12 Days of Cliche: Day 5 - Vid: '1941: The Year That Never Was!' by cupidsbow
This is by far my most ambitious songvid to date, using source footage from the 1940s in addition to that of Doctor Who and Torchwood, and cut to the fastest song in the world. OMG.
The driving force behind this was pretty much that I wanted Jack to have an adventure in the 1940s, so I built a constructed reality in order to give it to him. There are some more notes behind the cut, if you're interested. Otherwise, here's the masterpiece! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. :)
Title: 1941: The Year That Never Was!
Vidder:
cupidsbow/cupidsbow
Fandom: Torchwood and Doctor Who
Pairing: Jack/Tosh, Jack/realJack, Jack/Tosh/realJack
Rating: PG-13
Music: "Sing, Sing, Sing" by Benny Goodman (1987 remaster)
Summary: What if Jack had never met the Doctor?
Download: FileFront (16.03 MB).
Streaming: You can stream this from FileFront -- just click on the 'streaming' button. Or on BAM Vid Vault
Find more videos like this on BAM Vid Vault
Companion story: 'Kiss the Boys Goodbye' by Hope: DreamWidth, LiveJournal
The Making of 1941: The Year That never Was!
I think John Barrowman once said at a convention that he'd like to make some episodes of Jack's adventures in the past, and I have to agree that it's an appealing idea.
For a while now, I've been yearning for stories about Jack's adventures as a rogue Time Agent in the 1940s. It's such a perfect era for him -- the backdrop is inherently dramatic, Jack's got a working time vortex manipulator and a spaceship, he's footloose, he's very, very fancy free, and has a questionable sense of ethics. And most importantly of all, he's not burdened with the curse of immortality or in mourning after the fall of Torchwood. All of that makes Jack in the 1940s the perfect recipe for adventure! And, oh boy, do I want it!
I started thinking about what Jack in the 1940s might have got up to in vague terms while I was in Cardiff, but no plot particularly appealed, and I couldn't be bothered doing the historical research needed. Then I started vidding, and lo, it soon dawned on me that I could pretty easily construct a reality for Jack set in the 1940s. In fact, I couldn't believe it hadn't already been done. Shortly after that, it went from a vague idea to a burning desire.
So I did it. I have to say, I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out, given that I'm really still learning how this whole vidding thing works.
Technically, this vid was damn hard work because I'm editing on MovieMaker, which is a SINGLE TRACK EDITOR. For those of you who have no idea what that means, basically I am a crazy person. It's like trying to cook a three course meal with one knife, one cutting board, and one bowl. I yearned for a more advanced editor at several points during the construction of the vid, in particular, during Tosh's dance sequence. Oh, for multiple tracks and special effects! The things I could have done!
Those issues, aside, it cut together pretty easily; there's so much good material to use. I was briefly worried I'd run out of source footage, as the song I chose is so damn fast. Nearly every clip I've used has been sped up to double-speed. But in the end, I've got enough left for '1942: Jack Goes to War!' which I may very well attempt once I have Sony Vegas and some basic special effects to work with.
The historical footage I used comes from two main souces: The wonderful public domain Prelinger Archives, which you should all check out! And a DVD of 1941 I bought while in Cardiff. The DVD also contained the movie trailer for The Maltese Falcon, which I watched several times for inspiration. They were still using VERY BIG SIGNPOST TEXT at that point ("WHO IS THIS MAN? / HE MAKES CRIME A CAREER-- AND LADIES A HOBBY!" etc). And I swear that every scene change is signalled with the cheesiest, most dramatic transition ever: zig-zags, up-wipes, stars, you name it, the editor used it. It must have been the latest thing in 1941. So I felt quite justified in using my circle wipes as a repeating theme, and restrained myself (with some effort) from using a different wipe for every transition. I may still do that when I make my dramatic war sequel. :)
Anyway, that's the story of how this epic got made. If you have constructive criticism or feedback, I'd very much like to hear it, as I think this is the direction I'm going to be taking with more of my vidding work.
Apart from all of that, I just hope you enjoy the glory of Jack being Jack in 1941. It is a theme worthy of a dozen vids in my biased opinion. :)
This entry was originally posted at http://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/335405.html.
The driving force behind this was pretty much that I wanted Jack to have an adventure in the 1940s, so I built a constructed reality in order to give it to him. There are some more notes behind the cut, if you're interested. Otherwise, here's the masterpiece! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. :)
Title: 1941: The Year That Never Was!
Vidder:
cupidsbow/cupidsbow
Fandom: Torchwood and Doctor Who
Pairing: Jack/Tosh, Jack/realJack, Jack/Tosh/realJack
Rating: PG-13
Music: "Sing, Sing, Sing" by Benny Goodman (1987 remaster)
Summary: What if Jack had never met the Doctor?
Download: FileFront (16.03 MB).
Streaming: You can stream this from FileFront -- just click on the 'streaming' button. Or on BAM Vid Vault
Find more videos like this on BAM Vid Vault
Companion story: 'Kiss the Boys Goodbye' by Hope: DreamWidth, LiveJournal
The Making of 1941: The Year That never Was!
I think John Barrowman once said at a convention that he'd like to make some episodes of Jack's adventures in the past, and I have to agree that it's an appealing idea.
For a while now, I've been yearning for stories about Jack's adventures as a rogue Time Agent in the 1940s. It's such a perfect era for him -- the backdrop is inherently dramatic, Jack's got a working time vortex manipulator and a spaceship, he's footloose, he's very, very fancy free, and has a questionable sense of ethics. And most importantly of all, he's not burdened with the curse of immortality or in mourning after the fall of Torchwood. All of that makes Jack in the 1940s the perfect recipe for adventure! And, oh boy, do I want it!
I started thinking about what Jack in the 1940s might have got up to in vague terms while I was in Cardiff, but no plot particularly appealed, and I couldn't be bothered doing the historical research needed. Then I started vidding, and lo, it soon dawned on me that I could pretty easily construct a reality for Jack set in the 1940s. In fact, I couldn't believe it hadn't already been done. Shortly after that, it went from a vague idea to a burning desire.
So I did it. I have to say, I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out, given that I'm really still learning how this whole vidding thing works.
Technically, this vid was damn hard work because I'm editing on MovieMaker, which is a SINGLE TRACK EDITOR. For those of you who have no idea what that means, basically I am a crazy person. It's like trying to cook a three course meal with one knife, one cutting board, and one bowl. I yearned for a more advanced editor at several points during the construction of the vid, in particular, during Tosh's dance sequence. Oh, for multiple tracks and special effects! The things I could have done!
Those issues, aside, it cut together pretty easily; there's so much good material to use. I was briefly worried I'd run out of source footage, as the song I chose is so damn fast. Nearly every clip I've used has been sped up to double-speed. But in the end, I've got enough left for '1942: Jack Goes to War!' which I may very well attempt once I have Sony Vegas and some basic special effects to work with.
The historical footage I used comes from two main souces: The wonderful public domain Prelinger Archives, which you should all check out! And a DVD of 1941 I bought while in Cardiff. The DVD also contained the movie trailer for The Maltese Falcon, which I watched several times for inspiration. They were still using VERY BIG SIGNPOST TEXT at that point ("WHO IS THIS MAN? / HE MAKES CRIME A CAREER-- AND LADIES A HOBBY!" etc). And I swear that every scene change is signalled with the cheesiest, most dramatic transition ever: zig-zags, up-wipes, stars, you name it, the editor used it. It must have been the latest thing in 1941. So I felt quite justified in using my circle wipes as a repeating theme, and restrained myself (with some effort) from using a different wipe for every transition. I may still do that when I make my dramatic war sequel. :)
Anyway, that's the story of how this epic got made. If you have constructive criticism or feedback, I'd very much like to hear it, as I think this is the direction I'm going to be taking with more of my vidding work.
Apart from all of that, I just hope you enjoy the glory of Jack being Jack in 1941. It is a theme worthy of a dozen vids in my biased opinion. :)
This entry was originally posted at http://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/335405.html.