Vid Amnesty

[seekingferret]

kerithwyn says I should post this, so I guess I will. I feel awkward about it, though.

Blonde Redhead from ronarfelq on Vimeo.

password: fringe

The story of this vid is that DNA is a fake band started in the late 70s by three visual artists/performance artists who didn't know how to play instruments. Because it was the late 70s, they got gigs all over the Lower East Side anyway and developed a cult following for their raucous and enthusiastic bad songs. It was something called "no wave" that I remain baffled by now, but I kind of love their music because even on the recordings you can hear how passionate they are about BEING A FUCKING BAND. Ikue Mori, the band's drummer, eventually learned a little bit about electronic music and I learned of DNA by attending some of Mori's mid-2000s electronic music concerts on the Lower East Side.

DNA's 'hit', if you can call it that, is a 'song' called 'Blonde Redhead' with urgently hissed or sometimes blurrily drawled lyrics over dissonant guitar playing and a mostly steady, occasionally wobbly drumbeat. I once described it to sanguinity as 'DNA's songiest song'.

Because most of my vids start as puns, I decided to try to vid "Blonde Redhead" to the story of Olivia and Altlivia, the two versions of Fringe's Olivia Dunham who live in alternate universes and who are only different at first glance becauce Altlivia has red hair and Olivia has blonde hair. There is much more to the differences than that, ultimately- Altlivia walks more confidently, cracks jokes more easily, smiles more quickly... Anna Torv's two performances are a study in subtle acting. But at first glance, Blonde/Redhead is the fundamental contrast.

I put together a timeline, and I liked good chunks of it, but there were parts that were always intended as placeholders, so I could have something in the vid to explain when I sent it to betas asking for suggestions. Most notably is my one attempt at a significant visual effect, where I try to parallel the show's image of Olivia in Tankworld by using blurs and lighting effects to synthesize Altlivia in Tankworld. The result is a disaster. There are a number of other, less obviously terrible problems with the vid, and I uploaded it to Dropbox to share with a few people I trusted for advice.

Then my laptop was stolen and I lost my timeline. Since then, I've shared the draft I had saved in my email with a few Fringe fan friends I trusted, to show them where I got and what could have been, but I've been too demoralized by the loss of all that work to try to remake it and finish it. But to hell with it, here's the vid draft. It sucks in places, but in other places it's pretty fucking rad. But I'm never going to finish it, so what the hell, feel free to watch it, knowing I'm unsatisfied with it.