by Alice Martineau
River's transition from an outsider to a member of the Firefly family was one of my favourite aspects of the show. Then I came across vidding and I knew I had to give it a go. I already had a song in mind, so all I had to do was learn how it was done. Of course it was never going to be that easy!
Initially I think I was probably a touch too ambitious. I had so many themes and ideas many of which went by the wayside as I tried to improve the vid. The vid itself was essentially divided in two. The first half was to establish River as the troubled young sister, with the second half showing her growing acceptance by the rest of the crew culminating in River taking on an almost protective role on Serenity.
I tended to put a strong emphasis on the lyrics, either literally or metaphorically. For example, there are three instances of the line "sometimes there is a silence". In the first you see River writing in her journal, the second follows a brush with death and her reaction to it and the third is ironic in that the clip shows the crew sitting around laughing. There were also a few ideas that kinda vanished in the end.
In the first half (prior to River "sitting up against the sky") I tried to keep the colours and tone rather severe, moving on to warmer colours in the second half of the vid. I also originally wanted to keep the motion in the clips moving from left to right, top to bottom or pulling away initially, with it reversing for the second half. That never really worked, but in the end I just hope that I managed to do the subject matter justice.
Considering this was my first vid, I certainly learnt a lot and I would like to say a big thankyou to both Sunny and especially Laura Shapiro from the Vidder Yahoo! Group for taking the time to help me improve it immeasurably. Many thanks!
If you have any questions or comments about this vid, please email me at the.pug @ gmail.com.
