Reservoir Dogs "Come On"

[lillythekid]

Here's another one of my most recent vids.

title: come on
fandom: reservoir dogs
music: come on by tegan and sara
characters, pairings: ensemble, orange/white (main focus), blonde/eddie (hinted at), blood/hands (literally + metaphorically)
summary: what our hands were made for
warnings: violence, torture, blood

some notes: I think a lot of the action in the movie is driven by the way one character cares about another one - the way White cares about Orange, the way Eddie cares about Blonde and his Dad and the way Orange cares about White when he decides to tell the truth knowing what that would entail. I really love this and so I focused on it. I also focused on juxtaposing the way Nash is treated and the way Orange is treated. Orange sees what they do to the other cop and knows that he'd receive the same treatment should he be found out.
pov: It's basically White's point of view directed at Orange.

download + streaming here at my lj

[obsessive24]

Oh man, it's been so long since I've seen Resevoir Dogs I might as well not have seen it. So I'm coming to this from a basically no-context perspective and I'm not gonna be able to talk context and meaning at all, so please bear that in mind. I was saying in another vidpost that normally when I'm this lacking in context, I usually wouldn't comment at all because I know I don't know enough to really grasp what you're going for. But I wanted to ensure vids posted on this board do get some discussion for what it's worth, so... grain of salt? ;D

I love the tone of this, the way you intuitively grasp that sense of subtle juxtaposition between static scenes and slow, movementy scenes... don't know if that makes sense, but it really pops for me and works well against the music. It's hard to pinpoint but I just love how well you mixed the tone of the source against the tone of the visuals.

LOVED the way it ramped up in the climactic moments from just before the 2:00 mark. That really worked for me. Can't remember the context of the clip choices, but the emotional tone of them really came across for me regardless. I also really loved the way it ended, with them suddenly disappearing from view. Visually worked for me as well on a thematic level.

Concrit - I'm fine with slowing down clips and most of the time the slow clips in here look absolutely gorgeous and on the right side of mesmerising, but 0:17 in particular feltreally slowed down, to the point that it looked a bit jerky to me.

I suspect this is just my personal interpretation of the music, because I'm quite familiar with the song, but I personally didn't feel that ~0:49 needed to be cut that quickly, with the jump cuts. To me it probably would have worked better if the source motion was allowed to flow rather than be divided by cuts, or at least fewer cuts? The pacing there just seemed to suddenly ramp up and I'm not sure I'm hearing as much of a corresponding increase in the music. By comparison, the speed and pacing from 1:09 onward really worked for me, especially the door slamming open, and the subsequent violence.

2:17 - 2:23 - I'm coming from no context, and obviously these clips are very reliant on context, so this is not so much crit as just a comment from someone who's purely looking at it visually - and visually, it didn't really work for me because you've got the beautiful pacing and visuals from the preceding segment, then suddenly it cuts to quite an extended scene of two guys talking, and I just couldn't really find anything to grasp onto in terms of visual or emotional connection. But of course I appreciate that in context it was probably a very important conversation, and if your intended audience is someone who actually knows what that conversation is about, then my observation is neither here nor there. I liked how it lead up to the shootings at 2:36, I just wish that there was a more visually accessible way of understanding what drove them to shooting each other simultaneously. Again, compared with the bit straight afterwards, where you cut to clips of them dead then cut to each of them alive, and it's very much emotionally connective even though I still have no idea what's going on. It's interesting where the visuals still work despite my not knowing context; and where they don't, because they seem too dependent on context to be accessible.

[eunice]

Cool! I haven't seen the movie but I really like what you did with the framing of past and present, which carried the emotional resonance within the bloodbath even though I didn't really know the characters.

[lillythekid]

obsessive24 - Thank you so much for the feedback. I'm really happy that many parts of the vid worked for you visually and emotionally even without detailed knowledge of the source. I was experimenting a lot with the opening and at some point I felt it worked (without being able to pinpoint the reason myself) and I'm glad that apparently it does

2:17-2:23 - I wasn't entirely satisfied with this part either. What happens is that Joe (the bald man) states that Orange (the one who was gutshot in the beginning) must be the undercover cop (which is correct) but White refuses to believe this. They argue and point at Orange on the floor (I tried to get the pointing in but it didn't work too well) and when Joe intends to shoot Orange, White aims at Joe and Eddie then aims at White. Then Joe shoots Orange because he betrayed them, White shoots Joe because he said would ("If you kill that man you die next") and Eddie shoots White because Joe is his father and he had told White he'd kill him if he kept aiming at his Dad, then White shoots Eddie. Also there was no way to edit this particular part without talky face (but considering that this is a Tarantino movie I've been quite lucky ).
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I agree with you in that I wish there had been a way to depict this conflict purely on a visual level, but unfortunatelly I couldn't think of one, so, I'm afraid, this part only works with context.

Again, compared with the bit straight afterwards, where you cut to clips of them dead then cut to each of them alive, and it's very much emotionally connective even though I still have no idea what's going on.

This is so great to hear! (Blonde making the foreshaddowing shooting gesture and Eddie laughing and then the cut back to dead Eddie is one of my favorite parts in the vid.)

I also really loved the way it ended, with them suddenly disappearing from view. Visually worked for me as well on a thematic level.

I'm so very happy this worked for you. I actually got excited when I had the idea

Thank you again for all your thoughts, I truly appreciate you taking the time to let me know what did and didn't work for you.

[lillythekid]

eunice - Thank you so much! I'm so happy it works for you!

I really like what you did with the framing of past and present, which carried the emotional resonance within the bloodbath even though I didn't really know the characters.

This is such a lovely compliment! Thank you!