Doctor Who Vid: let it fall

[beccatoria]

You guys, I must warn you. Never since... Never on this journal has such EPIC SINCERITY existed with such an utter lack of irony. I love everything about Eleventy and his crack-addled existence with a love that is pure and true, and apparently involves an egregious abuse of voiceovers and colour filters. I would judge myself but I cannot bring myself to care!

Title: let it fall
Video: Doctor Who
Audio: From My Hands // VNV Nation
Summary: The Eleventh Doctor says goodbye; it's time to go.

Direct download available here. 60 megs approx. RightClickSaveAs. (For some reason it's ugly as hell on blip, so you get youtube this time).

Cross-posted to vidding and dwfanvids

Other vids available here.

Comments

[ladyelleth.livejournal.com]

Voice-overs and colour filters work brilliantly, the song works brilliantly, the clip works brilliantly. This is bitter and wonderful and beautiful and it says so much about the consequences that are only implied in the show. Thank you, and please excuse me while I go find tissues...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm really glad the vid was effective for you. I loved the arc of this season so much it makes me all flaily.

And don't worry, while I mock myself, it's lovingly. I like the voiceovers and colour filters too, it's just a break from my usual vidding style. This is unexplored terrain! ;)

Thanks again for taking the time to leave such lovely feedback.

nothing ends but i don't believe that now

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I can't believe how well this works. I also can't believe that I bought into it so fully. I was freaking entranced and I should hate everything about what this vid chooses to be. In spite of all that, and more likely because of it, I really like the vid. The voiceovers work and can't choppy. The loftiness of the concept is paid off in the editing and the way it's so dang EPIC, while being subdued and not over the top. It's fantastically strange in a new and different way. I still can't explain why I like it.

Re: nothing ends but i don't believe that now

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, because you pretty much nailed how I felt about the entire vid from concept to final execution. I wanted to make it so much but couldn't quite believe it would...work in any way at all. Yet now it's here I love that it's here.

I'm certainly glad that it feels subdued - that was something I definitely did want to put across, and why I chose this song. I think one of the reasons I do love this story is the subdued way the show itself dealt with it - not making it unimportant, but equally not turning it into a parade of histrionics and scenery chewing. What moves me is that the finale is the most epic thing that ever has or will happen, and yet it's four people in a museum, and ultimately, one man, telling a bedtime story to one child, before walking quietly to his own end.

Anyway, I can't explain why I like it either, but, um, I doooo and it means a lot to me that you agree.

The voiceovers work better, I think, cus I got hold of 5.1 audio and was able to isolate the dialogue track so I didn't have to worry about background music!

[tellitslant]

Oh, this is great! I see why it feels like too much earnestness, in a way, but that dovetails so nicely with Eleven's sincerity and Amy's wide-eyed wonder that it works really, really well. It's very affecting and fits well with the emotional arc of the season. I am not generally a fan of the voice-over, but it works particularly well in the beginning here. Definitely a keeper for me!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I'm really glad you like it and that it works for you. I'm not generally a fan of voiceovers either, but then...this entire vid is an experiment in things I don't usually do, and yet, as you say, so much of the beauty of this season is tied up in its quiet sincerity and childhood wonder: I'm so glad you think this evokes that feeling well. Thanks again for taking the time to leave feedback.

[sache8.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. Gosh. That was AMAZING. Brilliant, brilliant. Brilliant! Now I want to rush off and watch all of it again. Except... I don't have time tonight. I really need to start sticking to bedtimes. ;-)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you so much! I'm really glad you like it! :D

(One of the best things about making it was the excuse to basically watch it all again! BEDTIMES ARE FOR LOSERS! :p)

[chaila.livejournal.com]

This vid is just wonderful for season 5 for so many reasons. Sincerity gets a bad rap and sometimes I think vidding, in particular, is the haven of the ~ironic~, like if it's not ironic, it's not smart or not really digging into the show. Which I get, because irony of various kinds is often where the meta comes from, and lords knows I love ambiguity. But it's also awesome to just love something a lot and make a vid about it.

So I love this vid and though I'm not sure why, I think it's *because* it simply refuses to allow for irony. I think what stood out to me about season 5 is that it also refuses to be ironic, as a whole. (River loves irony though <3). It unabashedly loves all its main characters and they unreservedly like each other; nobody is meant to be "dark" or morally ambiguous, even though they have dark parts and bad things happen. I don't love Eleventy quite like you do, for reasons we already know, but I love the way you love him. I like the way the voiceovers and the unusual way you've done them frame the whole thing so tightly as a *story* and the way you've restructured it all makes it clear exactly the enormity of what was being lost for the Doctor and Amy (and River <3, I love how you've given her a lot of importance here, even if not a lot of footage, which again is appropriate to the season), though the show and Eleven (wonderfully) didn't dwell on it (this is why River wore a widow's black).

(OMG YOU HAVE A BIG MR. POWERFUL DOCTOR SPEECH ICON. Even if I know why you like that scene. Which, okay, is totally ironic. I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE. :D)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Awww. River does love irony! And...so do I, and you make a fabulous point about how it's often the place meta comes from. I also think that when I make unironic vids (cus I do it! Honest!) they're just not quite so sincere and celebratory? But again, the shows I vid usually aren't.

Either way...thanks so much for finding me adorkable for loving him like I do rather than batshit, and for buying into the vid wholesale ("Just believe me for twenty four and a half minutes!").

You're right, this whole season refuses to be ironic, or sarcastic, and that's such a hallmark of the modern media. And yet its breadth of emotional was undeniable. I'm so glad you think the vid manages to relate to that fact.

It's a story - more than that a story in a story in a bottle on a spaceship - and I love it so freaking much.

(OMG YOU HAVE A BIG MR. POWERFUL DOCTOR SPEECH ICON. Even if I know why you like that scene. Which, okay, is totally ironic. I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE. :D)

SILENCE YOU! I CONCEDE NOTHING!

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

I'm having such a hard time putting how much and why I love this into words! We're so good at explaining and analyzing and metaing (hell, I've spent the better part of the past dozen years going to school to learn how to analyze stories), but I think there is, at least for a lot of us (I'd like to think all of us, but I have met people for whom this seems not to be true, and I confess they baffle me) a really fundamental reaction of being drawn to the magic and the humanness of story. Stories are real, and they're beautiful and amazing, they make us love and live, and they have to end. Whatever emotion it is that makes us stay up all night trying to get to the end of the book, yet simultaneously dread arriving there because that means the story will be over: that's the emotion that season 5 deals in, and that's the emotion that you capture in this vid. It's something childlike, perhaps: before irony, or beyond it. And like Chaila, I love me some irony and especially ambiguity, and I'm glad that stories are, on the whole, big enough and complex enough to hold irony and earnestness. But when I think of my most fundamental reaction to stories, it's this: it's this vid, it's season 5 of this show, it's reading under my covers with a flashlight at night.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Oh, dude, best comment ever. <3

I love everything you say about the emotion of stories and agree completely. I want to write you a paragraph as insightful and brilliant as the one you wrote my but I have nothing but flail and love for you. I'm sincerely touched that you think the vid works and that you loved it.

And I think maybe you're right - this vid is like my glee at there being a story I want to meta and invert and talk about and pull apart and put back together. This is my glee at wanting to write thousands of words of ironic, overly self-aware meta, not the meta itself. <3

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

I really liked this, even though I normally dislike voiceovers in fanvids. And yeah, I liked the sincerity of season five and how this echoes it. Oh, and I love stories--the idea of fairy tales and their beginnings fascinates me, so this works for me.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I know what you mean about voiceovers. I don't usually like them either, and I'm not sure what possessed me to use them this time, but I'm very glad they weren't just distracting. Partly I think it helped that I had access to 5.1 Surround audio which meant I could isolate the dialogue track and not have to worry about the background music, which often is distracting in voiceover-based vids.

I'm so happy that other people are identifying with the sincerity of the fifth season, and I could not agree more with you about fairy tales and stories and where they come from.

Thanks so much for the feedback!

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I LOVE IT!

It's like...the complete opposite of mine! In the good way! And with greater technical skill! ;)

Seriously, though, it's very un-you and I adore it to pieces anyway, because I AM IN LOVE WITH THE SOURCE!!! And I LOVE IT!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm so glad!

And yes, it is like the complete opposite of yours, but that's what's wonderful about season five is that it's so very epic and sincere and emooootional at the same time as being completely full of glee and happy and people skidding around with happiness.

It's SOOOO un-me, but I'm so happy people seem to be liking it anyway.

And technical skill comes with time if you want it, and is often overrated as a necessity anyway. I didn't bother to change from WMM for years. ;)

[ghanimasun]

Very emotional and really well done.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad you like it! :D

[rebellious_toes]

Oh, I love this. I'm not usually keen on voiceovers in vids but the way you used them here really worked. Great song choice too. Thanks for sharing it.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! And yes, I know, VOICEOVERS! What are they even! I think partly they get a bad rap because it's hard to get away from background music but I was lucky in that I had audio where I could separate that out, but even so, I often feel they distract rather than add to a vid, so I'm really pleased that you thought they worked here - I was quite nervous about them.

Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback!

[pockmarks.livejournal.com]

Came across this on who_daily, and as soon as I saw VNV Nation, I pounced on it. Naturally, I cried. Beautiful song, beautiful concept, beautifully executed. Thank you so much for sharing it!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, I'm so glad you enjoyed it and thought I pulled off the idea. VNV Nation are great, though this one is a little slower than their usual stuff, the guy's voice is just wonderful.

[pockmarks.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely. A friend got me into them earlier this year, and I couldn't get enough of them for days. Good stuff. :)

[elisi]

Absolutely beautiful. I want to say more, but... *sniff*

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks. I'm really pleased to know you enjoyed it and thanks for taking the time to comment. :)

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Your epic sincerity is sooooo pretty. :} I highly approve. :D

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Awww, yay and thanks! <3 I'm really glad you liked it; epic sincerity for all! :D

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

LKBVs ARE DEADLY SRS CRACK. *HEARTPUPILS*

if I may digress, what I love about LKBVs in general is that they stake out and defend what I see as a crucial yet under-acknowledged position that we occupy as media consumers: ambivalence. we so often have this experience of unresolved dissonance between the part of us that is critical and ironic and the part of us that just unreservedly adores.

I love you for honoring that second part here with all its tensions and not judging! Doctor Who particularly calls for this sort of acknowledged sincerity, since it's a show that is uniquely dark and yet manages to maintain an intense innocence. your vid captures that perfectly!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, I just found this and realised I never replied to it.

since it's a show that is uniquely dark and yet manages to maintain an intense innocence. your vid captures that perfectly!

Thank you. I'm really glad that that comes across. I think, probably, a large part of why I felt the need to make this is that for the first time in a long time I felt the show recaptured that after the very unwieldy previous years where it demanded that acknowledged sincerity but never earned it.

In any event, I'm glad my ambivalence about my reserved adoration is at least proving proving useful in vidding terms. ;)

[promethia_tenk]

Oh god. Some things are just worthy of epic sincerity, and Eleven is one of them.

I've picked this whole season apart to such a point that most of the original emotion is lost (damn fragile things, those feelings), but I watched this and there it all was again, so thank you. *saves in case of future need*

(I'm back-stalking your journal, btw. Don't mean to freak you out, so I'll just be upfront about that.)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I completely agree - I can't quite explain how, but something about this season just completely bypasses my need for irony or pretense. I also empathise with picking things apart until they're just...stuff (to quote Eleventy in one of those delightful DVD scenes). I'm honoured to think that I helped you get some of that back again.

And hello! You're welcome to wander around my journal as long as you like - hope you find interesting things. :)

[jadis17.livejournal.com]

this vid made me cry, it's beautiful.

[stick-poker.livejournal.com]

Hello, I'm here on account of this being mentioned elsewhere and I'd just like to say, this is amazing. As you said in reply to someone else further up, "the finale is the most epic thing that ever has or will happen, and yet it's... ultimately, one man, telling a bedtime story to one child, before walking quietly to his own end." Which, yes, exactly that, and I never would have seen it so clearly without this. Thank you.

[sea_thoughts]

OMG you made this video? I LOVE IT. I want to say more but I don't have the words at the moment so I will just say I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT. It's like... everything I didn't like about Ten's angst turned good.

[cinderbella333.livejournal.com]

Excuse me while I go cry in a corner FOREVER. This was beautiful and so well done.