"45" commentary by dragonchic
Title: 45
Vidder: dragonchic / bananainpyjamas
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Link to vid: here
Warnings: Spoilers through 4x01
Commentary by: dragonchic
Download: 35.5 MB Zipped XviD
Hey this is dragonchic recording an audio commentary for 45, my Bill Adama vid.
I think a lot of what determines whether or not someone really gets the vid happens right at very beginning here. And that in turn is probably heavily dependent on whether or not you've seen Razor and therefore recognize that hey, that's a young Bill Adama there and not some generic pilot. I did try to linger on this shot so you could see the name on the Viper, but I knew not everyone would even think to look for that, especially quickly enough. I toyed around with a few ways to make the connection even more explicit, but eventually I had to settle for the nameplate and this dissolve right here.
The first verse is meant to establish Bill's position as leader of the fleet as well as how deeply the military is embedded in his life. Bill started as a viper pilot, so we start off with a lot of viper imagery - in flight, transitioning to Bill's refurbished viper, then the picture of Bill standing in front a viper with his young sons, and finally, that "gift not on the list," i.e. Lee coming aboard the Galactica in his own viper. Next we have clips underscoring the desperate situation that humanity has found itself in and the added burden that places on members of the military in particular. So you have shots of training, funerals, memorials. But this is specifically a Bill vid, so I make sure to include Lee, as well as a little bit of Kara and footage from Zak's funeral to evoke the personal casualties in Bill's life. Zak is somewhat self-explanatory in that sense while the effect Bill's career and position in the fleet has had on Lee needs more fleshing out, so I return to that throughout the vid.
As we get in to the first chorus you can kind of tell that I'm following my favorite vidding formula in terms of structure. Which, okay, not much of a stretch, but it's fun and it works for BSG, so why not? This first chorus is very heavy on Razor flashbacks, but I purposefully placed an older Adama clip over the echoed "another life" lyric as another attempt to highlight that connection between the two actors. The chorus starts with the hotshot pilot blowing Cylons out of the sky but ends with Battlestar Columbia's destruction. I then transition to a pensive shot of older Adama intercut with young!Adama's shocked reaction. The contrast in their expressions is meant to suggest that by the time we get to the present, this sort of calamity has become almost commonplace to him.
The second verse shifts towards the emotional issues that kind of muddy the waters of Bill's perfect "military for life" exterior. A large part of that is Lee and the constant tension between the two of them regarding Lee's true place in the fleet. That's getting at the risks of military parenthood, which is why I included some more abstract images like the marines layered over the trapped children, and Chief and Cally stuck in the airlock wondering who will look after their son. The other issue explored here is the weight of responsibility Bill places on himself and how frustrated he can get when he feels he's not living up to that, which is what the New Caprica clips were getting at. But the father-son relationship is the primary focus, so we end with Bill kind of at a loss for what to do with his mutinuous son, followed by an actual mutiny to remind us that, oh hey, while you were angsting away the Cylons were still trying to kill us all.
Here I had fun paralleling young!Adama plumetting towards the ground in his Viper with old!Adama's badass Galactica freefall maneuver. Big difference in scale of course, but hey, the old man's upgraded to the big guns. This was yet again an attempt to help out anyone who hadn't seen Razor by connecting the two actors. And yet again I'm not sure how successful it was, but at least I tried. The ending is pretty key as the old school Cylon is quickly intercut with Sharon to emphasize how much the Cylons have evolved and in turn how endless and even hopeless this particular conflict must seem to someone who has lived through most of it as Bill has.
Now Bill's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. So this kind of a general F U but I did highlight a couple people who made his life especially difficult, i.e. Tom Zarek for the civilian side of things and Admiral Cain for the military. But then we shift to a more positive spin over, "Nobody knows what I believe" and all those clips of the fleet. Ultimately Galactica is what Bill believes in and through it all I do think he has faith in what his people are capable of.
But I do have to remind you that, even with faith, there's still a big damn war going on, so it's back to dogfights and shootouts. This last chorus is a relatively balanced mix of old and young, as well as Bill in all-out Commander mode versus that murkier emotional person that, in this case, comes out when he sees that his son has been shot and is confronted with the almost inevitable result of his influence on his children. I do try to keep connecting the two timelines, so here we have young!Adama sending the Cylon to its doom with a Raider being shot down. And then we shift to the ending overlays combining action with more intimate character shots, which is meant to sum up the personal toll this kind of extended and very violent conflict can have on someone, especially someone in Bill's position.
The vid ends with one last contrast between young and old. We have young Adama smashing a Cylon's face in, which I wouldn't quite call "triumphant," but it certainly has an air of defiance, almost like he's saying, "Bring it." Whereas old!Adama is shown as very pensive and almost resigned to his situation. It didn't matter how gung-ho he was when he started, eventually the years of fighting just wore him down. It's not the happiest note to end on, and in no way meant to imply that Bill's dedication to continuing the fight had ebbed at all. It's more like he's thinking, "Okay, that's one crisis down. Time to get ready for the next one." The final shot is the extreme zoom out of Galactica to emphasize that his life is inextricably tied to that ship, both in terms of its literally being his home and what it represents.
So that's it for the commentary. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned something new about the vid. Until next time, bye!
Vidder: dragonchic / bananainpyjamas
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Link to vid: here
Warnings: Spoilers through 4x01
Commentary by: dragonchic
Download: 35.5 MB Zipped XviD
Hey this is dragonchic recording an audio commentary for 45, my Bill Adama vid.
I think a lot of what determines whether or not someone really gets the vid happens right at very beginning here. And that in turn is probably heavily dependent on whether or not you've seen Razor and therefore recognize that hey, that's a young Bill Adama there and not some generic pilot. I did try to linger on this shot so you could see the name on the Viper, but I knew not everyone would even think to look for that, especially quickly enough. I toyed around with a few ways to make the connection even more explicit, but eventually I had to settle for the nameplate and this dissolve right here.
The first verse is meant to establish Bill's position as leader of the fleet as well as how deeply the military is embedded in his life. Bill started as a viper pilot, so we start off with a lot of viper imagery - in flight, transitioning to Bill's refurbished viper, then the picture of Bill standing in front a viper with his young sons, and finally, that "gift not on the list," i.e. Lee coming aboard the Galactica in his own viper. Next we have clips underscoring the desperate situation that humanity has found itself in and the added burden that places on members of the military in particular. So you have shots of training, funerals, memorials. But this is specifically a Bill vid, so I make sure to include Lee, as well as a little bit of Kara and footage from Zak's funeral to evoke the personal casualties in Bill's life. Zak is somewhat self-explanatory in that sense while the effect Bill's career and position in the fleet has had on Lee needs more fleshing out, so I return to that throughout the vid.
As we get in to the first chorus you can kind of tell that I'm following my favorite vidding formula in terms of structure. Which, okay, not much of a stretch, but it's fun and it works for BSG, so why not? This first chorus is very heavy on Razor flashbacks, but I purposefully placed an older Adama clip over the echoed "another life" lyric as another attempt to highlight that connection between the two actors. The chorus starts with the hotshot pilot blowing Cylons out of the sky but ends with Battlestar Columbia's destruction. I then transition to a pensive shot of older Adama intercut with young!Adama's shocked reaction. The contrast in their expressions is meant to suggest that by the time we get to the present, this sort of calamity has become almost commonplace to him.
The second verse shifts towards the emotional issues that kind of muddy the waters of Bill's perfect "military for life" exterior. A large part of that is Lee and the constant tension between the two of them regarding Lee's true place in the fleet. That's getting at the risks of military parenthood, which is why I included some more abstract images like the marines layered over the trapped children, and Chief and Cally stuck in the airlock wondering who will look after their son. The other issue explored here is the weight of responsibility Bill places on himself and how frustrated he can get when he feels he's not living up to that, which is what the New Caprica clips were getting at. But the father-son relationship is the primary focus, so we end with Bill kind of at a loss for what to do with his mutinuous son, followed by an actual mutiny to remind us that, oh hey, while you were angsting away the Cylons were still trying to kill us all.
Here I had fun paralleling young!Adama plumetting towards the ground in his Viper with old!Adama's badass Galactica freefall maneuver. Big difference in scale of course, but hey, the old man's upgraded to the big guns. This was yet again an attempt to help out anyone who hadn't seen Razor by connecting the two actors. And yet again I'm not sure how successful it was, but at least I tried. The ending is pretty key as the old school Cylon is quickly intercut with Sharon to emphasize how much the Cylons have evolved and in turn how endless and even hopeless this particular conflict must seem to someone who has lived through most of it as Bill has.
Now Bill's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. So this kind of a general F U but I did highlight a couple people who made his life especially difficult, i.e. Tom Zarek for the civilian side of things and Admiral Cain for the military. But then we shift to a more positive spin over, "Nobody knows what I believe" and all those clips of the fleet. Ultimately Galactica is what Bill believes in and through it all I do think he has faith in what his people are capable of.
But I do have to remind you that, even with faith, there's still a big damn war going on, so it's back to dogfights and shootouts. This last chorus is a relatively balanced mix of old and young, as well as Bill in all-out Commander mode versus that murkier emotional person that, in this case, comes out when he sees that his son has been shot and is confronted with the almost inevitable result of his influence on his children. I do try to keep connecting the two timelines, so here we have young!Adama sending the Cylon to its doom with a Raider being shot down. And then we shift to the ending overlays combining action with more intimate character shots, which is meant to sum up the personal toll this kind of extended and very violent conflict can have on someone, especially someone in Bill's position.
The vid ends with one last contrast between young and old. We have young Adama smashing a Cylon's face in, which I wouldn't quite call "triumphant," but it certainly has an air of defiance, almost like he's saying, "Bring it." Whereas old!Adama is shown as very pensive and almost resigned to his situation. It didn't matter how gung-ho he was when he started, eventually the years of fighting just wore him down. It's not the happiest note to end on, and in no way meant to imply that Bill's dedication to continuing the fight had ebbed at all. It's more like he's thinking, "Okay, that's one crisis down. Time to get ready for the next one." The final shot is the extreme zoom out of Galactica to emphasize that his life is inextricably tied to that ship, both in terms of its literally being his home and what it represents.
So that's it for the commentary. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned something new about the vid. Until next time, bye!