SPN-Vid: Dean PoV - To be a Ghost
Artist/Song Title: Taking Back Sunday - What's it feel like to be a ghost?
Subject: Supernatural, Dean PoV, Character Analyse, Action, Recruiter
Summary: 'And then you said a little more about your dreams, like that was my call. If you would only listen - Bypassed everything and went straight for the neck.' Dean has known since he was four how it feels to be a ghost and Sam is going to adjust to this state. Or get killed for real.
Format: 720 x 400 - 41 MB AVI or Watch on BAM
Reasons to vid ‘What's it feel like to be a ghost?’ This pretty much is my love letter for Dean - I notice you running in the other direction, stop it! Come back… Now, calm down! - Because doesn't matter how innocent that sounds, my love, with the exception of pets, rarely is. Most character vids of Dean I've seen so far either focus on action, comedy or angst without a balance, understandable, because Dean is hard to pin down like that. So when I first heard this song it was a no brainer, actually more like a gift, so painful obvious to vid, because it delivers straight forward the question, if Sam is up for this life, which in my opinion was all season one was about. The song has this cocky playful vibe to it, while still giving the opportunity to dive into Dean's character on larger scale and most importantly access the doubts he has to face doing this job. His job is his life, there are no two ways about it, so yeah, shit happens, you deal, you move on - there's enough space in the trunk to pack up all the haunting memories and then some. This is a recruiter vid, for real and neck breaking fast at that, so anyone unfamiliar with the concept, mmh, to put it simple, you blink - you lose. I lose the label as vidder, when I don't cut at least every two seconds or change something in the frame that the viewer recognizes as change of the original footage, not the subtle things like in every other video but for real, which yeah, I so did. You even get multiple choices on what to admire about Dean, because I’m overwhelming in my affection like that.
The lyrics fitted Dean's voice perfectly in my mind, not only the show theme of chasing supernatural beings, but something a bit more profound and insightful into the family dynamic. All of the Winchester men are restless spirits, while Sam and Dad are obsessed with their lost loved ones; Dean is driven by his desire to save the living from the unfinished business of the dead, which yeah, sometimes includes his brother and dad when they are blinded by their emotions or vengeance. This hunter life isn't fate for him, but choice and I think this is one of the biggest differences between the brothers and maybe even between John and Dean. His dad became a mechanic after he served in the army, while Dean mentioned he always wanted to become a fireman, which completely fits with my view of him. Dean desperately wants to be the guy that sweeps in and saves the day, not for reasons like gratitude, but because he needs meaning and he gets it from protecting people. The brothers were both raised to be warriors, but the decision to become one was always theirs. One that Sam rejected and still can hardly grasp, because who would want to live like this? As outlaw and drifter, fighting a war that people aren't even aware of at risk of being killed any given day of the week and if you do your job right, these people will never know what waits in the shadows and will just get the impression that you're a weirdo, a freak or psycho lurking around funerals and asking strange questions. So you stay under the radar, become a ghost and try to go unnoticed for the most part. No roots and no connections to anything resembling an average lifestyle and outside the Impala. Dean puts up with it, standing smirking on the outskirts of society, never dare to get to close, because normal might bust up in flames faster than you can reload or you know, get you arrested. Besides being the dangerous stranger in the leather jacket gets you hopefully laid more often than say, normal men, which should be a bonus.
Lyrical interpretation gave me the option between going for the obvious, I mean look at the quoted lyrics 'straight for the neck', who wouldn't instantly think of the end of 1x21 Salvation or going the bit more obscure road, surprisingly for most familiar with my style. I think I got a healthy mix of both. I tried to make it accessible for anyone outside my brain and with a fast eye, but I would understand, if the vid sometimes seems a little too random, I'm just female, I got distracted by the prettiness along the way. So to make things a little bit clearer, the example here would be, no, not Sam's core dream of leading a normal life and him trying to explain that concept to Dean, which seriously would have let me with too many scenes to pick from, but the more literal visionary dreams he has, which dumped his first right into the gully. The neck thing on the other hand isn't literal, because Dean is capable of handling violence even if served from Sam, but verbal attacks are leaving him unbalanced and vulnerable. Sam is the more talkative, so when he is bringing up painful themes like Mom, Dad or Jess in fights it leads pretty much to Dean shutting down and being gagged emotional without much effort from Sam. Everybody has it weak spots; Dean talking about his own helplessness in a few situations is a big one.
So naturally Sam plays a role in this, to a lesser extend John, because for Dean it isn't a question, if Dad is up for a hunter life or if he loves his sons. The big question is, if Sam survives the next attack or if he is too distracted with sorting through his emotions to see the danger heading his way. If Dad is too obsessed with his quest to see who is standing right behind him, trying to have his back protected. And so you dear audience get a lot of action, a lot of scenes of Dean loving his life, the usual conquests, random rescues, boring research marathons and some small crisis of faith in between. But overall? Dean enjoying the ride, even when knocked down, as long as he isn’t knocked out cold or Sam at risk of being killed. Again.
Technical notes worth mentioning? Well there was more Dean I wanted to squeeze in then I had timeline for, so I cheated hopefully artistically enough with a lot of alpha masks to get away with it. Yepp, that right there - was a big fat lie. Early on in the vidding process, I played around, manipulating a scene to amplify the emotional impact, interlace two events and got a surprising good-looking result once finished. I worked plenty with alpha masks up to this point but mostly subtle manipulation, because my usual song choices didn’t go along with fancy effects or the one I’m pulling here. One that made me think, that I should do this constantly to create a pattern for this vid. charmax agreed and that was all the encouragement I needed and thank you again so much for your more and more enthusiastic reactions to the drafts, when the vid started to shape into its final look and my early on incoherent rambling started to show its true meaning. Because this style really worked with the music here and so grunge textures became a huge part of the video and it also allowed me to squeeze in more Dean, than before which was a big plus to be honest. Brushes used in this vid come from spy-glass.net. The international 'I'm so emo that even my protagonist is turning B/W' isn't the case this time, sure B/W implies flashbacks and touchy-feeling scenes here, but mostly it is to visual distinguish between the images, trust me, you wouldn’t want everything coloured in here, you would go insane watching it. So yeah, the B/W mainly is to calm down an otherwise pretty busy vid. The style I was aiming for in this vid is very different from my usual, because normally I want angst slowly dripping all over the place, build it up and make it hurt. Like I said, I wanted this to be different - a fast recruiter vid, something you can watch on repeat and getting something new out of it after five times in a row. It is still dark, there is still blood dripping, rounds fired, bodies hitting the floor and emotions squeezed out by circumstances. But served with a rattlesnake smile and deadly aim, which once again is pretty much pure eye candy and have I mentioned hot? No? How could I forget the hotness-factor? Duh! *wicked smile*
Feedback in all forms and shapes is of course very welcome…