Fanvid: "Grapevine Fires" (Star Trek)
Jan. 17th, 2010 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

I couldn't think, of anywhere I would have rather been, to watch it all, burn away...
Fandom: pan-Star Trek (movies, 24th Century Prime timeline)
Characters: Spock, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway...
Song: "Grapevine Fires" by Death Cab for Cutie
Length: 4:19
Downloads: 60.6 mbs in .mpg / 76 mbs in .avi (best)
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Star Trek - death, rebirth, death again.
It took almost nine months to make, though I did scrap a first draft when I switched from Premier Pro to Sony Vegas. I could have made a human being in that time. Special thanks to
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This video may seem like I'm deeply ambivalent about the new canon - I am not. Overall I appreciate the effort made by the Supreme Court of Bad Robot to ensure that the Trek I grew up with still 'happened' and matters. That said, I feel a deep sense of finality and regret about the movie: in redefining Star Trek to only be about the original crew, we're both saying goodbye to all the other characters and their journeys, and in some ways limiting the palette of what Star Trek can be about to the mass audience.
Here's to the journey, though! The Undiscovered Country! There really is no place I would have rather been, to watch it all burn away.
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Date: 2010-01-17 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-17 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-17 10:22 pm (UTC)By the way, in case you're wondering why I'm here, it's from a rec on Live Journal by inlovewithnight.
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Date: 2010-01-17 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-01-17 10:59 pm (UTC)And *bittersweet*.
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Date: 2010-01-17 11:11 pm (UTC)tehlime @ lj
Date: 2010-01-17 11:22 pm (UTC)First of all. A Death Cab vid! !!! Perfect song choice, really. Uhm. Second. You did a jaw dropping job of incorporating a universe of canon into one video. More than that, into one "flash" if you will. And framing it with the mindmeld is just perfect. I didn't read the description very carefully, because I only saw the part about it being a Star Trek vid, and so when the characters from the various shows appeared, I was surprised and delighted. It works very well. The narrative of the video is very sound, even without the mindmeld sequence. You interwove the old and the new footage together in a seemless, yet new way. I love how it starts with both of them, and then moves to the new footage, and then lingers for a while with the old... I don't know quite how to describe it, but it's very much unlike an previous old/new Star Trek video I've seen. And I mean that in a good way.
Anyway, enough rambling. Fantastic job, I'm saving this to go back to, because I know I'm going to end up watching this multiple times! :)
Re: tehlime @ lj
Date: 2010-01-18 03:45 am (UTC)I debated if I should spoil their appearance or not - finally decided to do it because it's the reason I made this vid and you might as well advertise that up front. Glad you didn't read too carefully and it came as a surprise though! :D I'm also glad you think the narrative stands on its own without the flashback. I'm always very concerned with strong narrative on the rare occasion I make a vid.
If you watch it again, definitely download the .avi version as I think it has the best picture clarity.
And thank you again for such effusive praise. It warms my soul.
Re: tehlime @ lj
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-01-21 03:00 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: tehlime @ lj
From:no subject
Date: 2010-01-17 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-17 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 03:50 am (UTC)Also, LOL, your icon.
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From:no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 03:59 am (UTC)Obviously I thought it was a clever enough conceit that it deserved a video - I was really terrified as the video took longer, and longer to make, that someone would get to this idea first and do it better. Fortunately while I've seen some people do the mind-meld to travel back to Prime!Kirk and Spock's relationship, and one which used it as a bridge to show the fanlove, no one ever got around to Kirk-Spock-PICARD.
What I found myself wishing as I placed the last clips in the montage was that the song was longer, or that I was a better editor. There's so much about the Prime Trekverse that I didn't have time to fit in - I wanted a clip of O'Brien and his family, of Guinan's adventures, of Neelix and Kes, of Quark's bar and Vic Fontaine and all of it...
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Date: 2010-01-18 04:14 am (UTC)The cut to the mind meld with Picard? PERFECTLY chosen. I really did not expect it.
Oh- and I don't know enough about vidding tech to know how you did it, but you made the very different production values/look-and-feels of the different shows/movies really *feel* like they belonged on a screen together, where in other vids the differences can seem jarring.
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Date: 2010-01-18 04:58 am (UTC)Even though I've known for a really long time we'd never see Sisko on screen again, it still wounds me to think that the 24th Century of the new Trek won't be MY 24th Century. No Khitomer treaty with Curzon drinking it up with Klingons, no Dominion War at Bajor's back, no Picard assimilated and then traumatized by the Borg. It still exists, of course, but only in the memory, sleeping.
The cut to the mind meld with Picard? PERFECTLY chosen. I really did not expect it.
I CANNOT BELIEVE I was the first person to do it. I held my breath every time someone posted a pan-Trek vid for nine months because I was just so sure someone else would get there and do it better.
Oh- and I don't know enough about vidding tech to know how you did it, but you made the very different production values/look-and-feels of the different shows/movies really *feel* like they belonged on a screen together, where in other vids the differences can seem jarring.
DVD-quality rips. It turns out that if you get proper rips of the original films, they're basically already in the same aspect ratio of the new movie - with some tiny fudging. Getting the TV series-es to look that good was a slightly more involved prospect that basically involved doing the math on the ratio and then individual cropping and adjusting on each scene.
Which was all technically easier for me in Sony as it uses .avi as a native format rather than Premier, which has an .avi antipathy. Though I still have NO idea how to do anything more advanced than this in Sony Vegas, alas.
Also fortunate is the fact that Paramount has always filmed Star Trek ON FILM and not on upgraded television stock tapes. This means that they've remastered all the really scuzzy looking TNG episodes recently - though chronologically, the video doesn't actually use many clips from the worst seasons. As the worst seasons are also not very good.
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Date: 2010-01-18 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 05:20 am (UTC)I think it would be polite and truthful to say that I made it for myself, but once I committed to the idea of it, you would be surprised how much I wanted to be fair in the montage. Especially to Voyager fans. I rewatched quite a few episodes. I felt like I couldn't do it unless I found good things to say about Voyager, and I think I did. If nothing else I came away with a renewed appreciation for the episodes on Voyager I thought were successful.
The montage was the BANE of my existence because I would have to watch an episode to select maybe three seconds of it for the video. Making it a really slow process, and halfway through I loathed that I had bit all of it off. Except that by the end I was really sad that I had such limited time in the bridge of the song - I wanted Vic Fontaine, and Nog's Leg. I wanted Guinan in her time traveling days, and Beverly and Wesley aren't in it let alone Pulaski, and the O'Brien family picnic, and Neelix and Kes...
Odo and Kira are only in it once, even! There's no crazy eyed Gowron, or Dukat, or Weyoun. I cut a bit with Seska and Chakotay.
So yeah. It broke my heart a number of times to make it, especially playing triage with the montage. I wish there could be so much more.
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Date: 2010-01-18 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 08:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-18 08:36 am (UTC)It's a phoenix in vid form, for me. Thank you very much for sharing it. :}
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Date: 2010-01-19 12:23 am (UTC)i especially love the melancholy in this, ♥
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Date: 2010-01-19 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-19 07:31 am (UTC)Superb vid!
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