hieroglyfic dreams

I made two vids for festivids, both for the same recipient, janetmaca:

Lost in Translation: Missing Person

Bon Cop Bad Cop: You say tomato, I say tabarnak

(Links lead to the festivids posting journal, where you can stream the unsigned version or download the signed version.) Big thanks to keerawa for beta.

I had matched with my recipient on Bon Cop Bad Cop, but I was intrigued by her request for Lost in Translation, a movie I liked but hadn't offered. As it happened, I had recently downloaded the Split Enz album True Colours (which I had owned on cassette tape, which gives you an idea of how old it is) and the suitability of "Missing Person" for a Lost in Translation vid immediately seized me and wouldn't let go.

What I get from the movie - and what I wanted to express in the vid - is the sense of being isolated and alienated in a strange place, surrounded by people who don't "get it", and how finding a kindred soul reduces that feeling, how having someone to share an experience with makes it better. It was pretty obvious to give a verse each to Bob and Charlotte and then one to them together, and there were a lot of lines which lent themselves perfectly to literal interpretation - neon lights, "to be on my own", "eyes open wide" etc. I cut a bit of the second chorus and the musical bridge, but otherwise left the song alone.

Technically this vid is pretty simple, mostly just basic speed manipulation and some clip-flipping, but I did play with animated zoom in several scenes near the end. Amusingly, the opening shot of Bob waking up echoes the opening shot of Richard waking up in a Slings & Arrows vid I made a few years ago. I guess I like guys in beds?

Home to sweet home,
It just occurred to me
To be on my own,
In search of bitter treats
I get so removed
But you never notice it
Step in my shoes,
You'll see that I don't fit

I walk home,
The wrong way,
Hoping I'll go astray
I'd like to be a missing person

Eyes open wide,
But all I see is black
You thought I was alright
Just wait til you get back
There'll be no-one home
And they'll stay up all night
Everyone I know,
I'm wishing you goodnight

I walk home,
The wrong way,
Hoping I'll go astray
I'd like to be a missing person

(Missing Person)
(Missing Person)

And I fly by night,
Fighting to get away
On the neon lights
I slip down alley ways
Only safe and sound
when silence brings a chill
Now my back is turned,
I know I can't stand still

I walk home the wrong way,
This time I'll go astray
I like to be a missing person
I wander the highways,
Asleep in your doorways
I'm wanted but I'm a missing person

Missing person,
missing person,
missing person...

I had wanted to make a Bon Cop Bad Cop vid for a very long time, and had a lot of ideas floating around. janetmaca had mentioned the buddy and comedy aspects of the movie in her dear festividder letter, so I wanted to focus on those. I thought the song "Let's call the whole thing off" would play nicely with the Anglophone/Quebecois tension that is the source of so much of the comedy. Unfortunately a lot of it - especially the main duet part - was too much of an actual narrative to be a soundtrack, so to speak, so I had to cut it quite severely.

Serendipitously the first thing I saw, when I started clipping, was Martin holding up his badge and then David holding up his badge. This was perfect for the beginning of the vid, and set up the you do this - I do that rhythm. Since the lyrics are more conceptual than literal, I mostly ignored the literal meaning and just went with the back-and-forth imitative clips (which I love in vids) except for the bridge in which, okay, I get a little slashy and almost LKBV-ish with the hurt looks and the unspoken desire and...okay, maybe it's just me. (YES I SHIP IT.) So it's all you do this, I do that, and then things (in some cases quite literally :-) fall apart. Or EXPLODE.

Technically, this vid was a BEAR. I had a downloaded copy which had been ripped with subtitles, which I knew would present a technical problem; I had hoped to rent the DVD to rip without subtitles, but circumstances dictated otherwise. When I started clipping, I also noticed that the aspect ratio was off, with the typical "tall and skinny" squished effect, so when I saved my clips I also resized to the proper aspect ratio, which as it turned out completely messed things up later. About a third of the clips I ended up using had subtitles, so I had to crop them, and because I had saved the clips letterboxed, I had to clip the cropped version to maintain the bars on top and bottom, and it took a while to figure out how much to clip. I also brightened some of the darkest clips and combined a couple of clips with a fade and garbage matte to get character A with background B, and there was the usual amount of time-stretching and time-squashing, plus a little animated zooming and a lot more dissolves than I usually use. Finally, when I exported the final version, because the dimensions of the clips were stretched relative to what Premere liked, the result was squashed - shorter and fatter. I resized with VirtualDubMod but had to experiment with dimensions, because the first try, done with calculated dimensions, was obviously off. Oog. On the other hand, I got a lot of practice with Premiere. :-)

The title is a play on the line that most people remember from the song. 'Tabarnak' is an all-purpose Quebecois swear-word.

You say either and I say either,
You say neither and I say neither
Either, either
Neither, neither
Let's call the whole thing off.

You like potato and I like potahto
You like tomato and I like tomahto
Potato, potahto,
Tomato, tomahto.
Let's call the whole thing off
But oh, if we call the whole thing off
Then we must part
and oh, if we ever part
Then that might break my heart

So if you like pyjamas
and I like pyjahmas,
I'll wear pyjamas
and give up pyajahmas
for we know we need each other so we
Better call the calling off off
Let's call the whole thing off
Let's call the whole thing off.