vid - O Death - Battlestar Galactica

[kiki_miserychic]

vid title: O Death (Cylon & Human) music: "O Death" from Ralph Stanley and Jen Titus source: Battlestar Galactica duration: 3:21 notes: Made for challenge 05 - memo at thearchive2. Thank you to beccatoria for the brillant beta and half of the internet for the tech help. My grandfather was listening to the song by Ralph Stanley years ago and way too loud. I thought it would be perfect for Cain. By the time I was able to do the vidding everyone and their mother has vidded the Jen Titus cover. Lastly, I got the concept of Cylon & Human from newkidfan's Supernatual vidlets Human & Monster.

summary: In Memoriam of Helena Cain and Gina Inviere.

download: 30mb xvid avi via sendspace


lyrics

[Ralph Stanley]
O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over 'til another year?

Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me?
Well I am death, none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell

Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day?
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach

I'll fix your feet 'til you can't walk
I'll lock your jaw 'til you can't talk
I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very hour, come and go with me

Death, I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To drop the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim

O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over 'til another year?
Won't you spare me over 'til another year?
Won't you spare me over 'til another year?


[Jen Titus]
O Death
O Death
O Death
Won't you spare me over another year?

Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me?
When God is gone and the Devil takes hold
Who'll have mercy on your soul?

O Death

No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul

O Death

Well I am Death
None can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell

O Death
O Death

My name is Death and the end is here

Comments

[logovo1.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I have to get to my computer and watch this properly, but I just watched the streaming version and loved it. Thank you!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thanks! These days I stream vids more than I download them.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

That was fracking beautiful. The movement! The intensity of the first section, the constant flow, the way you intuited the beats and drove the pacing relentlessly forward -- blow me away, why don't you! And I really like the contrast of the second section, where there's a different kind of intensity, a push-pull tension with those zooms in and out. Just wow.

Heartbreaking.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

It's more like two vidlets put together. I think the original song and the cover are enough to hold them together.

I played around with the movement. It's something I don't understand and I'm hoping to get better at it.

Thanks!

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

For someone who doesn't understand movement, you sure execute it beautifully. I'm just saying.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you. I don't understand movement on an intellectual level. I can't put what makes it work and why. I like using clips that go back and forth across the screen and cuts that are quick and jerky. It was weird to make it smooth and flowing. Or at least try. :)

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

When it comes to making art, I think our ability to understand choices intellectually is often overrated. We know what works on us instinctually, emotionally. With vidding that's 75% of the ballgame, at least. (:

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

It can be a lot of learning the rules to break them. I'm an advocate of going with your gut and rolling with it. :)

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Me too, definitely, but then it's easy for me to say that having been to film school. (:

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wish I would have went to film school. I considered it briefly, like a lot of things, but knew it wasn't right.

I'll have to learn how to put things into words if I'm ever going to have an intelligent conversation about vidding where I don't look and sound like dumbass.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Coming to Vividcon can help with that. There are an awful lot of words in the air there. Talking with other vidders realtime definitely helped me get things into words.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

The only online person I've ever knowingly met and talked to is cyborganize. And I've Skyped with a few others. Face to face with a bunch of vidders would be like ice cream and puppies and rainbows. :)

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Please for the love of all that is holy come to VVC this year so I can hug you and fangirl you and stuff.

If it's a $ thing I will cheerfully nominate you for the scholarship.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Sadly, not a money issue this time. The school where I teach has an extended school year. They lack planning, so the dates haven't been set yet. Even if the new school year hasn't started mid-August, I have two weeks of orientation that I missed being hired halfway through the year that I have to attend.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

OH GOD THAT'S JUST WRONG.

D:

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Dude, it is rough. The day is long too, but it still feels short and there's not enough time for everything.

[milly.livejournal.com]

LOVE IT.

Oh god, the song choices. So FREAKING AMAZING. It's so perfect in all its rawness for Cain and then so perfect in all it's softness and creepiness for Gina and then they're together and it's SO PERFECT.

I looove the musicality and the athmosphere. <3 <3 <3

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

:)

My grandpa takes to credit for the original song choice and then Supernatural used the cover in a promo.

The Cain part of the vid has been in my head for a while and the Gina section more recently came together.

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

Wow the shift to the Jen Titus part just totally surprised me in so many ways and... was just so impactful. Really amazing moment, and I love how you've structured the vid for each of the characters as sort of mirrors. Darkly beautiful and really surprising - all of which I could say about any of you vids, it seems.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

The two voices are so different, but it feels like the same sort of emotion. One voice is much older, obviously, but they strike me in a similar way.

I like the nice things you say. :)

[serrico.livejournal.com]

Your editing's great, as usual--I'm always in awe of vidders who make good use of the way BSG *moves*, visually--and you handle the shift in POV and song style really well. Giving each woman her own musical voice, and the voices you chose for each, makes for a very strong impact. It took me a few seconds to get used to Cain paired with Stanley, just 'cause I'm more used to the Titus version, but once I did, the rawness and desperation of it worked *so* well, just as Titus's smoother, more sinister sound suited Gina's eventual agenda.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. BSG is one of my favorite shows to vid, partly due to the amazing way it looks.

I love the song and I'm glad it's getting well-known. In Supernatural fandom. :)

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

I was watching, enjoying the Cain section because it brought out her motivations in a very compelling way for me, and then it felt like everything just broke wide open when the cover and Gina came in. I'm so glad I had no idea that was coming. :D One of the moments that especially grabbed me was the Gina section on the end of "heaven or hell" where you cut from Gina's back, to Cain with the wine glass, and then to pre-attack Gina--really beautiful.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Cain and Gina were one of my favorite (and least favorite in some ways) thing about BSG. Filling in the details of their relationship was interesting to me in terms of fanfic. In terms of vidding, it would be difficult to vid that relationship because so little of it is on screen. Vidding them as their two characters without focusing on the relationship feels like a better idea, but I did love making that "heaven or hell" bit.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

EEEE! You posted - I was so worried tech difficulties might slay the beautiful viiiid.

As you know, I love the contrast between the two; the flat, repetetive nature of Cain's existence versus the creepy and musically "fuller" without being faster music for Gina. The things Cain did so she wouldn't die - she ends the vid hoping death will spare her over for another year and having that denied her, while Gina's wish for escape comes right at the start, and she spends the rest of her vidlet running to her death and naming herself death.

Thanks for this!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Agg, I wanted to stab this vid in the face for all the trouble it gave me. I was able to pull the sections that the missing frames lost from the draft I sent you. Luckily, those sections didn't change in the final version.

YES!

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

*cries* I read the lyrics. This would be way too triggery for me to watch it.

sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Don't think twice about it. :)

[hollywoodgrrl.livejournal.com]

OMG THAT WAS PHENOMENAL! Srsly awesome amazing brilliant fantabulous use of music. I'm the biggest sucker for having perfect compartmentalization when it comes to mashu-ups or what you did here which is add a cover along with the original. It's just all so perfect for each character. BRILLLLIANT!!!

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Both versions of the song are good in their own way. They both work for the characters too, but in different ways. I love that.

[demonqueen666.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. Really wicked clever use of two versions of this song to make a kind of compare and contrast study of two characters who are already linked. I'm going to have to watch this again a few times, at least. I'm in awe of how you got so much in here in what seems like such a small timeframe.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I love the idea of taking a song and making it work in different ways for different characters. :)

[sheepfairy.livejournal.com]

This is so beautiful! The timing is wonderful, and I love how it keeps cutting back to the shot of Cain running in her portion, quickly at the beginning and then more sparsely as the vid goes on. That, and I really love how it's split into two, with the male version running over Cain and the female version running over Gina.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I liked the visual of her running and what it meant for her character.Cain and Gina are two of my favorite characters.

[chaila.livejournal.com]

Finally watching this! This is among my favorite things you've done, I think. It just feels perfect both as two masterful character studies, and as two POVs on the same relationship and events. It's so raw and intense and beautiful. The contrasts within each vidlet--love and hate, smiling and devastated--as well as the contrast between them is so evocative. The movement and visual connections are gorgeous. It gives me chills. This really brought out Cain's motivations in a very visceral way for me, her relentless survival drive, and Gina, of course, guts me. Guh. I...want to say more about specifics, but it's really all so gorgeous.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I don't hate it like I usually hate my vids when I'm done with them.

Cain and Gina are so different as characters, but they are the same in many ways too.

<#

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

I thought it might cheer you up after your vidding/computer woes if I left you a few looooooooong overdue comments today. So here I am... in 2010. FAIL!

I think I stalled on this one because it just EXPLODED MY BRAIN with its amazingness. I have been continuously going FLAIL FLAIL FLAIL for two years! I couldn't believe that I was getting a Kiki Cain/Gina vid, much less one so absolutely haunting and gut-wrenching.

The two versions of the song are just perfect for each of them. The Cain section works some visual magic to put you inside her head -- it read to me like her life flashing before her eyes in the moment before Gina shoots her. There's a sense of such sympathy and intimacy (with someone who for many was a villain) that breaks my heart. ILU Admiral Cain!!!

When you transition to Gina the visuals become more rapid and disorderly in ways that suggest cylon consciousness. Everything becomes so epic and tragic in its scope in contrast to the deeply personal simplicity of Cain's section. Explosions! But there's still such a strong sense of Gina's perspective as heroine. My favorite part is of course the sneaky suggestion of sex scenes with Cain! On a meta level, it's a gorgeous commentary on and tribute to the lesbians who had to die.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Omg I hate my laptop. I have to start my VVC vids all over again. Curses!

Cain and Gina were such interesting characters and their relationship was one of the most intriguing ones on BSG. They were both so tragic and broken that I couldn't resist a vid. They are so similar, yet so different. Of course they had to die to serve the plot and they died so wonderfully for my vid.