.
“We need a favour,” Emily started, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear. She was wearing nothing more than a tank top under her jacket. Her hair should be the least of her worries. “We need someone to film our dance routine for this month’s evaluation.”
“Why don’t you ask Aaron to do it?” Connor said, averting his gaze before it could go any lower. He tried to focus on the task at hand - wrapping the cable charger so they don’t get tangled once they’re in his bag.
“Yeah, we tried but we have what you call,” Emily paused, shooting a side glance to the watching blonde. “Creative differences.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes at her, daring her to say more.
Turning her attention back to the brunette, she continued, “Me and Ryan would like to record a simple dance practice video. Nothing complicated. Just of us doing our routine.”
“Boring,” Aaron interjected, with a scoff. “You could just use your phone to record if you wanted that.”
“We’re having trouble with the sound and lighting,” Ryan explained, ignoring the younger. “It’s not usually a problem. But our coach this month is known to be particular about those things.”
Connor can see the problem with this. They’re practicing at night and while the light is bright, it doesn’t erase the shadows that would show up on camera. Plus, the walls may be thick but if loud enough or the door was left open even just a little bit, they can still hear the sounds from outside. Though they can also put the audio over the video after so that’s not really a problem. Lighting would be trickier.
“Please,” Emily begged, holding on to his arm. “You would be helping us a lot, and it would be like practice for you too!”
It would be, actually. He knew it would. It was one thing to film things for class. It’s been a while since he had record anything, without a set of instructions laid out for him. It was a good way to see if he actually learned something in class.
But remembering the last time he actually filmed someone had Connor pulling back his arm, “I don’t film people I know.”
“You only film strangers?” Ryan asked, eyebrows scrunched together. “Isn’t that a little creepy?”
Connor tried his best not to flinch at that word. He quickly grabbed the last of his things, “No, I mean, I don’t film people. At all. I should go. I still have to work on my essay for tomorrow.”
“Wait, we have an essay due tomorrow?” Aaron said, ignoring the brunette’s hasty exit. He scrolled through his phone, trying to find any mention of this sudden essay in his chats. “Shit, it’s for Thatcher’s class.”
Emily stared at the door thoughtfully, before going to sit next to Aaron. The blonde was quickly opening up multiple tabs on his laptop that it made her wonder if he was really going to read them all.
“Aaron, if we let you film us outside, would you please help us with our video?” she asked him.
His fingers hovered on the keyboards, his eyes gleamed with excitement when he asked, “Can I choose what you wear?”
The two dancers exchanged glances, which ended with Emily sighing when she relented, “Fine. But we get a say in it as well. We don’t want clothes that would distract people from the dance.”
“And nowhere public. I don’t want people seeing it before the evaluations,” Ryan added.
“Deal.”
...When Connor was younger, he loved to film his family, friends and just about anyone that works at his parents’ music label. No one really minded him when he was a kid. But people got worried as he grew older and his parents made him promise to never leak any videos online. He wasn’t allowed to show them to anyone other than his family.
One day, a singer recorded her first ever self-composed demo at their label, and Connor ended up recording the whole thing on his phone. It was a song that described her struggles of growing up as a child actor and only being known for her series show. It was about her wanting to keep doing different things but being afraid of losing her audience.
Connor remembered loving the song and was in awe of the singer. Despite what the tabloids wrote about her, she was one of the coolest people he ever met. She was fine with him recording everything. At the end of it, she even posed for the camera with a laugh.
Things went bad when Connor showed the video to a friend of his who was also a fan. He was basically repeating what the tabloids were saying the singer of being another talent stuck in her kiddie show, especially when the singer’s series ended. To shut him up, Connor showed him the video of the singer.
What he didn’t realise was the boy’s stubbornness in wanting to be right. The boy took his phone without him noticing and sent the video to himself. Not more than a day later, the video ended up online and it went viral. The tabloids have now changed their story, the singer was now just another desperate artist trying to show talent she didn’t have.
When his parents found out, they took away Connor’s camera and made him apologize to the singer who just smiled sadly at him, “It’s fine, at least now I know what people think of it. Not very much apparently.”
The song was never released and the singer disappeared from the public’s eye within the next few months. Connor was forbidden to be around anyone who was working there since then. He cut off any connection with the boy who stubbornly argued that it wasn’t his fault.
Since then, Connor rarely showed anyone his videos.
…
Connor didn’t think he’d be seeing much of Emily and Ryan since then. Even when he and Aaron stayed at the studio to finish their assignment, the two dancers were two busy practicing their routine. Sometimes, when Connor take quick breaks in between and did not want to listen to Aaron go on about their lecturers for the umpteenth time, he watched the two dance.
The two were good dancers. Maybe it was the choreography. Connor wasn’t sure, he doesn’t have much reference when it came to dancing. But the way they moved together was amazing and their faces when they managed to nail a move or when their eyes meet during a dance. Connor didn’t know much about dancing, but he doubted many dancers had as much chemistry as they did.
At one point, Connor was too engrossed in watching them that he didn’t realize Emily had caught him until she shot him a wink. He quickly turned back to his laptop, ignoring the flush creeping up his neck as he tried to figure out where he stopped. He ignored Aaron’s questioning look and simply asked the blonde to hurry up with his part.
It was at the end of their practice, when Connor felt a sense of déjà vu. Ryan had invited Aaron out to help him pick up the food delivery outside of the studio building. They had ordered sandwiches from the deli nearby. As soon as the guys were gone, Emily was sitting next to him with the same blinding smile she had before.
“Hi!”
“Hi,” he repeated, wondering if this was going to be a pattern. At least this time, she had a t shirt and sweatpants on.
“Look, I know you said you don’t film real people,” she began settling into a cross legged position next to him. “But I still need your help with a video.”
“I thought Aaron was doing your practice video.”
“Different video,” she told him. “Aaron’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I thought it would be fun to make a video compilation of him for his birthday.”
Emily took out her phone and started scrolling through the folder. From what he saw, Connor could see the folder filled of clips of Emily and Aaron. Some even included Ryan and their other friends.
“I kind of had this planned for a while now. It was going to be a video of the things we did on campus,” Emily told him, grinning. “We didn’t manage to record everything but we got a lot. I tried compiling the clips myself but they don’t come out a little weird.”
She tilted the phone so they both could see it better, “This is what I have so far. I just threw it all together.”
Connor watched the video and winced at the loud music playing. The clips were mainly of Aaron and Emily just doing things on campus. Clips of them trying the cafes on campus. Clips of them walking around together at night. Clips of them playing pool - Connor’s not sure where that came from. Clips of them making a very large sandwich together. Just so many clips of Aaron and Emily together.
“I didn’t realise you two were dating,” Connor commented, and regretted it almost immediately. It made him sound so high school. Besides, it was none of his business whether they were together or not.
But Emily didn’t seem to mind by the way she simply laughed in response, “We’re not. We’re just friends. We’ve known each other since we were kids. So whenever one of us gets homesick, we call the other up. That’s when we usually record ourselves.”
“Since we have a lot of these clips, I thought it would be fun to put them together,” she said, grinning at him. “But it didn’t work out so well. I’m not really sure why.”
“You could turn down the music a bit,” Connor said. “It’s a little loud and distracting.”
“Yeah, I made it loud because the original clips were loud,” Emily told him. “I thought about just leaving the original audio. You know, no music. But some clips were loud and some were soft. There’s one of us whispering I think.”
She scrolled through to find said video. Connor said, “You should just turn off the audio in the clips if the sound is inconsistent.”
“I tried. It didn’t work,” Emily told him. “The sound is always there.”
“You can use an app to separate the audio from the clips,” Connor said. “Also, you used a lot of standard cuts when you could try jump cuts or montage. You could use a match cut to help transition some of these.”
Seeing the confused look on the girl’s face, Connor quickly explained, “A match cut is when one scene cuts to a whole different scene but you do it by showing something that happened in the first scene with the effects in the second.”
Emily’s eyebrows scrunched together with a small frown on her face as she tried to picture it, “I feel like that’s what cuts are for in general.”
“No, you’re right. That’s what cuts are for,” Connor said, struggling to find his words. “It’s the way they do it. A scene where a man blows out a match quickly followed by a sunrise.”
Emily nodded as if understanding though Connor doubted it by the uncertain look on her face. “This is why I need your help. I know you don’t filming real people. But I was hoping you’d help me edit this clips together.”
“I don’t know,” Connor said. “I really don’t like editing videos of real people, especially without their permission. And these videos are very personal.”
“You have my permission,” Emily quickly said. “And I’m sure Aaron won’t mind you watching them. You guys are friends anyway.”
“I still don’t like filming real people,” Connor told her.
“But you’re not, you’re just editing clips. Imagine you’re making a fan video of us,” Emily said. However seeing the reluctant look on his face, she quickly said, “Please. Just this one video, and I promise I will never ask you to edit another video ever again.”
Connor eyed her carefully, suddenly understanding why she and Aaron got along. But Emily was now looking at him with a pleading gaze that turning her down was a hard thing to do.
“Okay, I’ll help,” he relented. “Just this one video.”
“Thank you!” she squealed, and throw her arms around him. Connor wasn’t sure what face he was making, but whatever it was had her quickly pull back. “Oh, sorry, I got a little excited. But you’re still helping me, right?”
Connor nodded quietly, watching as the girl suddenly hand her phone to him with an expectant bright smile. He looked at the device a little confused at what she’s expecting.
“Your phone number,” she told him. “It’ll be easier to plan when and where all that. We can’t do it here because Aaron comes here all the time. He’d find out about it quickly.”
“Right,” Connor said, taking the phone to key in his number. He immediately left a missed call on his phone to get hers.
At that moment, they could hear the familiar voices of Ryan and Aaron drawing close. Emily quickly got up just as the door opened. With Ryan holding their four drinks while Aaron was holding their bag of sandwiches.
…
The first time Connor had made a video for someone, he had used a crack version of a video editor he found online. It was for a girl he dated back in school. She was one of the few people that was open to him filming. The videos were mainly of them doing things together and some of just her. He’s shown her a few clips but ended up keeping most of them to himself when he decided to make his first compilation of them for their six month anniversary.
On the special day itself, he saw her with her group of friends by the locker. He was about to greet her when he paused at their conversation. He slipped in between two group of students, ignoring the looks they shot him as he messed around with the combination lock.
“So he films you for fun?”
“That’s what he said,” his then girlfriend said, with a flick of her strawberry blonde hair. “He just likes filming me. He said it helps when he misses me or something.”
“Yeah, but isn’t it a little creepy,” one of the other girls asked. “That he kept filming every little thing you do. Do you even know what he does with those clips?”
“No, I asked and he said, it was for his own viewing,” she told them, closing her locker. “I asked him once, jokingly, if he used it for when he, you know, but he just laughed and changed the topic.”
“Well, I doubt he’d admit to that anytime soon,” her dark hair friend commented.
“I know,” she sighed. “But it’s better to know these things upfront instead of him secretly spying on me or something.”
“Is that why you won’t break up with him,” the other girl asked. “Because you’re afraid he’ll use the videos against you?”
“What if he has videos of you two having sex,” her other friend said, earning gasps from the rest of the group. “Does he do that? Does he secretly film when you guys do it?”
His girlfriend pursed her lips together, before slowly saying, “I don’t think so? I don’t know. We never actually did it. But there are times when I didn’t even realise the camera was on until he pointed it out.”
“So he is spying on you,” her friend said, earning murmurs of agreement. “What if you get the videos when he’s not looking and delete them? Then, you can break up with him no problem.”
“He could have backups saved.”
“We should hire someone to hack him.”
His then girlfriend smiled at her friends appreciatively, “For now, I’m just glad he’s not showing it to anyone else. Come on, we’re going to be late for class.”
“I’m serious about the hacker,” her friend continued. “I might know someone.”
Connor wasn’t sure how long he ended up standing there. All he knew was he ended up pressing closer to the locker when the group of girl passed by, wishing he could just disappear. All he could think of was the many different explanations he had for her. He was being honest when he said the video was meant only for him. He’d never use the videos as jerk off material - even though he was tempted to at times. But those videos were too special for him to taint them by doing that.
He never meant to make her uncomfortable. Why wouldn’t she say anything in the first place? He would have stopped recording immediately. There was no sex tape of them together because they never went that far. But even if they did, he would never record them together.
That day, he messaged her saying something came up and can they meet the next day. He then went home and gathered all the clips and videos he had of her in a thumb drive. The only thing he kept was the compilation he made. He refused to hand all the hard work he put into the video to her regardless of what she thought.
The next day, he did what she wanted. He broke it off with her and handed her the thumb drive. Her stunned look and poorly concealed relief did nothing more than drove the pain through his heart. She didn’t even ask why. She just took the thumb drive and did the whole, I hope we can still be friends spiel.
To say that was the last he saw of her was a lie. School suddenly meant avoiding her and her circle of friends. They still shot him looks and whispers whenever he passed by. He did his best to ignore them, even when rumours started that he liked to secretly film girls when they least realise it.
Needless to say, that was the last time he ever recorded a video involving anyone he knew.
…After constant assurance that Aaron will not kill him for watching those clips, Connor started getting into it. He first split the audio and the music played over it. He considered keeping the music. But the instrumental was a sweet typical piano choice that one usually played when showing family photos. From what he knew of Aaron and Emily, the music just wasn’t right.
The music was there for the sake of having music for the video. But it didn’t really suit them so Connor deleted it. He tried to fix the audio for each clip so that they don’t have too much contrast between clips. But that didn’t work out so well either.
He decided Emily’s decision to include music was the right choice. He just needed to know what music. He texted the girl asking for some song suggestions. But she has yet to reply.
Connor knew the best way to edit a video is to actually watch it. He needed to know the content of the video so he could edit it properly instead of going in blind. The thing about editing someone else’s personal videos was that it showed Connor a different side of them. In the words of his ex, it’s like he’s spying on their private moments.
Emily and Aaron didn’t act that much different than when he’s around. But watching these clips of them made Connor notice more of the little things he probably won’t.
Aaron was just as loud as usual but there was the excited look in his eyes when he and Emily talked about the dance video they shot. The mischief in his eyes when he practically poured an entire bottle of hot sauce on to a sandwich. The surprisingly calm attitude he wore when he and Emily talked about their home. The patient tone he used when Connor called him out of the blue freaking out because his laptop crashed, and he lost their slides for the presentation due the next day.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, but his laptop crashed or something,” Aaron said, getting up. “You want to join us? We can hang out at the café and get Rachel to give us free muffins again.”
“No, I don’t think Connor likes me very much,” Emily said, puffing up her cheeks.
Aaron snorted and Connor could hear him say something that sounds suspiciously like, “Oh, he likes you alright.”
But he may have heard it wrong, since Emily didn’t even react. Aaron just continued, “It just takes a while for him to get used to being around some people. He used to glare at me and try to be all polite whenever we talk. Now he just calls my idea shit and I tell him all the reasons why he’s wrong.”
“How is that an improvement?” Emily asked, turning to him confused. “You guys are still arguing.”
“Yeah, but now he’s not trying to be all mister nice guy when I know he’s annoyed with me,” Aaron shrugged. “Look, just join us. I don’t want to leave you alone on a bad night.”
Connor remembered that night. He was busy working on another assignment when it happened. He had panicked especially when he found out their slides were gone. He remembered calling Aaron simply to ask if he had an earlier draft they can use. He didn’t remember sounding as worked up as he did in the video. But they had met up at the café where Aaron ended up fixing the slides on his own while Connor retyped his essays.
Connor briefly remembered Emily being there at first but doesn’t remember seeing her leave. He didn’t really talk much to her that night, too focused on his essay. They ended up staying at the café all night. The next day they both filled up on coffee and managed to pull off their presentation.
He didn’t realise he had interrupted them on a bad night. He’s not even sure what a bad night consisted of. But the term popped up in a lot of the clips. Most of them, he guessed, was recorded because one or the other was having a bad night.
Inhaling deeply, Connor decided not to overthink it too much. He’s just doing this as a favour. He shouldn’t read too much into them. Sure, most clips are evident that the both of them are very close and are each other’s first choice whenever they’re feeling down. But there were also clips of them doing stupid stuff like the skateboard clips or the sandwich clip or the card trick clips.
He just needed to find a song that would suit these clips.
…He met Emily about a week later to give her the edited video. He could have easily emailed her the video but she insisted on meeting face to face. So they met up at the usual practice room. Neither Aaron nor Ryan was there.
It felt odd with just the two of them. Connor debated on leaving as soon as he sent her the video. But he remembered the clip where Emily thought he didn’t like her. He remembered Aaron trying to convince her otherwise. He remembered too many clips of Aaron trying to be friends to both of them.
Like it or not, Connor had to admit he owed the blonde to try and properly get along with the red head. So he stayed, as Emily watched the video. It was nerve wracking to say the least. The last time he showed anyone his videos, he got in trouble and forced someone into early retirement. The last time he wanted to show someone a video he worked on, he never did.
Emily was expressive throughout the whole video. She laughed at some moments. She smiled at some moments. These are both positive reactions, Connor noted. This is good. She actually liked the video. She liked it. It felt like a lifetime since someone outside his class actually enjoyed a video he worked on.
Once it ended, she beamed at him, “This is amazing! Thank you.”
“It’s not a problem,” Connor said, bashfully. “It’s good practice anyhow.”
“I love how you edited the video so that the music was playing except for certain dialogues,” Emily gushed. “How did you even know which ones to use?”
“I took a guess. I could change it if you want,” he offered.
“No, no, this is great,” Emily insisted. “I never expected you to use Avicii. But you did and somehow managed to keep the sentimentality of it. And the way you rearranged the clips! It’s like watching a fan edit but it’s of me and Aaron.”
Connor smiled, happy to see the video being genuinely liked.
“Do you do fan edits? I bet you do,” Emily suddenly said. “I bet you have your own YouTube channel. There is no way this is your first time.”
“I do,” Connor admitted, feeling a little embarrassed. He never told anyone about it before. “I usually just make anime edits. This is the longest edit I’ve done in a while though.”
“You’re really good, you know,” Emily told him. “I bet if you were the one who recorded these, it would turn out so much better.”
“I don’t know about that,” Connor said, shyly.
“I’m serious. Aaron always said you have talent that you’re wasting on filming nature and animal videos,” she told him. “I know it’s your preference but I actually have to agree with him.”
Seeing Connor’s thoughtful expression, she quickly added, “Not that filming nature videos are bad. It’s just that Aaron said you usually hated recording people because you didn’t like dealing with people and having to work with their schedules and stuff.”
Connor sighed, “It’s not their schedule. It’s them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, just because someone agrees to be in my video, doesn’t mean they’re going to like the final product,” Connor said. “Some might even find it….creepy.”
“Creepy? How can it be creepy?” Emily asked, confused. “Was it supposed to be creepy?”
“No, it was supposed to be sweet,” Connor told her. “But she didn’t like that I filmed her too much and I realised then, I need explicit permission if I was to record people. Then, I need to make sure they were okay with me actually editing the video in a certain way.”
“You do realise that’s kind of expected when you film literally anyone,” Emily said. “I mean the clips I showed you were the better ones. There were clips where the camera was shaky or moving too much. The sound was a mess because we were in a busy area. Once we filmed a whole video but the camera wasn’t even facing us.”
“But when I give you the compilation I made, I’m giving you permission to watch those clips and edit them in a way you think would be best as a birthday present,” Emily told him, gently.
Connor just smiled a small smile. He knew she was just trying to cheer him up.
“Besides, you don’t seem the type to film people without their permission or purposely make them look bad in a video,” Emily said, lightly nudging him. Seeing the doubtful look on his face, she added, “So, whoever the girl is, she got you all wrong. But it’s her loss, because when you’re a famous film director, people would be lining up to be a part of your videos.”
He looked at her sceptically, to which she merely insisted, “They will. You and Aaron will be the best filmmaking duo out there-”
“Right," he scoffed lightly.
“-and people will be begging you to film their project.”
Connor eyed her carefully, the earnestness mirrored in her eyes as much as he could hear it in her voice. He didn't know if she was being naive, but he decided to humor her for once, “I have to be stuck with him till then too?”
“Forever and ever,” Emily said, solemnly. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there too.”
“I don’t see how that would make things better.”