Songvid: 'Almost Lover' by cupidsbow (Ever After)
Title: Almost Lover
Editor:
cupidsbow/cupidsbow
Fandom: Ever After
Song: 'Almost Lover' by A Fine Frenzy
Recipient: e-transitions
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Sometimes happily ever after isn't how it ends.
Notes: For Festivids, 2010. Beta by the divine mynxii and zebrallama.
Download: 16.0MB (wmv)
Stream: YouTube
Festivid post: here
I had so much fun with Festivids again this year. There's such a happy vibe, and the huge variety of rare fandoms is a real treat. Of course, it helped that I scored such a great vid, and that the overall excellence of all the vids was amazing. About halfway through them, my eyes were on stalks with tiredness, but I couldn't stop watching. They were that good!
In terms of my own vid... I have surprisingly unmixed feelings about it. I say surprisingly, because I still love it to death despite it being not at all popular. It was one of the least popular, in fact, if you can tell such a thing by number of comments. That briefly bothered me for maybe an hour or two while I was pre-menstrual, but then I got over it. :) What can I say? I love my vid, and so did the recipient, and the rest is cake.
Getting e-transitions' prompt this year felt like winning the lottery. Not just because she asked for a vid for Ever After, which I had long wanted to vid anyway (it's so gorgeous), but because her prompt had lots of detail about what she liked and heaps of suggestions for music. As a result I went off and explored directions I wouldn't otherwise have taken, like finding A Fine Frenzy on YouTube, and falling in love with their haunting song, Almost Lover. I felt such a powerful zing as soon as I heard it, and knew it was the song I was going to use even though it would mean making an AU songvid, which would be pretty challenging.
I can honestly say I wouldn't have made this vid without going on that journey, and I'm really pleased with how the vid turned out. So thank you, e-transitions! You rock!
Those of you who have followed my journal for a while will know that I have a deep interest in the Cinderella story and have written essays on it and remixed the plot more than once. In particular, the project of remixing Cinderella with a feminist sensibility is something which interests me a lot. That said, most of the remixes of Cinderella that I would call feminist haven't entirely worked for me on an emotional level, even though I've admired them intellectually.
I don't know that my remix of Ever After is feminist either, but I tell you what, it was fucking cathartic to make! Foiling the romance plot and then allowing Danielle to get angry at Henry, really deeply angry and upset, was incredibly liberating. Cinderella's endless calm has always been both fascinating, horrifying and infuriating to me -- she just takes the abuse, takes it and takes it, and then is rewarded for being passive. What a horrible lesson it teaches, wrapped up in a pretty romance bow.
There's just something about watching Cinderella finally lose that passivity and be angry and violent and active even as her Utopian dream crumbles to dust... vidding it made this tension deep inside me unwind, and every time I watch the vid, I find myself on tenterhooks waiting for the end, and then going, "Yeah! Throw it harder, Danielle. Deck him! Cry! Be real!"
My favourite moment of all is where Henry is a shit and drops the coins. The way I imagine it, he doesn't want to let Cinderella go, but he's been pressured into the politically expedient marriage with another royal. So this is the kind of Prince he would be without the fairy-tale happily-ever-after. Cinderella always brings her emotional maturity to this relationship, in exchange for the Prince's wealth and status; so that final dropping of the coins is such a perfect encapsulation of the Prince-without-maturity, unable to cope with his own half of losing the dream without Cinderella to help him through it. It's so petty and hurtful and perfect.
I didn't think I could ever get so much satisfaction from turning Cinderella into a tragedy, and I don't think I'd like the tragedy of it half so much if the movie with its happy ending wasn't still there, lurking beneath this remix. But honestly, I don't think I've ever loved Cinderella more.
She's just so passionate and alive.
I can't quite believe I managed to give her that.
I still have a way to go as a vidder, but with this vid, I'm starting to see what I could become. That's a really exciting place to be. You know?
This entry was originally posted at http://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/364462.html.
Editor:
cupidsbow/cupidsbow
Fandom: Ever After
Song: 'Almost Lover' by A Fine Frenzy
Recipient: e-transitions
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Sometimes happily ever after isn't how it ends.
Notes: For Festivids, 2010. Beta by the divine mynxii and zebrallama.
Download: 16.0MB (wmv)
Stream: YouTube
Festivid post: here
Click to viewI had so much fun with Festivids again this year. There's such a happy vibe, and the huge variety of rare fandoms is a real treat. Of course, it helped that I scored such a great vid, and that the overall excellence of all the vids was amazing. About halfway through them, my eyes were on stalks with tiredness, but I couldn't stop watching. They were that good!
In terms of my own vid... I have surprisingly unmixed feelings about it. I say surprisingly, because I still love it to death despite it being not at all popular. It was one of the least popular, in fact, if you can tell such a thing by number of comments. That briefly bothered me for maybe an hour or two while I was pre-menstrual, but then I got over it. :) What can I say? I love my vid, and so did the recipient, and the rest is cake.
Getting e-transitions' prompt this year felt like winning the lottery. Not just because she asked for a vid for Ever After, which I had long wanted to vid anyway (it's so gorgeous), but because her prompt had lots of detail about what she liked and heaps of suggestions for music. As a result I went off and explored directions I wouldn't otherwise have taken, like finding A Fine Frenzy on YouTube, and falling in love with their haunting song, Almost Lover. I felt such a powerful zing as soon as I heard it, and knew it was the song I was going to use even though it would mean making an AU songvid, which would be pretty challenging.
I can honestly say I wouldn't have made this vid without going on that journey, and I'm really pleased with how the vid turned out. So thank you, e-transitions! You rock!
Those of you who have followed my journal for a while will know that I have a deep interest in the Cinderella story and have written essays on it and remixed the plot more than once. In particular, the project of remixing Cinderella with a feminist sensibility is something which interests me a lot. That said, most of the remixes of Cinderella that I would call feminist haven't entirely worked for me on an emotional level, even though I've admired them intellectually.
I don't know that my remix of Ever After is feminist either, but I tell you what, it was fucking cathartic to make! Foiling the romance plot and then allowing Danielle to get angry at Henry, really deeply angry and upset, was incredibly liberating. Cinderella's endless calm has always been both fascinating, horrifying and infuriating to me -- she just takes the abuse, takes it and takes it, and then is rewarded for being passive. What a horrible lesson it teaches, wrapped up in a pretty romance bow.
There's just something about watching Cinderella finally lose that passivity and be angry and violent and active even as her Utopian dream crumbles to dust... vidding it made this tension deep inside me unwind, and every time I watch the vid, I find myself on tenterhooks waiting for the end, and then going, "Yeah! Throw it harder, Danielle. Deck him! Cry! Be real!"
My favourite moment of all is where Henry is a shit and drops the coins. The way I imagine it, he doesn't want to let Cinderella go, but he's been pressured into the politically expedient marriage with another royal. So this is the kind of Prince he would be without the fairy-tale happily-ever-after. Cinderella always brings her emotional maturity to this relationship, in exchange for the Prince's wealth and status; so that final dropping of the coins is such a perfect encapsulation of the Prince-without-maturity, unable to cope with his own half of losing the dream without Cinderella to help him through it. It's so petty and hurtful and perfect.
I didn't think I could ever get so much satisfaction from turning Cinderella into a tragedy, and I don't think I'd like the tragedy of it half so much if the movie with its happy ending wasn't still there, lurking beneath this remix. But honestly, I don't think I've ever loved Cinderella more.
She's just so passionate and alive.
I can't quite believe I managed to give her that.
I still have a way to go as a vidder, but with this vid, I'm starting to see what I could become. That's a really exciting place to be. You know?
This entry was originally posted at http://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/364462.html.