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

[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. ;-)