purplefringe

Short Skirt / Long Jacket
edited by

purplefringe
fandom: Doctor Who (Classic Series)
characters: Romana I and the Fourth Doctor
music: Short Skirt / Long Jacket - Cake
summary: She is touring the facility and picking up slack
content notes: Romana > you

notes: This vid is dedicated to the wonderful

usuallyhats! She bakes the world's best brownies, is fabulous and encouraging when asked to edit essays at the last minute or beta vids in secret, she can do MAGICAL THINGS with a sewing machine, she has good and thoughtful opinions on Doctor Who and superheroes and is really happy to share them, and is an all round excellent and delightful human. Every home should have one. :-) (I'm pretty sure her fingernails actually shine like justice too.) <3

Thanks to

such_heights and

cosmic_llin for beta-ing and squee and appreciating the perfection of Mary Tamm's eyebrows with me. And particular thanks to

calapine who is completely responsible for introducing me to Romana I in the first place. IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.

This vid premiered earlier this evening at the Nine Worlds Doctor Who vidding panel. It was very exciting! :-D (Until

such_heights was a bad person and pointed me out to the rest of the room who all looked at me and it was terrible /o\)

download: 54MB @ mediafire

password: krollkrollkroll

stream:

Short Skirt / Long Jacket from Phoebe on Vimeo.

Lyrics

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond
I want a girl who knows what's best
I want a girl with shoes that cut
And eyes that burn like cigarettes

I want a girl with the right allocations
Who's fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack
She's playing with her jewelry
She's putting up her hair
She's touring the facility
And picking up slack

I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnng jacket......

I want a girl who gets up early
I want a girl who stays up late
I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity
Who uses a machete to cut through red tape
With fingernails that shine like justice
And a voice that is dark like tinted glass

She is fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack
She's touring the facility
And picking up slack

I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnng.... lonnng jacket

I want a girl with a smooth liquidation
I want a girl with good dividends
At Citibank we will meet accidentally
We'll start to talk when she borrows my pen

She wants a car with a cupholder arm rest
She wants a car that will get her there
She's changing her name from Kitty to Karen
She's trading her MG for a white Chrysler La Baron

I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnggggggggg jacket

Crossposts: http://purplefringe.livejournal.com/54965.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

avendya

This vid is everything that is great about the world.

From:

avendya

(also A++++++++ song choice)

From:

purplefringe

Heeeee! Thank you! :-D ROMANAAAAA she is so fabulous. I've loved that song for years and was really happy to have the perfect vid idea for it.

From:

thisbluespirit

I was so delighted to see a Classic Who vid pop up - and then I realised which Romana it was! Hurrah for Romana I and all of Mary Tamn's mix of utter cool, snark and glamour. (Not that more Romana II isn't lovely, too, but the original gets terribly left out). And then the vid was wonderful, too. ;-)

♥

From:

purplefringe

:-D :-D Thank you! Those are EXACTLY my thoughts on Romana I - she is so suave and snarky and spiky and delightful, and gets *horribly* overlooked in favour of the much more light-hearted and therefore easier-to-like Romana II. I'm really glad you enjoyed her face and the vid!

From:

thisbluespirit

I think, to be fair, part of it is just that Romana II has more episodes and Romana I's are all tied up in a particular arc, so people often tend to go for Romana II first, and so then they're coming at Romana I as the replacement. Also Tom and Lalla's rl chemistry is fairly obvious on-screen for much of the time, so that suits shippers. With bonus Douglas Adams and Paris.

But Romana I is my favourite, definitely, and your vid is wonderful and does her justice - and how could a person not enjoy her face? And her awesome taste in fashion and everything? :-)

From:

purplefringe

All very good points! Obviously Romana I gets Douglas Adams too in The Pirate Planet, but City Of Death is just a beautiful, wonderful classic. ('Exquisite!')

Romana I's fashion sense is fab. Apparently Mary Tamm concocted the purple Androids of Tara outfit herself!

From:

tehlime

This is absolutely lovely, I know personally it's hard for me to make a vid work when there isn't a ton of movement in the footage but you made it look effortless! Fantastic!

From:

purplefringe

Aw, thank you so much! Actually, despite the general lack of camera movement in Classic Who, and the looooooong static shots, there was actually a fair amount of motion to work with here. Romana tilts her head a lot, and her beautiful eyebrows are very mobile….!

I'm really glad you enjoyed it :-)

From:

usuallyhats

THIS IS THE BEST. ROMANA I IS THE BEST. YOU ARE THE BEST. ♥

I love all of the faces she makes, and the whole montage of her being unimpressed by villainy, and all the "sharp as a tack" bits, and the beginning of the instrumental section, and the part where she slides the Key to Time together, and her fingernails SHINING LIKE JUSTICE (I hadn't noticed how awesome her nail polish is before!), and the sequence where she's fixing K9, and all the running around and smiling and having adventures at the end and basically ALL OF THE OTHER PARTS TOO. :DDDD

KROLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.

From:

purplefringe

I THINK YOU'LL FIND *YOU* ARE THE BEST. ♥ ALSO ROMANA. ROMANA IS BETTER THAN BOTH OF US.

yaaaaaaaaay I'm SO PLEASED you like it! This was a lot of fun to make, and was actually (surprisingly, given the less-than-shiny nature of the visual material) one of the most painless vids I've ever made. Her face and her eyebrows and her expressive head-tilts just made it so easy! (Speaking of - I had an epiphany half way through, which is what if Romana met Ned the Piemaker? What if they had children?! THEIR HEADS WOULD BE SO TILTY AND THEIR EYEBROWS SO VERY AMAZING.)

Um, anyway. \o/ Romana! Her 'unimpressed at villany' faces are the best. I'm sorry Kroll didn't make it into the vid, but I hope the Taran Woodbeast makes up for it.

From:

usuallyhats

True, Romana is the GREATEST. ♥

Yay, I am glad you had fun making it! I LOVE IT VERY VERY MUCH. (I haven't watched Pushing Daisies but from what I know of it that sounds a) accurate and b) awesome. :D)

I feel like Kroll was there in spirit. ;D And the Taran Woodbeast also made me v. happy. :D

From:

morganfm

oh. my. gosh. I've never seen Romana, much less Romana I before, and I now officially ADORE her thanks to this video. She just looks absolutely clever, snarky, and self confident and just all around awesome. I may have to skip the first three Doctors just to get to her, instead of watching Classic Who in order like I'd planned. ;)
And the video is flawless, btw. perfect mix of song, character, and shots. everything worked together amazingly! A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
::applauds, then emails link to all whovian friends.::

(btw I had to spend like 10 minutes figuring out my dreamwidth account so I could post this, it kept throwing various restrictions at me.)

Edited Date: 2014-08-13 02:33 am (UTC)

From:

purplefringe

Argh *blushes* *flails* *loses cool in face of high praise*

Thank you so much! That's such a lovely, heartfelt comment to receive! <33 I'm delighted you enjoyed it, and very grateful you battled your nefarious Dreamwidth account to tell me so!

So, I think Romana I is awesome. As you may be able to tell. She is often really overlooked in favour of Romana II, who is a lot chirpier and more chilled out, and generally easier to like. Romana I gets called an 'ice queen' (and variations thereupon) quite a lot, which I think is unfair. YES she can be VERY disdainful and aloof (her eyebrows were kind of made for that!) but she also has this amazingly dry sense of humour, which I think is often forgotten. She is generally amazing. She does have a few less-than-amazing moments which I haven't included in the vid, but generally she is super-competent and more than equal to the Doctor and it's great.

HOWEVER, if you are doing the whole watching-all-of-Who-in-order thing then I SALUTE YOU. It's something I'd love to do at some point, when I have a few years to spare.