Firefly/Serenity vid - Post Blue - Simon/River
Post Blue
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Song/Artist: Post Blue by Placebo
Duration: 3:07 minutes
Summary: Simon/River. She knows all the ways you could love her. You know what you have become.
Spoilers: Serenity, Firefly, Firefly deleted scene #3. Reference to the R. Tam Sessions.
Warning: Infrequent language and crazy space incest. Unlike my other vids, this time it's not by implication only. If the idea is going to freak you out, then don't download it. I don't take kindly to people who complain after they've read the big glaring warning label.
Many thanks to Nadine (miss_strawberry), who kindly allowed me to use her beautiful wallpaper Broken in the intro. You can find the original as well as her other work at her site here.
Click to viewNotes
The following is a wordy tirade about Ideas and Ideals and Metaphors and Other Capitalised Flowery Wank. If you're the kind of person who likes reading pretentious self-dissection, then go straight ahead. If, conversely, you're like me and think overanalysis Kills Fun Things And Makes Them Not Fun Anymore, then stop now, you won't be missing out.
I had an idea of what I wanted this vid to look like, but what I ended up with was something quite different. There is an inevitable disparity between the ideal in your head and the awkward imitation that takes form in reality, I think everyone can relate to that. It goes to the use of effects also: the more you use, the more soul you seem to lose just as par for the course. This vid was very much an experiment, and not a particularly successful one at that. I've always been a bit too zoom-happy and this is certainly not evidence to counter that notion. But at least I've finally got it out of my system, so hopefully I can now move onto other and less in-your-face projects.
This song was never entirely appropriate for the subject matter; I found that out to my intense chagrin in the editing process where the lyrics and visuals just refused to cooperate. In the end, I had to go for a very abstract, metaphoric approach rather than a more literal one. Which I'll pretend is justifiable under the blanket statement of "River is crazy, therefore the structure/clip choice is crazy too."
On blue
What first attracted me to this song was the title. Blue, arguably more than any other colour, is laden with meaning in the Fireflyverse. Serenity the movie, of course, is completely drenched in blue and I remember having a panic attack back when I first saw the movie because that, like the goddamn aspect ratio, was not going to gel with Firefly footage without a fight. I didn't get to acknowledge colouring in previous vids, in particular Wires, where I focused solely on clip content. Tones tended to jump from gold to blue and back again with absolutely zero attention and purpose, so I'm glad I had the chance to fixate on that (or else "fix that") here.
Blue = Alliance, among other things, so "post blue" suggests a study of life after escaping the Alliance. But there's a more subtle idea behind it, which was pointed out in Joss Whedon's commentary to Serenity. He noted that Simon, whose tones/settings are also intensely blue, is - to Mal, primarily - a representation of the Alliance. Even though Simon is running from it, it is also an inalienable part of him and that's what makes Simon interesting. He's not just about the fluffy brotherly love and impeccable manners. He looked right in that Alliance Nazi uniform, in a way that seemed to go much deeper than skin. It peeks out from time to time all through the series (and certainly in the movie), and that in my mind has always been the most attractive aspect of Simon's character: the little touch of steel in his bones; the ways in which he chooses to let it surface.
River, too, is a product of the Alliance, although in a much more transparent and non-autonomous manner, so I won't bother going into it. The main idea is that they both can be intensely dangerous, and that tends to manifest in the best and worst of ways when they're with each other. They've always been abnormally close, and if you throw in the idea of an incestuous relationship that formed pre-Academy, then it paves a nice way toward insanity and obsession and fixations on needles and guns and hands and god knows what else. You can read as much or as little into it as you prefer. :D
(Random aside: Joe Hallock's study shows that over 40% of people consider blue their favourite colour. The next popular choices are green and purple, at only 14% apiece.)
Language notes
Scrolling text in bridge:
Would I still be allowed to dance?
我的一切都在這裡 (Everything I have is right here)
They're hurting us, get me out
你找到了我, 我卻是破碎的 (You found me broken)
The last translation is a bit loose. I went with what sounded the most natural instead of what is the most accurate. Adobe rejected all my Chinese software, so I couldn't use a prettier font. Text is traditional instead of simplified, because I love the old school. :D
The large chunk of legible calligraphy in the background of the Polaroids sequence is an excerpt from a Li Bai (Tang dynasty poet) epic poem. I'm too lazy to translate it properly, not to mention that finer points of poetry are always lost on me. Suffice to mention that this excerpt is the source of the idiom 青梅竹馬 (green plums and bamboo horses), metaphor for two lovers who have grown up with each other from early childhood.
ETA: I was informed that the calligraphy on the right-hand side of the screen is in fact Japanese. I thought it was just swirly messy handwriting! Annoyance, but so it goes. :D
Credit
Lots of influences this time, some conscious, some not so conscious. AsukaBulma's Die Another Day, with the mind-boggling use of effects; Cec and Kaycee's Go With the Flow, more wonderful effects, this time on live action so it was a bit closer to home; zeronephilim's Final Fantasy, with those gorgeous brushes/borders; frivolity65's signature use of text; wistful_fever's intimidating image flow/metaphor, particularly in the recent The Boy was a Puppet. And thanks again to miss_strawberry, whose art managed to kick-start ideas for this vid, in particular the use of stills and Chinese-influenced art and writing. sassykittenjess, for the awesome tutorial on image masks. Cheers also to everyone who offered fic recs over on light_it.
Still reading? You obviously have much more patience for self-indulgent wank than me. Over and out.