vid - Fiddle and the Drum - sga

[kiki_miserychic]

vid title: Fiddle and the Drum
music: cover by A Perfect Circle
source: Stargate: Atlantis
duration: 3:14
notes: Beta from hollywoodgrrl and cathexys, with consideration from kuwdora. Made in conjuction with iambickilometer's Nowhere in the Corridors for artword Ch016 - Jan./Feb. 2009 - Colors.
summary: We have all come to fear the beating of John Sheppard's drum.

download: youtube
30mb xvid avi via mediafire

And so once again
My dear Johnny, my dear friend
And so once again you are fighting us all
And when I ask you why
You raise your sticks and cry, and I fall
Oh, my friend
How did you come?
To trade the fiddle for the drum
You say I have turned
Like the enemies you've earned
But I can remember
All the good things you are
And so I ask you please
Can I help you find the peace and the star?
Oh, my friend
What time is this
To trade the handshake for the fist?

And so once again
Oh, America my friend
And so once again
You are fighting us all
And when we ask you why
You raise your sticks and cry and we fall
Oh, my friend
How did you come
To trade the fiddle for the drum?

You say we have turned
Like the enemies you've earned
But we can remember
All the good things you are
And so we ask you please
Can we help you find the peace and the star?
Oh my friend
We have all come
To fear the beating of your drum

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[iambickilometer.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say, posting is complete, and the fic is here! (http://iambickilometer.livejournal.com/75704.html)

I can't watch your vid from the library computer I'm using, but I will comment with extensive praise as soon as I can. 8D

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Yay, I just edited my post with your link. I have bad timing, I'm getting ready to go out, so I'll be commenting on your story sometime this weekend. Weeee!

[danceswithgary]

Wow. The combination of music and images to tell the story of Soldier John is a punch to the gut.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's an amazing song that was great to work with.

[gaffsie.livejournal.com]

Very cool. I really like the way you've cut this. It really moved me.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[hollywoodgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yay you posteded it! :D

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

<3's Sheppard.

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

I love the way you use the best of the show's photography to your advantage here, and how that works with the mood and themes of the vid. Really terrific job on clip choice and subtle (and not so subtle) use of light and motion. It reminds me of Devil's Waiting in that respect, and that's one of my favorites from you.

I also think it's impressive how transparent your message is. It's so direct that you can't *not* get it.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

SGA can be sooo pretty.

Thank you. I was plagued with doubt on how the concept would be understood, so I'm pleased you see it. :)

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Still loving it! I think the colors aestheticize the vid to a point where it's still about John the particular character but also about something/someone much broader. Just like John within the vid's a cypher, he functions as a variable that can stand in for larger questions of identity. And the colors create this Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) that totally pushes the viewer in to that direction.

Heading from the close up Johns through the affected by his environment to the affecting his surrounding in turn, it's addressing the question of how these Johns are created and how they create in turn, so to speak.

Loves herself anything John-centric :D Thank you for letting me see it through the stages (even as all I was saying was, I like :)!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I love that a language as a word for an alienation effect. I have a thing for the word schadenfreude because it's one word to describe something my native language takes a whole sentence to explain.

John is so incredibly screwed up, but I still can't help but love him.

Thank you too. :)

[ca-pierson.livejournal.com]

Very powerful vid. The music, the footage you chose ... I love it.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

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

oh, this is gorgeous. so very pretty. ♥

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Just like your icon. Thanks!

[emily-reich.livejournal.com]

WOW! That was a really awesome vid! I love that song so damn much, and I have to admit, I never thought it would work for a vid... but you definitely proved me wrong!! So much awesome :D

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I adore the song and I always wanted to vid it, but wasn't sure if I could pull it off.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Wow, that last line especially packs a punch after the clips you've used. To think that his friends fear not only for themselves but for John's own life. Really nice vid, with these spaces of black to breathe and worry. It'll probably take another viewing at least to really understand the choices behind all the shots.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm glad it provokes rewatching. :)

[sabinetzin]

Gah, this vid.

I've watched it twice now, and I still get a little choked up. I think the most impressive thing is how you use silence and black- it makes it so powerful without ever being overblown.

I hadn't every put this song to Sheppard before- but now I can't unsee it.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The silence is one of my favorite parts of the song itself. I wanted the fades to go with the silence; the visual with the auditory.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow.

This is gorgeous. It's a dark vision of Sheppard, to be sure, and of his interactions with the world(s) around him, but you build the case beautifully; this gives me shivers.

I love your use of black space -- how the visuals seem to float on a sea of blackness, as the lyrics do. This really knocks me out.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I like Sheppard as a dark character. Most of my favorite characters are dark.

[ncvids.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched SGA in years, but this is so pretty. Your vids are so aesthetically pleasing to watch.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for watching, especially if it's not your fandom, and staying for the pretty.

[whizzy.livejournal.com]

Wow. I love the theme, and it was beautifully done.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[blitzed451.livejournal.com]

This was really beautiful. and maybe what's most impressive is that the clip and editing choices you made gave new depth of meaning and pathos to lyrics (and images) which are pretty familiar. It brought to my mind another old soldier song "Johnny we hardly knew you"...

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I've never heard that song, but I'll be looking it up on youtube and google soon.

[beachlass.livejournal.com]

Wow. Beautiful and haunting.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[lamardeuse.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. I'm actually tearing up here. This is brilliant.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Aww, hopefully you don't cry for too long. Thank you.

[johnsheppardluv.livejournal.com]

a lovely job well-done, mate! a simply and FULLY lovely vid this was indeed! :) really really beautiful and i love the "story" that it tells, as it's quite true to Shep himself! :) so - brava! brava! encore! encore! *applauds hearily in total awe and appreciation of your utterly maaaaddd set of crazy awesome skillz* :) ~Sharma

PS Just call me Happy!Shocked. :)

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I was trying to capture some of how I see Sheppard and express that. Glad you like. :)

[tearful-eye.livejournal.com]

this is so beautiful!

i adore a capella songs a lot & you used it to such great effect here - i absolutely love the color & motion in this; you really used all the prettiest shots from the show... *happy sigh*

the john/john fight for example, it's one of my favorite scenes (visually at least), and it fits so perfectly here! and the scenes of the wraith dressing up (from 'vegas') is probably my favorite bit in the whole vid - it's so different, but somehow fits perfectly right there into the whole identity-thing. and of course the shots of the face behind the glass/door & the corridors, *flails*

(and you even have a tiny bit of imaginary!kolya in there, \o/ oh the adorable screwed-up-ness of john knows no bounds)

...i've got so much love for this vid! i didn't enjoy the last season of sga very much, but this brings back all the good memories i've got of this show :)

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Whoa, thank you. Editing to an a capella song as amazing. I really liked it. SGA can be very, very pretty. Thanks for the bits you picked up on. :)

I wasn't really into the last season of SGA, but Sheppard remains fucked up.

[rustler.livejournal.com]

Oh, so haunting, and all of John's blurred lines. Loved this.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

;) Thank you.

[mz-bstone.livejournal.com]

Vids don't usually make me cry.

This one did.

B

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you.

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Wow. That was great! Very challenging song, I'm impressed.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The song was too perfect not to vid.

[saffronhouse.livejournal.com]

oh, golly. Heartbreaking and beautiful.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

[such_heights]

I adore this beyond reason - the song, the colours, the scenes and images you've woven together, I can't stop watching this!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm glad it stands up to rewataching

[juniperphoenix]

Wow, that's going to stick with me for a while. It's so painful and haunting. I get the feeling that the rest of the team (and we, the audience) are sort of hovering helplessly just off-camera, wanting to rescue him and not quite knowing how.

The coloring was very effective; I think it made the already great clip choices seem even more powerful.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I really liked playing with the colors for this and working out exactly and what and how I wanted to say with the vid.