Post by mswyrr on Dec 11, 2011 0:07:28 GMT -5
Garrow's Law is an awesome little BBC drama about 18th Century law and Will & Sarah, two people who care about social justice and love each other. This vid is really meant to show their parallel struggles and indicate the ways that they reach out to each other for support yet retain the moral integrity of their individual visions -- they fit together so well only because their minds are in agreement, not because either subsumes themself in the other. There are some fanboys that degrade Sarah's side of the story, saying that it's too domestic/romantic, even though she is herself adept at the law, and I really just wanted to celebrate the two of them and everything they mean to each other and their world in the form of good they try to do.
I have my complete first draft here:
43mb @ mediafire
ETA: I just used this helpful guide to create titles for the vid. The updated version is here:
47mb @ mediafire
ETA2: Tweaked the titles because I realized the fonts weren't working well together. Newly altered version here:
47mb @ mediafire
Thanks to obsessive24's help in the Premiere Tech thread, I was able to clean up the blurriness in one clip. Yay. Newly corrected draft here:
47mb @ media fire
It's on Vimeo now as well. Password: teamjustice
/tinkering
I'd love to get an idea if the titles work!
And here are the song lyrics:
Citizen Cope - "Penitentiary"
The two big challenges for me here were (a) the song, which has perfect lyrics, but doesn't have a lot of musical variation to give the vid momentum and (b) trying to tell a visual story with multiple characters while retaining the focus on the co-leads. I want to do justice to the story threads of all the cases they're involved in, but I also want to show how their lives are a case, too.
My idea was to start off with the parallel gauntlets of social ostracism and violence they face -- in the opening I bring together clips of times they both are dealt blows and how they respond to that by turning to each other. And, in the end, I wanted to show them walking together... visually referencing the lyrics about how they're "waiting on a day / when the people walk free." And that the final day of that accomplishment isn't something either will see in their lives, but they can have a day here and there, with the people they love, with the people they try to help, with each other. Their walks through life, both separate and together, seemed like a good framing conceit to work with also because of the walking "pace" of the music.
Okay.
All comments are welcome! I'm really hoping to get an idea of technical aspects I can improve as well as whether the narrative feels reasonably interesting to people who haven't seen the show (and anyone here who might have!). I wonder if I manage to create momentum despite the song's same-y qualities? I'm also wondering if I did enough to include Sarah clips in the middle of the vid - does it feel like it's equally her story?
Speaking of the same-y qualities of the music -- I've only used one kind of cut here so far because transitions just haven't been feeling right. It's weird, because I'm doing a Sarah POV Female Gaze-y vid as well, and there I'm using a lot of effects to convey her subjectivity.
But here... nothing felt right. IDK. Advice?
How badly does the talky-face at 1:09 come across? I'm bothered by it, because there's no part of that shot long enough without talking. But I need that image because it parallels Sarah sitting in the chair of a solicitor/lawyer with Will going up and sitting in the chair of a judge, both of them speculating about the limitations their class/gender places on what they can achieve.
The clip at 2:10 is messed up for heaven only knows what reason. Working on fixing it!
I think the aspect ratio needs to be fixed -- I used the resizing filter in VirtualDub set to 4:3 rather than specific pixel width/height because I was unsure, and I don't think that quite cut it.
Randomly: I'm pretty sure that being able to pair the lyric "the penitentiary in our minds" with images of a patriarchal marriage was pretty much the happiest of my time vidding so far. OMG SATISFYING. PATRIARCHY: IT'S A PRISON IN OUR MINDS, YO. LOL Everyone watching knows this already, but it feels good to "say" it anyway!
43mb @ mediafire
47mb @ mediafire
47mb @ mediafire
Thanks to obsessive24's help in the Premiere Tech thread, I was able to clean up the blurriness in one clip. Yay. Newly corrected draft here:
47mb @ media fire
It's on Vimeo now as well. Password: teamjustice
/tinkering
I'd love to get an idea if the titles work!
And here are the song lyrics:
Citizen Cope - "Penitentiary"
The two big challenges for me here were (a) the song, which has perfect lyrics, but doesn't have a lot of musical variation to give the vid momentum and (b) trying to tell a visual story with multiple characters while retaining the focus on the co-leads. I want to do justice to the story threads of all the cases they're involved in, but I also want to show how their lives are a case, too.
My idea was to start off with the parallel gauntlets of social ostracism and violence they face -- in the opening I bring together clips of times they both are dealt blows and how they respond to that by turning to each other. And, in the end, I wanted to show them walking together... visually referencing the lyrics about how they're "waiting on a day / when the people walk free." And that the final day of that accomplishment isn't something either will see in their lives, but they can have a day here and there, with the people they love, with the people they try to help, with each other. Their walks through life, both separate and together, seemed like a good framing conceit to work with also because of the walking "pace" of the music.
Okay.
All comments are welcome! I'm really hoping to get an idea of technical aspects I can improve as well as whether the narrative feels reasonably interesting to people who haven't seen the show (and anyone here who might have!). I wonder if I manage to create momentum despite the song's same-y qualities? I'm also wondering if I did enough to include Sarah clips in the middle of the vid - does it feel like it's equally her story?
Speaking of the same-y qualities of the music -- I've only used one kind of cut here so far because transitions just haven't been feeling right. It's weird, because I'm doing a Sarah POV Female Gaze-y vid as well, and there I'm using a lot of effects to convey her subjectivity.
But here... nothing felt right. IDK. Advice?
How badly does the talky-face at 1:09 come across? I'm bothered by it, because there's no part of that shot long enough without talking. But I need that image because it parallels Sarah sitting in the chair of a solicitor/lawyer with Will going up and sitting in the chair of a judge, both of them speculating about the limitations their class/gender places on what they can achieve.
The clip at 2:10 is messed up for heaven only knows what reason. Working on fixing it!
I think the aspect ratio needs to be fixed -- I used the resizing filter in VirtualDub set to 4:3 rather than specific pixel width/height because I was unsure, and I don't think that quite cut it.
Randomly: I'm pretty sure that being able to pair the lyric "the penitentiary in our minds" with images of a patriarchal marriage was pretty much the happiest of my time vidding so far. OMG SATISFYING. PATRIARCHY: IT'S A PRISON IN OUR MINDS, YO. LOL Everyone watching knows this already, but it feels good to "say" it anyway!