Vid: What We Had [Doctor Who]

[cherry]

Title: What We Had
Fandom: Doctor Who
Music: What We Had - Handsome Furs
Summary: Martha, Jack, Mickey. It's all just empty space. For the VividCon 08 "Fuck You" Challenges vidshow.

Links: Download (39 MB, DIVX, zipped) | Stream (BAM) | Stream (Blip)

What We Had
It's cold
a plain diamond
nobody's here, just empty space
It's all moving, breathing
stuck to the ceiling, don't mean a thing

and what we had don't mean a thing
and what we had is already gone

it's all
a plain diamond
nobody's here, just empty space

they're all our eyes are saucered to see
as if hands might float right down from above
and change this place
nobody here, don't mean a thing

and what we had don't mean a thing
and what we had is already gone

I sit outside with the rain now
and time rolls slow
I sit outside with the rain
and time rolls slow
but they may never shut off
but they may never shut off


This vid would not exist in its current form without the ever-fantastic obsessive24, who kicked my ass until this was in shape. elynross graciously helped out with the final polishing touches. This vid has been in progress, on and off, since December, so it feels good to get it out of my system. There's a lot I could say about what my intentions where, about where I was coming at this vid from, but I'm hoping that I've done my job correctly and it can speak for itself.

Comments

[groovekittie.livejournal.com]

AMAZING work, hun! LOVED IT! Loved the song too!

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was thinking of this vid long before I started it, and finding this song was what finally got things off of the ground. It's pretty much what I would have custom-ordered in a song, if I had that power.

[sol-se.livejournal.com]

Oh my god! I can't even put into words how much I love this video! I feel like I've been waiting for this exact video and didn't even realize it. I'm speechless. Just...yes, this! Excellent! (More coherent feedback to come later!)

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! In a way, this vid feels much more personal to me than any other I've made, so it's such a relief to hear that it works for others.

[akamarykate.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a-MAZ-ing! I love this look at what the Doctor can do to the people around him. What a perfect song, and your cuts work so well with it.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you for watching! I am still incredibly grateful that I found this song -- a lot of the time, I find I ended up using a piece in which either the lyrics or the musical dynamics are what I'm going for, but this got both, at least for me. I'm glad you liked it.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

This vid worked really well for me! All of the emotions felt by Mickey, Martha, and Jack were so vivid.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

This was gorgeous and heartrending.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much.

[topofthepiano.livejournal.com]

Wow, this absolutely floored me. I cannot even begin with how intense and fantastic it was. The emotions that come through kill me and they're just so vicious. At 1:20 I actually gasped at the image of Jack getting drained next to Rose being saved by having the vortex gently pulled out of her. It's painful then how The Doctor chooses a few to take care of and everyone else just gets left giving and giving and giving and getting nothing back. It's so unfair. Beautiful, thank you for making this.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I held back on vid notes because I wanted to draw the comparisons and let others make their own conclusions from that -- but for me, it's exactly what you said, it's not fair, and it's about how some get treated in comparison to others, no matter their individual actions or impacts.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Love love love OMG so much love. ::hugs vid::

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you, hon. *snugs*

[danceonstardust.livejournal.com]

just awesome I love the song and how it suits everything! GREAT JOB!

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

Oh, wow. Very powerful. As much as I love Ten (mostly because of his flaws, actually) it's not the ones he loves best who get better, is it? It's the ones who get better in spite of him. *goes to download so I can watch it a bunch of times*

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I knew, going in, that this probably wasn't going to be the most popular reading of the text, so I really appreciate your watching. I agree that Ten is a fascinating character when he's treated as flawed and sometimes frightening, but that's not the easiest on all of the people who love (or could have/should have loved) him.

[varymydays.livejournal.com]

Oh, God.

Oh God this broke my heart. :/

I would love to hear your intentions even though I think the video showed it perfectly, I just want to see if what I got from the video matches up with what you wanted to portray.

Totally not necessary though. There was so much in this.

Ow. Gorgeous and painful and perfect.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much.

I'm trying to avoid getting too much into my thought process with the construction at this point, but what I wanted to do was try to construct something about what I've heard people tossing around as 'companion privilege.' I wanted to highlight all of these parallels and see what conclusions people drew. I did my best not to (overly) manipulate the text or take things out of context, at least as much as one can with this sort of source.

I'm not sure if that's entirely what you were asking about. If you're more interested in my thought process/commentary, I'm more than willing to email you. If that's already more than enough information for you, though, we can leave it there. *G*

Thank you for watching, and for your interest.

[hollywoodgrrl.livejournal.com]

Here via sol_se's rec and yeah, words fail me at the moment. I was just utterly blown away by the perfect rhythm that you told your story in. It matched the song perfectly, and the singer's voice was the perfect translation of that "coulda, woulda, shoulda" feeling that these characters evoke. (I must scour the interwebs for that band now.) So it all just blended so well together. TASTY!

I've gotta mention 0:38-0:59. This is when I truly went nutters about this vid. Particularly when you juxtaposed Jack getting shot with Ten/Rose on the apple grass. But then 0:55 happened. That shot of them scrubbing the floor...it strange to say but I think it's my favorite bit out of the whole vid. It just says so much and the motion is so fluid.

I've watched this now like three times and I made both my roommates watch it. THAT'S how good it is. *bows to you*

Edited cuz I forgot to say how orgasmic 1:20-1:28 is. Nghhhhhh...

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, thank you. Time stamps and everything! "Boulevard of Broken Songs" is pretty much my favourite Doctor Who vids, so this really means a lot coming from you.

(I must scour the interwebs for that band now.)
Would you like an upload? Handsome Furs are a side project from one of the fellows from Wolf Parade, and I don't think their LP is readily available.

[lorem_ipsum]

*flail* Wow. *flail* Wow. *mcflailypants* WOW.

[lorem_ipsum]

P.S. What topofthepiano said.

what we had = wtf?

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

There's such balance in this vid, which is a counterpoint to the inbalance portrayed in the vid. The characters are carefully placed and there is not a single frame misused.

From beginning to end I was floored. The difference in what the Doctor takes the companions to see was drastic. Martha is the one usually off by herself cleaning up the Doctor's messes, while others have their hands held. Jack gives his life and the Doctor runs from him, while the Doctor holds Rose and dances with her. The Doctor doesn't even register that Mickey has given up so much and become a different person.

The Doctor is looking up with his mind in the stars, while they have to watch where he's going.

At the end of the vid, I'm left empty myself because these characters give so much, yet the Master is the one comforted. WTF?

Re: what we had = wtf?

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

IAWTC 100%

The amazing thing is that Martha, who was treated the most shabbily, has come out of the four seasons as the strongest and most independent and capable of the new Who companions. She's walked away from the Doctor twice, head held high, and gone on to be fantastic without him. And if he was to be perfectly honest, Ten would admit that he needs Martha far more than she needs him these days.

[lee-fragilidad.livejournal.com]

So true! Amazing vid.
Thank you for sharing. Now I'm gonna watch it again and again...

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you for watching.

[grlnamedlucifer.livejournal.com]

This is an amazing vid. Martha cleaning up after the Doctor, Mickey being left behind, and Jack's continual pain is hardly the happy image of a companion. The three juxtapositions that really stuck out for me were a) Jack's death vs. happy sunny Rose/Ten, b) Harriet Jones' shunning vs. the Vote Saxon posters, and c) Martha on her knees vs. Ten forgiving the Master. The last in particular because there's really just something so insulting in that, even just in canon.

Really well done.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

At the end of each season, the Doctor seems to be left alone -- but he creates so much of his own isolation, so many of his own problems.

Thank you for watching -- I'm glad you enjoyed.

[kiwi-from-hell.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, very clever and all-round brilliant, beautifully edited and God, did it hurt. I was -this- close to crying by the end. Really great work, probably my favourite Who vid.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much.

[prettyquotable.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was an amazing vid. Painful to watch, but amazing.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much.

[moetushie]

Good, I am blown away. Thank you for making this video-- it's beautiful to look at and heartbreakingly true.

And I keep inserting Donna in there too, so that's even more saddening.

But good job! :)

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much.

For a while there, I thought I might be done with Doctor Who, but the sheer awesomeness that is Donna lured me back. Then the finale happened, but I digress.

[obsessive24.livejournal.com]

When this vid played at Challenge I grinned so hard I thought my face was going to crack. You've heard more than enough from me on it, so I'm just here to relay some of the reactions from people in the discussion after the Challenge show.

Straight away a number of people piped up with how they loved these is the parallel between Rose and Master and Why The Fuck Are They Treated So Well?, also there was a number of discussion on how Jack and Mickey were first abandoned by the Doctor before they come back to help and to go on their own hero journeys. The thing that stood out for the commentators was how clearly at the end that all three chose to leave v.s. being lost per Rose/Master. Later, in a discussion with millylicious she also said that she really hated Rose in this vid, and considering she's probably the biggest Rose fangirl in all of creation, really speaks to how well the vid got its point across. All in all, the general consensus I saw was that your intention came across very, very, very clearly, and people really loved this vid. YAY!

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

*twirls you* Thank you again for all the work you put into this thing, and the number of times you kicked my ass. It would have been a much different, much weaker vid without your helpful eye.

You have no idea how much of a relief to me it is to hear that people responded well -- con season make me incredibly nervous, even when I don't have as much invested in a vid as I did with this one.

Thank you again, for everything.

Just out of curiosity, as I do not know: do people try to guess at the originators of challenge vids, or doe they wait patiently for the reveal?

[aurora]

Wow. This was intense and very gripping.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

Oooh. This is like a great cup of coffee: full, rich, kind of bitter, and keeps you awake at night. Excellent.

I particularly appreciated the implication that the unseating of Harriet Jones led to Harry Saxon's reign, which is something I've always thought and don't see mentioned much.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much.

I particularly appreciated the implication that the unseating of Harriet Jones led to Harry Saxon's reign, which is something I've always thought and don't see mentioned much.

I really wish I'd had more time to delve into that -- my first hint of uneasiness about Ten came during TCI and his actions regarding Harriette. I was really hoping that his actions precipitating the Saxon situation would be, at the very least, touched upon.

[anenko.livejournal.com]

This was incredibly powerful. Thank you for sharing.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you for watching. *G*

[fuzzybluemonkey.livejournal.com]

This is just heartbreaking... the way you put it together, and it's just so, so true. It makes Jack, Martha, and Mickey walking off together at the end of this season even more appropriate. I mean, I already squeed myself hoarse about it, but this adds another layer of what they have in common that makes it more poignant (but still fills me with glee-- not glee that they were mistreated, obviously, but glee that they're going to appreciate each other in ways that the dense old Doctor never will).

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you for watching, and for your kind words.

Jack, Martha, and Mickey walking off into the sunset was fantastic. I am so excited by the possibility of the three of them saving the world together.

[such_heights]

I totally love this - you broke me right from Jack's desperate sprint for the TARDIS cut against Rose and the Doctor gallivanting across New Earth. *sob* The editing and music suit the subject matter perfectly, and oh this makes me ache.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much.

[amalthia]

I LOVED your vid, I liked the editing, the song choice, and the message.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Thank you ever so much.