"Hatred" - Spooks (MI-5) - Character Study

[legoline]

Yes. Hi. Uhm.

I must admit I'm fairly nervous about posting this, particularly given the crazy amount of talented vidders that are now registered in this forum. It's a bit...intimidating. But here goes.


Music: "Hatred" by Aereogramme
Length: 4:35min
Summary "And the hatred is rising, but I hope that I'm stronger than this". Tom Quinn character study. Spoilers for season 1-3.

Download, Lyrics & Notes here

Stream on Vimeo (password spooks )

So. That was my first real proper attempt at vidding. Of course I chose the song that has the experimental piano intro and a not-very-distinctive-rhythm. Rewatching it now I feel that some of the editing is too hectic I'm not sure if this vid works without knowing the source material. I tried really hard to shift the focus with every new "batch" but...

Okay. Enough of the "This is my first attempt and possibly not very good" comments. I'd certainly appreciate your thoughts

(Oh, and feedback can be left wherever is most convenient for you ... )

[obsessive24]

Wow, the intro was really powerful. It really sucked me right in. I have no idea what's happening in here (I feel like I should catch up on Spooks because it feels like everyone in the UK is watching that show!), but that sense of trappedness really comes through. The moment of grace, when he goes into the waves and the drums come booming in, that really worked for me emotionally and your coming back to that moment, time and time again, really served as the emotional connective tissue of the whole vid for me. And the ending, the search over the water? Did he end up killing himself? That was very powerful for me even though I didn't know what was going on.

Really liked the collection of clips around 3:12, the way that's been cut together against the little electronic(?) notes in the music.

Concrit - this is neither here nor there as crit, really, but as a stranger to Spooks I didn't really feel myself becoming emotionally invested in the character. I think you did a fine job showing the range of situations he found himself in, and the tone of them, and it's obvious that he felt them; it's just that the collection of moments as a whole didn't really resonate with me, other than the swimming moments, which I really felt. But, as I said, I'm a stranger to the source, so that comment should be taken with a rather large pinch of salt and dependent a lot on what kind of audience you're trying to reach. I wouldn't have normally watched a vid in a fandom I don't know and written such a detailed comment because of these considerations, but because it's the first you posted here I thought it was important that it does get comments for whatever they are worth. But I with my utter lack of knowledge of source is probably not the kind of audience you're looking for, so I really don't intend for my lack of connection to come across as some sort of indictment on the vid. ;D

Tech - one bit that jumped out at me was sometimes you used soft cuts instead of hard cuts. And by "soft cuts" I mean a very quick crossfade, about 2-3 frames in length. (Whereas a hard cut, as you may expect, is just one clip after another with no overlap at all.) E.g. around 0:36. I tend to find them quite hard on the eye, myself, and always advocate using hard cuts wherever possible. But I do know other people feel differently so it's just one of those things that I thought I'd mention, with the knowledge that not everyone thinks the same way.

Sort of the same issue - sometimes I see these very quick black fades, e.g. at 0:58. They can be a bit visually distracting, and I'm not sure why they are there or whether they are really achieving any purpose, aesthetically or content-wise? Compare with the slower fade at 1:56 or 2:05, which I thought worked really well in terms of dividing one moment in time from another, and you get that sense of narrative progression.

Lastly, just as a bit of aside to what you said about being intimidated by the potential viewers in this forum... I'm not, shall we say, terribly optimistic how many people are actually watching the vids that are posted, either here or on LJ. Is that comforting or discouraging? Maybe both? It does feel like everyone's very very short on time these days, so it's going to be hard to get people to watch vids, let alone comment, and I really just want to stress that a lack of response really shouldn't be taken as a comment against your vid. It's just that everyone is so damn busy these days. I think the more vids I make and watch, the more acutely I feel this.

[eunice]

My internet is being super cranky right now, but I am waiting for it to load so I can watch

[legoline]

obsessive24 thank you so, so much for the lovely, detailed comment. I really appreciate it.

I'm glad the intro worked for you because I particularly struggled with this bit, and ended up redoing it completely at some point. So yay. Glad to hear that. Also glad to hear you liked the coming back to the swimming bits as I did try to use them as the frame that keeps the video together. Well, I left the ending open for interpretation on purpose but I could tell you, I suppose ;D

Hmm yes, I know what you mean about the soft cuts. It used to be worse, actually, and I've tried to do better transitions in the more recent videos and drop soft cuts in favour of hard ones. (Except with my most recent Whitechapel vid, I think. D'oh.) I find it hard to indicate new chunks of narrative and it's definitely something I'll keep in mind and try to work on. Thank you!

I think....hmmmm. Not sure if I find it reassuring or disappointing either, actually, but then again you watched it (and Crazy Amount of Talent certainly included you ) and left feedback, so all is well, I guess. Spooks doesn't seem to be one of those huge fandoms anyway, so given the source material I never expected much feedback.

And then there's the "busy with RL" thing. I appear to have less and less time as well.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time for such a lenghty comment

eunice Yay! Looking forward to your thoughts!

[eunice]

Okay, so dude...I'm going to pause for a moment to feel a bit hateful towards you that this is your first vid. My first vid was Buffy to Another One Bites the Dust because the vampires turn to dust. No I'm not kidding. There was a barn door transition. I perfer not to speak of it, but I am now just so you get the full sense of how impressed I am that this was your first time out.

For me it was really emotionally affecting, and...I have never seen a single episode of Spooks. So, from the perspective of not knowing anything about any of these people, what I got from it is that our emotionally angsty hero with the pretty eyes is isolated and running, both from himself and from these outside forces. Like, horrible, horrible shit keeps happening and he's being used by (government?) peoples and turning into the same thing that's tormenting him and it's messing with his head big time and he can't even connect to the good things in his life that represent innocence, because he's just hurting them too even as he's being hurt. His face is kind of killing me.

It's cool if I'm totally wrong, just...that's what I got out of it with no context.

Possibly my absolute favorite shot of the whole vid is the fish in the tank. Not only is it visually gorgeous, but for me it connected back to him swimming in the water, away, so fast, so hurt...and there are these fish that are behind glass swimming and trapped, and I dunno why but it sorta hit me in the gut and set me up for the emotional reaction to the rest of it? I am possibly talking out my ass.

Tech niggles...like Nicky I'm not overly fond of fade to blacks or too many soft cuts, but that's an aesthetic preference more than anything else. I probably would have maybe started the fade in on his face at the beginning *on* that first crashing sound of the music instead of before, because to me it would have signaled "THIS IS THE SOUND IN HIS MIND"...but. Yeah. I liked this a lot.

[nos]

I haven't watched Spooks, but I thought you did pretty damn well for a first vid. I agree with your statement about some things being a bit to hectic with the music (there was a bit at the beginning in particular, right when the lyrics started that threw me a little bit). But overall, like Eunice, wow...my first video used a spinny transition anytime the lyrics said Turn Around. Well done.

[legoline]

Uhm. Okay. THANK YOU. Wowzers. Here's a reaction I never would have expected ... (technically, I made another vid first but that one was more of a test run for SonyVegas wheras this had me sit down first and make notes for the song and whatnot.)

Nov 12, 2011 19:09:00 GMT -5 eunice said:

So, from the perspective of not knowing anything about any of these people, what I got from it is that our emotionally angsty hero with the pretty eyes is isolated and running, both from himself and from these outside forces. Like, horrible, horrible shit keeps happening and he's being used by (government?) peoples and turning into the same thing that's tormenting him and it's messing with his head big time and he can't even connect to the good things in his life that represent innocence, because he's just hurting them too even as he's being hurt. His face is kind of killing me.

It's cool if I'm totally wrong, just...that's what I got out of it with no context.

Uhm, no, you basically just summed up the character. (He is sort of used by the government as he works as a spy for MI-5.) Okay. So I'm glad that you got that out of the video. No, seriously. I'm flabberghasted.

Doing better transitions and soft cuts (or hard cuts) is definitely I've been trying to work on. Looking back now some of them do seem a bit awkward but I just didn't know better and I still struggle with this stuff sometimes. Ah, practise makes perfect and such.

Thank you so much for watching and feedback!

@nos Thank you so much! I seem to have a habit of doing hectic montages at the beginning of a song--I did that in my Whitechapel vid, too. No idea why. I'll certainly keep it in mind, though!

[thatyourefuse]

OH TOM QUINN. (Hello, fellow Spooks person! We should... talk. Yes.)

This really, really did it for me -- the isolation and the sort of frozen fury and Peter Salter (!) and "property of MI5" (!!!) and oh, Tom, seriously, the ocean? And I am so impressed with your cutting for a first vid, I can't even say, and -- OH TOM QUINN, really.

[gnattery]

I haven't seen a single episode of Spooks either, so huge grain of salt for me as well.

I really liked the intro. I think it would have been better to start it off without the initial closeup of his face though. I think the larger scenery shots are a better intro to show his isolation, and they go better with the music. But once they start, I love it. I also love the cuts going along to the jumbled sounding piano at the start. If anything, I would say you could have cut that a bit *more* weird and jaggedly, but it totally works as it is too. That's more an aesthetic choice, and I just like that kind of thing. The music kind of makes me think of birds chirping.

I love the jump cuts on the big booms, especially as he's going into the water. I liked that you avoided the obvious by choosing not to place the punch at 2:42 on the boom.

[legoline]

@gnattery Thank you! Interesting you should say that because initially the video did start out with just the running and then I got really insecure and went "Needs to be more interesting! Needs Tom Quinn!" You live and learn, I guess :-)

@thatyourefuse HELLO FELLOW SPOOKS PERSON (yes, talk, definitely). I'm so, so glad this video resonated with you Yes, Tom, the ocean? Really?

I only recently started getting caught up with Spooks and I completely and utterly adore it, but I haven't watched past season 8 yet because everyone I asked said that season 9 was incredibly bad. (There were comments along the lines of, "I wish I'd never watched this season! Oh! It ruined everything!") So I haven't dared to tackle it and as a result haven't watched the final season either. But I will. I want to. I'm just a tad scared.

[lillythekid]

I don't know this show but I really enjoyed your vid. I love the intercutting at the beginning and the overall sense of movement.

[legoline]

Thank you, lillythekid. I'm glad it worked for you!

[thatyourefuse]

Actually, I kind of liked S9. Which is not to say that it's plausible, or that I expect everyone to be happy with certain character developments (it might help that I was spoiled and knew those developments were coming before I saw a single one of said character's episodes, so I was watching them in that light the whole time), or that I'm absolutely sure it was the best writing decision they could have made, but I quite liked the execution for the most part and it didn't do any of the things that really make me want to throw my computer out the window.

And it helped that $spoiler got to go in the field and be the absolute most badassiest badass who ever badassed (well, in the "badass isn't her day job" category -- I'm not putting her in competition with Ros, or anything).

On the other hand, I'm deathly scared of S10, because I know what happens and I can't cope, so -- heh.

(Also, I don't know why there aren't more Spooks vids. Pretty show is pretty. My brain seems to be determined to make up the shortfall itself, though...)

[legoline]

I have no idea about what happens in season 10. Initial reactions from the like two people on my flist who watch this show were "Worthy ending" and "F*** you, I hate you", so--I have no idea what's coming. I heard a rumour of a spoiler a few months ago but I don't even know if that one is true.

It's interesting to hear your opinion on season 9 because so far everyone's been telling me to do myself a favour and not, under any circumstance, watch it Well, I know which character dies and I know that said character gets backstory (which I assume is the less than plausible part), but what kind of backstory, I don't know. I keep wondering if the season will be okay-ish for me since I have no high hopes for it whatsoever, or if I should just watch it in one go so it'll be like ripping off a band-aid, or whether I should skip it completely. Hmmm.

(I know, right? It's so pretty, particularly starting the season three the visuals get so good. I really want to make a badass ensemble vid one day)

[thatyourefuse]

S10 -- I won't tell you. I'm still in denial. But... I still haven't watched 8.08, and I will probably do that before 10.06.

And it couldn't hurt to give it a try, really -- the lineup isn't as mindblowing as other lineups, but they all get some nice moments of awesome, and I'm actually weirdly compelled by said backstory.

(I have nine Spooks vidsongs on my playlist. Nine. A good third of them, for some reason, are Matthew Good Band. I don't even know.)