Read Any Good Fic Lately?

Vid Rec/Review: Run by Amothea

Vid Rec/Review: Run (scroll to the bottom of the page)
Song Artist: Snow Patrol
Vidder: amothea (Amalthia)

Sometimes the words really are all you need.

Way back early on in the first half of Supernatural's first season, I had a song in my head that I really wanted to see vidded to. I think I put it out there the first time, Novemberish, but finally added it onto my Christmas Wish list and lo and behold amothea stepped up and made a vid and it was good. I want to make it really clear that other than putting the lyrics/song out there, I really didn't provide any potential vidder with much of guidance about what I was thinking at the time.

The song itself I'd first heard while I was still in The Fast and the Furious fandom, and I'd always thought it would make a great Dom/Brian song but I could never really put it together in my head and with only a movie's worth of clips to use, most of the vidders I knew had done the TFATF vids and moved on (a downside to one-shot movie viding).

Amothea took all the most crucial elements of the song and wrapped them around some really excellent clips. She had less than half the season to work with (and the fact that she made such an interesting and lovely vid with so little to work from is pretty amazing in and of itself), and even so, she used a good many clips and pans that I still am not seeing reused a lot in later vids. She also uses longer pans in some of phrasings, extending a clip to fill the entire lyric line, which actually works really well for this song, which has an incredibly steady pace and only the smallest of crescendos.

A good many of the clip to lyric relationships are very literal, and by and large, most of them work really well -- there's not really a through story line. She isn't really saying anything new about the characters or their journey, but it is a pretty solid commentary on Sam's relationship with and grief over Jessica, and further into the song, his relationship with Dean. (i.e. at 1:57 I can hardly speak I understand, Why you can't raise your voice to say she uses a clip where Sam has just woken up from another horrible dream and he and Dean look at each other but don't speak, but the lyric line supports the context of the scene in a marvelous way. )

So, in that respect, the vid is far more illustrative than narrative, but it really does punch up some lovely emotional moments in the series, which is all to the good, because despite my oft repeated claim that I prefer metaphor to literalness, there are songs that lend themselves to more content on clip ratios and this song is one of them. (Not that it couldn't be stretched to metaphor, but that the song itself doesn't automatically summon them to mind.

The only time it doesn't really work for me in this vid is on the chorus lines Light up, light up, As if you have a choice which, were presented literally -- with the images of Mary and Jess bursting into flames. Those particular moments evoked less of an emotional impact as one would think from those two traumatic and even seminal events in the series, than they did a kind of nervous, morbid laughter, which could work were the vid (or song) more intense than it actually is. But in all honesty, I'm incapable of even coming up with an alternative interpretation of those lines in the context of this vid, other than to suggest possibly the use of the boys' smiles, but that would be (in my mind anyway) a step away from the other literal elements that do work so well, and pushing metaphor in at those points would probably feel equally as odd.

But beyond that, what amothea has done with her clip choices, her cuts, is very cool and really, overall makes me incredibly happy. She's done and excellent job of illustrating Sam's shift of emotional investment in Jess to reclaiming his emotional investment in Dean and she's done and equally lovely job of illustrating Dean's steadfastness both in the face of Sam's tragedy and his whole life.

Overall though, this vid works for me because the lyric line does, because amothea has a great eye for underlying emotional meaning in her clip choices, and because the pacing of the vid matches up to the pacing of the song incredibly well. It's a solidly enjoyable vid, and plucks all the right heartstrings.


SNOW PATROL LYRICS
"Run"

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice

posted by Maygra @ 8:18 PM