Things are about to get really interesting in Holland! (and the making of a ‘Hero’)
Originally published at LoveLure's Luke and Reid Blog. Please leave any comments there.
The RTL description for today’s episode:
Noah helpt Luke eraan te herinneren dat hij de volgende dag wordt geopereerd. Hij vraagt Luke om hem te steunen.
Noah reminds Luke that his surgery is the next day. He asks Luke to support him.
That can only mean that it’s ‘Near Kisses’ day!
When the Near Kisses episode originally aired in the USA (April 28th, 2010), I had only recently discovered Luke and Reid. After watching their episodes back-to-back on the Reid Oliver Story YouTube channel, and watching a slew of fan videos, I started to realize that I wanted to make one, too. I’d never made a fan video before. In fact, before LuRe, I’d only watched a handful fan videos from the JetC (Janeway/Chakotay of Star Trek Voyager fame) fandom, and that was it. So this was a strange sensation.
After downloading and rejecting Adobe Premiere (WAY too complicated - and I taught Adobe design classes for nearly a decade!), and Windows MovieMaker (which just sucks in too many ways to count), I stumbled across Corel Video Studio Pro. I don’t think it’s quite as flexible as Sony Vegas, which I know is super-popular for fan video-makers, but Video Studio Pro came with a 30-day, fully functioning free trial, so that was my choice.
It took me only a few hours to get up and running between downloading and installing the software, figuring out how to import clips, and how to do the basic editing. So at well under $100 (I think the price has gone up with the new version) within a day, I was sold.
I had been thinking through the songs on my iPod, trying to find the right song, when the snippets of lyrics came to me one day. I wasn’t even sure I owned the song, so I had to Google the lyrics to confirm the song name - and indeed it was one that I had on my iPod for those days when I’m in a certain drippy mood.
I discovered LuRe right after the Dallas kiss, and most of the video came together pretty quickly, but I felt that it was missing just a few more scenes. I was trying to figure out how long to hold out when Near Kisses played, and filled in the blanks. So within about 24 hours of the episode’s airing (I don’t think I’d discovered livestream at that point, so I was at the mercy of the YouTube posters to even view clips),
So then, I had finished my very first fan video ever - set to Enrique Iglesias’s (I Can Be Your) Hero.
When I started making the video, I thought about it mainly from Reid’s point of view (I tended to fanvid mostly from Reid’s point of view, as I think the writing was skewing us towards being empathetic to Reid), starting with the opening dialogue clip.
But once I got started, what struck me (and part of what made me love this pairing even more) was that the two men seemed to be each other’s hero. That is, Reid was Luke’s hero for saving Noah’s eyesight and testifying for Holden, but at the same time, Luke was Reid’s hero for funding the hospital and then going to Dallas to save his butt. Reid needed Luke as much as Luke needed him, and vice versa.
Those thoughts eventually ended up becoming the Mirror Images list and ultimately, I think, is one of the characteristics of this couple that I find so compelling. It’s a bit of cliche for older knight/savior Reid to ride in on his shining horse to save poor, lovelorn, “princess” Luke. But I particularly love the idea of big-hearted, loving Luke could save Reid’s lonely, empty, crabby soul.
Interestingly, I just Googled the lyrics again and part of me is amazed that I saw the depth (“would you die for the one you love?” “will you always be mine?”) that I eventually felt on screen in the little airtime these guys had had together at this point (only the start of the triangle angst, with no I Can’t kiss, Babbling, or Black Monday yet).
So, at any rate, here it is again. I cringe at some of the scene cuts and fades, and a couple of clips are a bit longer than I would do these days, but hey-ho, it was a learning experience. Enjoy:
Click to viewAnd the scenes that made it complete:
For anyone interested into the nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes of making this video, I found this sitting in my files recently and thought it was a stitch. The whole flip side (which you can kind of see through the scan) is covered with more clips and timestamps.
And finally, one last point about this video. YouTube has a great feature called “hot spots” for video posters. With hot spots, they draw you a chart of the points in a video that attract the most or least “attention” (as defined by people rewinding to watch again, or leaving the video). For a long time, there was a massive trough at about 2:30 where Luke is eavesdropping on Reid, Katie and Jacob.
I always found this disappointing because to me this was one of the turning points in Luke’s thinking about the relationship. I thought it was one of the first times Luke saw Reid as a “human being” and not just an arrogant surgeon. The fact that he hung around way, WAY too long (and obviously) to be polite said a lot about where he was to me (something I tried to get across in the latest chapter of Simple Gifts, though I dunno how successfully).
So, at any rate, it really warms my heart to know that as the video got older and picked up more hits (from presumably more die-hard fans, vs casual visitors) was that others felt the same way and stuck through watching Luke’s eavesdropping scene as much as they watched the Dallas kiss, the towel, and the Near Kisses.
At any rate, enough navel-gazing from me today! I have a LONG overdue update on I Hate My Teenage Daughter to finish writing!….