Another vid about John's face. But a different John.

[purplefringe]

(22)1BR/1BA
edited by purplefringe
fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
characters: John/Sherlock
music:1BR/1BA - Vienna Teng
summary: soon as this wall in my heart comes down, I'm gonna make it feel like home
content notes: Spoilers for all 6 episodes of Sherlock
notes: John, after the Fall.

Thank you, como siempre, to such_heights for her extremely patient beta-ing and encouraging comments.

download: 41MB @ mediafire

password: fall

stream:

(22)1BR/1BA from Phoebe on Vimeo.

Lyrics
1 bedroom / 1 bath, hardwood floors with view of trees
1 bedroom / 1 bath, parking space for extra fee

My little flock of boxes and I
Surrounded by a painted-white unknown
Soon as this wall in my heart comes down
I'm gonna make it feel like home

1 bedroom / 1 bath, A/C was fine till yesterday
1 bedroom / 1 bath, 89 degrees today

My upstairs neighbours are making sounds
That I never want to hear
I hope they're just moving furniture around
And really liking their ideas

Comments

[silverhare]

Ohhhh, lovely. :)

[purplefringe]

Thank you so much!

[endeni]

OMG, what an original vid! (Yay, Vienna Teng!)
That bit with the violin string at 02:08!! ♥
So fluid and moving... almost claustrophobic, you can feel John slowly suffocating with grief.
And the (hopeful?) ending... Sigh...

[purplefringe]

Eeeeeee thank you so much! I'm so glad you chose all those adjectives, they are all things I was working towards when I was making this. And that violin string was too good to waste :-)

VIENNA TENG OMG. How is she even.

[harpers_child]

i'm waving my hands at the computer screen. i have to go make a cup of tea. i wish to pet john on the head and feed him cookies.

[purplefringe]

Oh man, making this was so hard. I wanted to give John ALL the cookies, ALL the time, it was awful. His FACE.

I hope the tea helped. That is an excellent plan.

[stardust_rain]

Oh, this is gorgeous and so quietly heartbreaking.

I love the match of the newspaper headline and the gravestone to "surrounded by a painted white unknown".
Brilliant editing when the music picks up 1:38-2:17. The musicality and movement and the chaos of their lives together brings such a sharp and poignant contrast to the stillness and emptiness in the house and the rest of the vid. Also, love the tray slamming down ending the clip of Sherlock's fall at 2:29-2:30. Oh, John. Throwing tea at the nightmares.

I've always considered this a hard song to vid, but my goodness this is lovely.

[purplefringe]

Oh, wow, thank you so much. That's such a thoughtful comment. I'm so glad you felt the chaos/stillness contrast came across, because that was what I was aiming for. John comes alive in his sleep, his life becomes more vivid. Then he wakes up, and throws tea at the nightmares (that's an AWESOME way of putting it) and things are still again.

I don't think this was too tough a song to vid. But then I'm hoping to one day live in a world where there exists a fanvid for a show I love to every Vienna Teng song ever, so I guess I have to help work towards that!

[rae1013]

Despite the storyline this vid was fun. The use of movement and how you utilized the music was so entertaining to watch and I honestly can't express how much I enjoy this vid. It's really wonderful. <3

[purplefringe]

Thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it, despite the sadness of the storyline.

[rae1013]

And I suck at expressing myself. I meant that despite it being a sad subject, that should have resulted in me being a bit down at the end, I was rather excited and bouncy over your technique. There is nothing that I didn't like about this vid. I've also rec'd it at my journal here. ♥

[purplefringe]

Oh! Wow! Thank you! :-D That's such a lovely thing to say. This is my 7th vid, and I feel like my technique has been improving, but it's so great to hear that's coming across! And thank you for the rec! *is overwhelmed*

[revolutionaryjo]

I'm a bit late to the party here, but how fantastic is this! I love how you've recontextualized scenes of just John to make this a post-Reichenbach story. They were all used to great effect! And then, the ending bit with Molly, and Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson really got me.

[purplefringe]

Everyone is welcome at this party! I'm usually late myself. Thank you for coming :-) I'm so pleased you liked it! It was my first attempt at recontextualising clips to make a new story, I'm glad you felt it worked.

[woldy]

Oh man, I love this! The understatement of John on his own is perfect, and then the way the strings segue into the stream-of-consciousness flashback, with all those wonderful disorienting images. And then the epic awkwardness at the end, as they try to get used to the space without him. Great work!

[purplefringe]

Eeeee, thank you! I'm happy you enjoyed it! There are a lot of AMAAAAAAZING post-Reichenbach vids out there, with ALL the John feelings, but I don't think there are very many that try to capture the emptiness of being left alone after something like that - they are often powerful and emotional, but I wanted to try and capture what it must really feel like....I'm glad you felt the understatement worked :-) And the epic awkwardness! Oh John. <3

[frayadjacent]

Oh, what a wonderful vid! I hope you don't mind, I was seeking out a vid for the "new to me" challenge at vidrecs, and I'd like to post this there.

[purplefringe]

<3 Thank you so, so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed it - thank you for saying such lovely things in the vidrecs challenge! *blushes* I'm very flattered.

Strangely enough, I am in the process *at this very moment* of uploading a companion vid to this, from Sherlock's point of view! Providing my computer doesn't blow up in the next few hours (it keeps threatening to), it should be up tonight. Watch this space!

[sanguinity]

Just thought I'd repeat here what I said there:

I love that vid. Does a beautiful job repurposing all these shots which in their original contexts were often sandwiched between corresponding shots of Sherlock. (Just out of the frame, on the other side of the room, about to enter...) But as used here, it just highlights Sherlock's absence. I keep waiting for the camera to cut to Sherlock, and it never does. After a while, I am wound up tight waiting for the camera cut that never, ever comes.

...and a companion piece! Ack, don't want to have to wait to go home to watch!

[purplefringe]

Aaaaaaaaaah thank you! I am having warm fuzzy feelings of joy right now....you got *exactly* what this vid was trying to do :-)

I hope the other one was worth the wait!

[sanguinity]

FYI, rec'd at 221b_recs.

[purplefringe]

<333 Thank you for the rec, and thank you for your beautiful words about this. I...was going to say 'I'm so glad you connected to the vid', but given the subject matter that is not actually what I mean. But I am glad that what I was trying to do worked for you. 'Grief is rarely dramatic or operatic' - exactly. It's numbness and trying to process daily life and seeing familiar things look strange. I'm glad you felt that worked here.

[sanguinity]

Heh, I don't mind at all you being glad about my connecting with the vid. Grief is nearly inevitable, after all (I barely dare contemplate the grimness of a life without things worth grieving!), and so I understand that as being happy that you could provide something that spoke to it. That is a thing very much worth being pleased about, in my opinion. Grief is inevitable; comfort is not.

I think I'm finally getting to the point where I have watched this enough times that I can start to see and understand how you did the thing. Like how the first time you emphasize the cello-heartbeat with a jump-cut is with the newspaper headline: something so painful that it can hardly be looked at head-on, that you're having John's mind literally skip in an attempt to avoid it. And then you cut from that directly to John at his therapist, trying to shake away a thought he doesn't want to look at. And you keep doing that, interposing these grim just-keeping-on-keeping-on clips with moments of startling pain (Sherlock looking directly at the webcam), and then following up with the immediate need to retreat from them.

And that bridge. The way you use in-shot motion and the show's camera-work (especially the revolve-o-cam!) to build a hyper-real, hyper-immediate sequence of uncontrolled memories... (You've sped up some of those shots, haven't you? Some of those shots were sped up in the show, but some of that, that's you, isn't it? Yes? No?) And not only all of that careening camera-work and in-shot motion, but so much of it is two-shots, such a stark contrast, motion and content, to post-fall John. But it's really how beautifully you twin the music with the video that makes the bridge work so nicely. 2:08 through 2:14, violin-pluck through the fence bars, is particularly mmf.

Ahem. I mean to say: it's a beautiful piece of work. ;-)

[regan_v]

I ought to have more words for this than I do. But it's brilliant---the editing is so polished and adroit that it makes most other vids look amateur, and I adore how you used Vienna Teng's music here. Wonderful!

I will definitely be recing this (and the other Teng/Sherlock vid you posted today) on my next recs update, on my LJ. Thank you!

[purplefringe]

Having not enough words is a great compliment :-) Thank you so much! And I'm very glad you appreciate the Vienna, as she is basically the greatest. But if you think this makes other vids look amateur, clearly you are not watching enough vids. There are some *stunning* things out there, both on youtube and on LJ. I'm still learning...

[lolabobs]

Wow -

I followed a link here from the Connotations site on lj and am so glad I did - this is a stunning vid that tells a heartbreaking story so beautifully. The ending, so bittersweet. so true and so moving.

[purplefringe]

Eeee, thank you very much! I'm glad you felt it rang true. Oh John :-( I've just made a companion vid from Sherlock's POV, which is a little more lively.

[lauramcewan]

That was very nice, moody, well done with the music and edits!

[purplefringe]

Thank you very much! :-)

[cleflink]

I really enjoyed how you put this together; it tells an amazing and tragic story of John's suffering after the fall. I wouldn't have thought to put this song into a vid about grief, but it works incredibly well.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was astonishingly well done. Thank you so much for sharing it!