"Some Time Around Midnight" by bop_radar, commentary by tree

[tree]

Title: Some Time Around Midnight
Vidder: bop_radar
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Link to vid: Dreamwidth / LiveJournal
Summary: Lee knows that Kara will break him in two.
Warnings: Brief nudity, physical violence.

Commentary by: treeNote: This is rather image heavy as I got a little carried away with the screenshots. Also, I use the words "perfect", "

Comments

[bop_radar]

How can I thank you for this incredible commentary? It feels like the most tremendous gift--to be able to take the journey through someone else's eyes and see this vid from the 'outside' for once (though I love that you found it hard to stay 'outside' in your own way--in the sense that you initially fell into Kara's point of view!).

Your post is so beautiful!! I love the way you've put the clips together, emphasising some sections with trios of shots and that amazing close up on Kara's face at 'ghost' :) :) It allowed me to experience it through again in a new way, seeing which moments struck you. That's an incredible gift to a vidder--I was way too 'close' to this vid for many many months, very unaccepting of it. So reading this is a healing process for me.

it allows scenes to simply be what they are, rather than be weighted with context
:) I'm very happy with that, even though I see myself as a context-based vidder. In the case of this vid I specifically wanted to lift free of some of the plot details and capture the emotional truth over (for instance) a linear narrative.

And because there is something feral about Kara
There is indeed! And Lee feels it and responds to it--both with fear and with attraction. I am really thrilled the flight sequence and connection between their bodies and their planes worked so well for you.

her focus is on him and he finds it disconcerting.
Hee! It's fun to watch him squirm, yes? :) Though I didn't experience it that way, vidding... since I was in Lee's pov. :)

I especially adore the clip on "homeless" from Unfinished Business with Lee just watching Kara like she's home and he can't ever have her.
I love that that shot worked so well for you! It's one of my favourites but I chose it intuitively without analysing why it worked. So thanks for that gloss on it.

she's hurt just as much by what she's done, and seems just as bewildered by it as Lee. She's afraid. Of her feelings and of him.
Thank you for enlarging this shot. Like Lee I don't always 'see' it clearly, even though what you say is there--written all over her face. I had to use that shot there because it is the 'punch in the gut' that Lee feels and an image that haunts him, her face burnt into his mind. But he feels so much pain about it, he can't see the pain in her own face (even though that's partly what he's reacting to!).

The montage that follows, if you're interested in my own view of it, is kind of Lee's 'braindump of rage/pain' ... it's deliberately jumbled because it's how it all feels inside him. I included the shot of Gaius because Lee never lets go of hurts, and yes, her sleeping with him still niggles. It's the image Lee would remember--from the cardgame where he worked it out. I'm not explaining that to excuse the 'jarring' but just in case you were curious... I was also struck by you pointing out the shooting seems deliberate in this context... yes, I was prepared to make it seem that way because this is Lee's ball of black pain and bitterness, boiled up inside him, all the ugliest things--and in some part of him that physical experience of being shot by Kara *did* feel deliberate (why her of all people?!!) and resonates with being emotionally hurt by her in that way that things do on an intuitive level (even though he knows VERY VERY well in his conscious, logical mind that it was an accident) and he needs to deal with that. So because this is all very much Lee's unprocessed emotions, I let it and things like Gaius and Zak just mash all up together--the small hurts with the big, since I think that's often how it works, things get distorted?

(PS. It's cute that what you remember is that Kara called out Lee's name. Lee doesn't know that. :p He just remembers being hurt.)