I was left to my own devices / Many days fell away with nothing to show

[purplefringe]

Wow, never have lyrics from the vid I'm working on been SO RELEVANT to the act of working on the vid.

So, er, I started this one in February /o\ And to be fair, I did make fully two thirds of it in less than a week. It was just the remaining third that took, um, six months. I think that's a new record. (My last Clara vid was a mere two months late.) Most of that time was spent opening FinalCut, shuddering, and closing it again, so perhaps it only really took one month, spread over six months. ANYWAY, it was not supposed to be posted a mere 3 weeks before Series 9, but I'm too excited about it being A MERE THREE WEEKS UNTIL SERIES NINE to care much.

Pompeii
edited by purplefringe
fandom: Doctor Who (Season 8 with bits of Season 7)
characters: Clara, the Doctor
music: Pompeii. by Bastille
summary: does it almost feel like you've been here before?
content notes: Contains some fast cutting, and also spoilers for Season 8

"Doctor Who | Pompeii | Twelfth Doctor & Clara" (Watch on YouTube)

download: 98MB @ mediafire

As usual, thanks go to the lovely such_heights for watching a millionty drafts of this, and making soothing noises at me when I complained at her about it. (I'm sorry I do that so much <3) And also for providing the last-minute technical support I still need, despite this being my 31st vid. Oops.

(Speaking of which - if anyone knows how to deal with those FUCKING SQUARE PIXELS that are marring their beautiful faces, please let me know. I don't know why they're there, I've never had this problem before, I want to throw my laptop out the window /o\)

ALSO on this occasion, huge thanks to the amazing elisi, without whom I would definitely never have finished this stupid vid. She went waaaaaay above and beyond the call of vid-beta-ly duty, and sent the most *incredible*, detailed, encouraging, thoughtful, analytical emails, in response to my somewhat pathetic call for help. She also helped me to clarify just what I was actually trying to say - there are one or two parts of this vid that were constructed clip-by-clip with her, via email. I hope you really did enjoy the process as much as you said you did. <3 This vid is for you! :-)



Ha, so, this song. This song struck me as being the perfect song for Clara and Twelve approximately five minutes after I left the cinema screening of Deep Breath. Honestly. Just listen to it. It was going to be my version of kaydeefalls' 'Stray Italian Greyhound', which is still one of my favourite Amy Pond vids. Made about halfway through S5, using just a handful of episodes and some trailer footage, that vid's about Amy Pond growing up and learning to trust and embracing life/adventure/time/space/the Doctor - but it's also about the viewer doing the same. S5 was glorious, but going in all we knew was that we had not only a new Doctor, but also a new Companion AND a new showrunning team. It was the start of a new era, and that takes some getting used to. Whilst the jump from S7 to S8 was not quite as all-encompassing, the change from Eleven to Twelve was so much more jarring than the one from Ten to Eleven. So I thought of this song, and thought I could do a similar thing - a vid for Clara and Twelve and the audience, to say, it's ok, we've been through this before. Season 8 is going to be GREAT.

Of course, I couldn't do it.

I am far too obsessive to make a vid using only half a season of a show, if there is more available. So I kept waiting, and the more episodes aired, the more different ways I realised the lyrics could be interpreted. (It's the same issue I had with 'Never Look Away'.) It got to the stage where the song would have had to be about an hour long, with a dozen iterations of each chorus, for me to fit in all the myriad ways the lyrics could apply to Twelve and Clara. That was what caused the epic hiatus between the initial week of vid-farr and this last couple of weeks where I actually finished the thing: massive indecision. Which interpretations are the most interesting? The most coherent? The easiest to represent visually? WHO EVEN KNOWS. WHAT A STUPID HOBBY. Fortunately, I had such_heights to tell me 'just put in some fun shots of them having adventures!' and later elisi to tell me how to get the meta in there and make it make sense, and indecision was defeated. HA.

So what I'm saying is that this has evolved significantly since my original idea and frankly I never want to look at any of those clips ever again. But I hope some people like it.



Lyrics
Eheu eh-o eheu eh-o [x8]

I was left to my own devices
Many days fell away with nothing to show

And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Great clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

We were caught up and lost in all of our vices
In your pose as the dust settled around us

And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Great clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

Eheu eh-o eheu eh-o [x4]

Oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?
Oh oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?

And the walls kept tumbling down (oh where do we begin?)
In the city that we love (the rubble or our sins?)
Great clouds roll over the hills (oh where do we begin?)
Bringing darkness from above (the rubble or our sins?)

But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

If you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

Eheu eh-o eheu eh-o [x8]

Comments

[mfirefly10]

This is excellent! The quick cuts are awesome and I loved your clip selection :)

[purplefringe]

Aw yay, thank you so much!

[sweetestdrain]

I love this! I dropped out of Twelve early on, but this vid makes me want to give him and season eight another go. Lovely work.

[purplefringe]

YESSSS. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. Er, I mean, thank you so much! I'm really glad you liked the vid. I know a lot of people noped out of 12's kind of aggressive behaviour, which I totally understand, but it was actually one of the main reasons I wanted to make this vid - it's ok! It gets better!

[mergatrude]

I have been wanting a Doctor Who vid to this song since I first heard it, so in my brain the imagery was tied up with Eleven and Trenzalore and The Day of the Doctor.

BUT!

This is fantastic!

I can completely comprehend that it took so long to make because it is just BEAUTIFULLY crafted. I loved it, and it made me look at the Twelve-Clara relationship from different angles and made me a little more in love with it all.

So, thank you! ♥

[purplefringe]

<3 awwww, thank you so much! That's so great to hear, because mostly it feels like I spent way too long on this to no discernible effect /o\

I'm so gad you like it, even though it's linked to something else in your head - I have that with a lot of songs, and it's weird seeing them vidded to other things!

[china_shop]

This is so great. The song works brilliants, and I especially love the section near the end where they're having FUN! \o/

[purplefringe]

Heeee, thank you! I really enjoyed making the FUN section - that was one of the bits I made in my initial week of vid-farr, and it remained more-or-less unchanged 6 months later. It felt very important that the vid build up to that. <3

[actiaslunaris]

Fantastic, sharp, editing and oh my heart, as soon as you started comparing, tears came to my eyes. Beautiful work interpreting those lyrics. Instant favorite.

[purplefringe]

<3 oh gosh thank you so much! I'm sorry(/delighted) I made you cry. And I'm really glad the lyrics interpretations worked for you, because ph my god so many options /o\

[felis]

This vid reminded me how well the characters and the emotional beats worked for me last season and seeing it all again here just made me happy. I love Twelve and Clara very much and it was equal parts fun and touching to discover the clips you chose (the tumbling walls and the gathering clouds every time, the surprise at seeing the flashes of Eleven, the whole 'where do we begin' bridge, ...). I'll definitely be watching this many more times.

[purplefringe]

Oh, yay, thank you so much! I'm so pleased it worked for you, especially as a fellow person who loved Twelve and S8 in general! I hope you continue to enjoy it <3

[kass]

OMG I love this so much.

This is the Twelve and Clara (or Twelve/Clara) vid I've been waiting for.

[purplefringe]

<3 thank you! That means a lot :-) I'm so glad you like it!

[rosaxx50]

What is this magical editing and storytelling?? I am in loooooove with it, and as always utterly in awe of how well you handle motion, just how visually stunning it is when you parallel scenes, even though you're drawing different comparisons each time.

(I didn't even watch s8, and now I'm more tempted to go back and catch up than I have ever been before.)

But really. From that really lovely hook, Clara and 12's first meeting, to all the walls kept tumbling down ~obstacles in their relationship, each pushing them to grow, I was enthralled. I am just!! No words to describe how much I loved this video.

[juniperphoenix]

This is terrific. I especially love the sections with the quick, flashbacky cuts, like the part near the beginning with Eleven and the part where Twelve is saluting.

[usuallyhats]

I love this! CLARAFACE. <3 Your editing is, as ever, gloriously sharp - I love the way you use jumpcuts with the music starting at about 0'18, and the times when you cut really fast between a set of visually similar moments. So good!

[odessie]

Oh, LOVED this! Your editing is just perfect - loved the little jump cuts on the drum beats - and you really captured the heart of the Clara/Twelve relationship. Got quite emotional watching that, fab job.

[grimorie]

This is beautiful! I love how wonderfully you brought parallels between Eleven and Twelve closer, showing that Twelve might be more subdued and serious but he is still the same person underneath all that!

Thank you for this!

[purplefringe]

Awww thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed this. I love me some parallels :)

[sasha_feather]

This year we are delighted to show Purple_fringe's vid at the WisCon Vid Party! The show will be taking place on Friday May 27, 2022, in person and streaming. More info at https://wiscon-vidparty.dreamwidth.org/ and wiscon.net.

You are missed. <3

[elisi]

Thank you so much for this. <3

I still have this post set up to send me notifications (because it's partly 'my' vid *g*) and to see it still being shown is wonderful. Thank you again. She is, indeed, still deeply missed.