New vid: Man or Animal - BtVS Oz/Angel/Xander/Spike - Audioslave

[bradcpu]

Vid Title: Man or Animal
Artist/Song: Audioslave - "Man or Animal"
Duration: 4:02 wmv
Characters: Oz/Angel/Xander/Spike-Willow/Buffy/others
Summary: Passion turns the guys of BtVS into animals.

Download the M4V

Comments

[littleheaven70]

Here by way of obsessive24's rec. Just fantastic. Great use of pacing, especially the build towards the end. It's a recurring theme that's not usually highlighted - the beast within the men. I loved it.

[bradcpu]

Hey, thanks for letting me know you liked it! Pacing's a difficult, urm, animal to tame, so it's flattering to see that you enjoyed it here. (Hopefully you liked it enough to forgive that lame pun)

[littleheaven70]

Yes, I feel your pain! I fear I've started out too enthusiastic in my latest and left myself nowhere to go... *sigh*

Pun forgiven :o)

[bradcpu]

I'm really glad you liked it! Thanks for letting me know.

[_sharvie_]

That vid kicked totally ass! There are so many things I liked about it, lots of little details, that you're the first person I'm going to need to give time stamp fb to! Especially since I have no clue how to explain half this stuff.

So many things I adored about this.

By the first 13 seconds I knew this was going to be cool. Loved the heartbeat blacks. And then the flashing Buffy leading to adorable Xander and the sound effect.
By :34 I've already sussed out that you're killer with the effects. Which btw, I'm the opposite of you. I'm a total whore for effects! So I can see very clearly you've got something that makes the screen jump forward with the twang of the guitar. I would adore it if you could share the secret of how you achieved such movement. I'm thinking zoom but to match it up to the music there and again for all the bits at the end must have taken you forever! Was there a trick where you saved a template and then dropped it in place

[bradcpu]

Wow, your first timestamps? I'm honored, _sharvie_. The main thing is that you enjoy it, and it sounds like you did. But I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me exactly why.

I knew it was important for the opening to be... abrupt (with just a touch of campy horror) and then go into super speed. Took a while to figure out how to do that. I was just hoping I didn't overthink it. Glad it worked!

I wish I had a time-saving trick for doing the heartbeat. No, it was all just tedious work. I found the bass behind the first guitar lick of each, cut the clip there, and did a five-frame zoom out from 110% to 100%. Then the same thing again for the next five frames, but as a half transparent overlay so that the second pump of the heartbeat would just a little more subtle.

I admit that I shamelessly ripped off the zoomy time-toggle stuff from obsessive24. She uses that technique so incredibly well

[_sharvie_]

I'm still boggling that you did that effect frame by painstaking frame. I'm so in awe and want your vid babies. But since that probably won't happen I had to settle for reccing this over at my LJ instead. *g* Amazing work.

[yourlibrarian]

I especially liked the beginning set-up of this, and all the eye shots. I enjoyed seeing the parallel clips too, such as the two shots of Spike drinking, the Buffy/Angel shots around 1:20, and the Spike and Angel shots around 2:45. Nicely put together.

[bradcpu]

Thanks very much. I puzzled over the beginning for a long time because I knew it needed to set the right tone; without that the whole vid falls apart. And the comparison shots were needed to smooth the flow, what with all the in-your-face flashitude. So I'm glad those two things seem to have worked.

Keep the feathers on the chicken

[kiki_miserychic]

One of the major themes of Buffy was that sex always leads to bad things, so that works well as another level

Re: Keep the feathers on the chicken

[bradcpu]

Hey there! Saw you posted a new vid and I'm looking forward to seeing how you surprise me this time. Just wish this dam fever would go away so I could think straight...

Glad you liked mine. It's a relief that you weren't put off by the effects and editing tricks. Most of that stuff is very new to me and not at all instinctive, so I had no idea how people would react. I thought some of these things might come across as overboard, but I kind of felt like this vid needed to go overboard to carry the theme.

And feel free to laugh at the bridge with the guitar solo. I wanted the vid to be sort of a cheesy dark comedy that's funny right up until the last 30 secs or so.

Also very happy to see you like the heartbeat effect at the end. That seems to be the most contentious of the effects that I used, but I don't regret it.

Re: Keep the feathers on the chicken

[kiki_miserychic]

Saw you posted a new vid and I'm looking forward to seeing how you surprise me this time. Just wish this dam fever would go away so I could think straight...
For my new one I did so much color changing and effects it was insane. I didn't know you were sick, so hope you feel better.

Glad you liked mine. It's a relief that you weren't put off by the effects and editing tricks.
I'm in the same boat. I don't know if mine worked at all. There's a thin line with effects and I think you straddle it well.

You're vid has a Richard Cheese feel to it, which I love.

Also very happy to see you like the heartbeat effect at the end.
Funnily enough I did something similar in my last one, but it was meant more to be an "ow, that hurts a lot" effect. :)

Re: Keep the feathers on the chicken

[bradcpu]

I definitely feel like I need to do an effects-free one next. Must... get... clean!

I loved yours, though.