New Angel Vid: Maybe Sparrow

[frayadjacent]

Title: Maybe Sparrow
Artist: Neko Case
Source: Angel
Characters: Wesley, Fred, and Illyria
Content notes: Spoilers for season 5.
Summary: "A bird had flown into my windowpane. I think I was trying to bring it back to life." -- Wesley, "Lineage"

Thanks to my excellent betas, jetpack_monkey and Alex from Critically Touched.  Comments, including concrit, are very much welcomed. 

Download: 50 mb divx avi



password: sparrow

"Maybe Sparrow" (Watch on Vimeo)

Lyrics
Maybe sparrow you should wait
The hawk's alight till morning
You'll never pass beyond the gate
If you don't hear my warning

Notes are hung so effortless
With the rise and fall of sparrow's breast
It's a drowning dive and back to the chorus

La di da di da di da
La di da di da di da

Oh my sparrow it's too late
Your body limp beneath my feet
Your dusty eyes cold as clay
You didn't hear my warning

Maybe sparrow it's too late
Moonlight glanced off metal wings
In a thunderstorm above the clouds
The engine hums a sparrow's phrase
For those who cannot hear the words
For those who will not hear the words
For those who will not hear the words

La di da di da di da
La di da di da di da

Maybe sparrow
Maybe sparrow
Maybe sparrow


Comments

Yes, I made another Neko Case vid.  And I have more planned!  Right now I'm requiring myself to create at least two new non-Neko Case vids for every one that I make.  I am still very much in the space where the song inspires the vid, rather than me choosing to make a vid and looking for the right song.  And Neko Case's lovely music combined with those sad, lonely, disturbing lyrics just makes me want to vid!

Like Burn the Mazes, in this vid I attempted to walk the line between criticizing a character and showing sympathy for them. Now I've added to this by attempting to show Fred and Illyria from Wesley's point of view*, something I hadn't tried before.  I got some good advice from obsessive24 , amnesias , and littleheaven at vidpub, as well as from jetpack_monkey , on how to make the POV more clear.  I hope it came through!  (Conversely, I hope no one feels too hit-over-the-head with the POV; I am still figuring out where that balance is.)

This was also my first vid where I played with color, mainly at the beginning.  I didn't do anything drastic -- my goal was to use color to focus the mood and tone early on rather than to make the vid shinier.  I also added a little bit of motion to some clips, again, with the goal of having a pretty subtle effect.  I actually hope the motion and color changes I made are largely unnoticeable, at least to the untrained eye.  This isn't because I dislike stronger effects, I just don't feel confident in using them yet!  Though in the process I did discover some pretty cool effects that I hope to someday find a use for.

Finally, this was my first vid with a full-on beta.  I've gotten feeback -- very, very useful feedback -- on vids before posting them publicly, but it was still very cool to get more detailed feedback this time.  This probably isn't news to anyone who vids, but specific examples of things I did well and things that weren't working for the viewer were instructive for helping me more fully understand what people mean when they talk about "good editing" or use of internal/external motion, etc.


*It only adds to the difficulty that it's tough to separate what is Wesley's POV and what is that of the writers, who are nearly as guilty of idolizing her as he is.

Comments

[jetpack_monkey]

I very much like this vid and I'm so pleased with this new version! The beautiful Fred section really flows now.

Good work. Downloading!

[frayadjacent]

Yay! I'm glad you like it, and thanks again so much for your feedback!

You were very right that it was the color, composition, and motion of the clips, much more so than the timing of the edits, that made that section feel off to me in the beta version. And now I know something new!

[goodbyebird]

I enjoyed this a lot <3

[frayadjacent]

Thank you! I appreciate the comment, and I'm glad you liked it.

[deird1]

Once again, I say... wow.

[frayadjacent]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it, and thanks for commenting! :D

[alwaystheocean]

A fun story for you: I actually watched this a few days ago, and just noped right out of it, just on sight of the clips, not cuz of the vid itself, and didn't really take in what you were doing with it. I just re-watched it, and it's excellent. Such good points well made. (Inc about how hard it is to distinguish between Wesley POV and the writers' wrt idolizing Fred.)

This does not help me with how I'd feel about Angel now though, which is neither here nor there.

[frayadjacent]

Thank you! This is one of those early vids that I cringe at because it was a bigger concept than I was able to pull off (or possibly would be able to pull off now, maybe), so I never ever rewatch it. Thanks to your comment I rewatched it for the first time in probably more than a year and it was better than I remember! LOL. But still less critical than I wanted it to be. Anyway I'm glad you liked it! Given what you've said about your Fred feelings I imagine this would not be a very fun vid to watch. :(

[alwaystheocean]

Aw, I'm glad it was better than you remember! Watching/reading/listening to any kind of older work of your own is always hard, I think, but can also be rewarding. Depends, I guess.

It was a bit of a tough watch, yes, but I think it was good for me? ;) Like a criticism of this aspect of the show was something I wouldn't have been well equipped to handle 10 years ago so it felt good to be able to watch, form an opinion, and still have fond feelings.