New Vid: Gone (the infatuation remix)
Title: Gone (the infatuation remix)
Video Artist: Fabella (wistful_fever)
Song Artist: *NSYNC, and no, I'm not kidding
Fandom: Popslash, JC/Justin
Summary: #1 way to lose something you've never had? Become rich, famous, and also Justin Timberlake.
Length: 4:31
Format: avi
Credit: Heartfelt thanks to kineticizzle for directing me to all that wonderful *NSYNC footage and allowing me to download them. Images and some footage was also taken from jcjustin.net and disco-ball.net.
Warnings: Real Person Slash
Disclaimer: None of what this video implies is the truth, but if you believe it did, I want to see the inside of your head. It seems like such a *happy* place.
Download Links
permanent link, AVI, 26.6mb (thanks to obsessive24
AVI, 26.6mb, Megaupload
AVI, 26.6 MB, Sendspace (uploaded kindly by rikes)
mirrored here by pacific_gravity
Links Last Updated: 11/20/06
Vidding Notes (the boring stuff)
I've tried to organize the video notes for this one into some coherence, but it's been a while since I've actually taken notes with the intention to show them to anyone but myself. Doing it this time was a way of holding my own hand through getting over my vidding block. Still, coherence? well, not so much.
I'll lead in by saying that I think this is a video different than what I've done before, because I think I always say that, and I hope I'm always honest when I say it, because I want it to be the truth each time. Each video I make I want to be different, though not necessarily better, than what has come before it, mostly so I don't box myself in. I don't consider this high art, but, you know, I love it a lot, and I only don't consider it high art when people are listening --- when I'm hunched over my keyboard at 3 in the morning when I have to work the next morning? Well, I might admit that I take it a little seriously. Seriously enough that during my vidder's block I rarely even attempted to watch videos by other people, even by vidders I know and love. I had to step away, and since I vid EVERY SINGLE DAY? It was fricken weird. Um, back on topic, yeah, I try to do new stuff each time, not 'better', but if I can improve, I won't complain about it. This one, I think contains elements of "Documentary (It's Been A While)" because of the whole Behind The Music vibe, but beyond that, I really hope it doesn't make anyone think of Chad Michael Murray.
Failing going at something in a 'new way', What I'm really after is making a video that fits the song; mood is really important to me. I think a brilliantly edited video can STINK if the song choice isn't fitting (that isn't to say song choices should be limited, but you should always have a reason behind your song choice, imho, something that makes that particular song SCREAM to be vidded to your fandom(s), even if others might be skeptical at first). For this reason, I never ever thought I would have vidded NSYNC to, well, anything, despite having been rather in love with their music since forever, even their early stuff. I LOVE POP MUSIC, SUE ME. JC and Justin's solo albums are a different story, because their music naturally became more intimate and personable when they went off on their own, and I can see myself vidding to it---if the right idea came along.
So this is my one chance to embrace the inner dirty pop bitch.
It also became the perfect opportunity to experiment with the actual music video style, where the vidder takes source from their chosen song's music video and incorporates it into their *fan* video. I've seen it done before, and I always thought it was very cool, but wouldn't ever have tried it myself. I didn't think I could do it without disrupting my ]fan video, and I'm very stingy about the time I have to get my point across. Making an *Nsync RPS video gave me a distinct advantage that convinced me to take a swing at it: I could now experiment with that style and still maintain a POV. In fact, it made POV easy as hell, because the chosen song has Justin as a lead, the original video was at least 90% him, and it was just. so. damn. cool. I was able to use less clearly 'justin POV' focused choices for the rest of the video; I didn't have to flip a coin over every "i" or "me". That's the one true perk of vidding in a music RPS community.
I pulled a lot of style (the faded-to-blacks, camera flashing, end scene) from the original video, and added the red because I wanted a sharp contrast between Justin's black&white world and that of his emotions/memories, which I colored a soft, pinkish red, with the idea that a more glaring red would be too much, too in your face, but the flatter color would be gentler, feel more dulled by time. I also did some geometric work with the video that kind of reminds me of livejournal icons for some reason, but most of that got sent to the cutting room floor because it was too complex looking for such a simple song. I like the effect though I wouldn't recommend overusing it --- hopefully I'll get a chance to try it out more in a future video. Maybe even an *NSYNC rps one, because I can't seem to get out of the RPS vidding scene.
My videos generally lean toward narrative, the telling of a specific story, but this one, well it has elements of that, but it's very moody. I'd almost call it an argument video, me stating my case for JC/Justin RPS. Because, for real, who believes that Justin actually wrote this song because Britney went and got her nails done? Well, I don't. Not like I truly believe that JC and Justin ever went there, but if Justin's truly stalker-ish stares in EVERY SINGLE CLIP I have on my computer are any indication, there was something going on behind the scenes. My take? nothing happened. ever. and that must have sucked for Justin.
Er, what else?
This video's not extremely linear, either. My videos are NEVER perfectly linear, but really the only linear thing about this video is within the color work, and even then, the color is less about then as it is about the color JC brings to the table. The linear being it getting 'sucked' out on 'gone'. Making a perfectly happy clip... something else. I like that. I like the way color can change context. The rest of the video defies timeframes. I wanted it to be...a lifetime. Like remembering, which is random and out of order and has some input from what is going on around you right then to MAKE you remember (ie. lyrics) but is mostly about that internal emotion.
I was trying to direct this video at two different crowds: Justin/JC fans AND anyone willing to watch my random videos even if they're unfamiliar with the source. I don't always try to do this, but appealing to both audiences meant, to me, using 'establishing clips' -- really really blatant JuC clips that the fans would already be aware of but would knock the rest of the audience over the head with the subtext and then, to give the JuC fans something new to look at, I literally spent weeks scavenging for clips and then watching each of them closely. It wasn't exactly painful looking at their pretty faces so often, but it was a slow process. Hopefully the end product is something both fans and non-fans will like. Plus, no one gets tired of looking at the snuggling, right? Right?
I think that's it. I could go through the video clip by clip like I used to, but I don't think that was fun for anyone but me.