Vid Announcement: Miracle and Wonder

[jmtorres]

So a very close friend of mine from high school got married this weekend, and as one of my wedding presents for her, I recreated a Star Wars vid I made, oh, five years ago, when the only way I could get footage into iMovie was to point a digital camcorder at the television. The original vid no longer exists (thankfully?). I looked high and low for a copy, and couldn't find anything.

I remember a good deal of how the original went, and it was very literalist--"lasers in the jungle" were the speederbike chase on Endor; "a distant constellation dying in a corner of the sky" was always the Death Star blowing up; "a shattering of shop windows" was Luke getting sucked through the window into the Cloud City core. A good deal of that stayed in the vid, but some things, I changed, because as I started figuring out what I was doing, the theme that revealed itself was one of nostalgia: These are the days of miracle and wonder, says the song, and that's how we felt about Star Wars when we were young, before we got cynical about George Lucas and the prequels and everything.

Nostalgia is something I could never have accomplished at the time; you can't be nostalgic for something you're right in the middle of. But now, looking back, this vid is about all the things in those movies that warmed my heart, that I wanted to share with and remind the Bride of.

Miracle and Wonder
(AVI, divx, 27.1MB, 3:19, 640x270, 29.97fps)
song Boy in the Bubble by Paul Simon
original Star Wars trilogy by George Lucas
vid by jmtorres

(If you want to link to this vid, please link to this post rather than directly to the vid. Please do not redistribute. Basic vid etiquette, etc.)

Also on AO3.

Comments

[cloudtrader.livejournal.com]

That was really nice! I liked it, especially the Princess Leia as the long-distance phonecall, heheehee.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Hee, which time? *grins at you*

[cloudtrader.livejournal.com]

Both. The first one because, yeah, she's calling for help, and the second one because that's the scene where she knows that Luke is okay, right? She calls him at the beginning of the vid, he calls her at the end, it's touching and stuff.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Yes! It's all cyclical and stuff!

[kanzenhanzai.livejournal.com]

Ooh, nice job! I would not have thought to put Star Wars together with Boy in the Bubble, but wow, does that work very well *g*

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

*grins* That's how my brain works...

[mranderson71.livejournal.com]

LOL @ "Lasers in the Jungle"!

Is this encoded using the new H264 MP4 codec? Nice resolution-to-file size ratio there....

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

No, I avoided using the H.264 codec because I saved one of my drafts in it and at least one of my beta viewers couldn't see it. Not everyone's all up to date yet.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

Taking a copy. Thank you.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Taking a copy = downloading to view? That's what it's there for...

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

Yes. I did watch it, and I loved it and thought it was completely splendid, and as soon as I get home I'm going to show it to my dad and brothers. I just commented because I wasn't sure if you needed to track bandwidth use or something, and I'd rather err on the side of caution.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Nah, my site stats give me a pretty good idea of the bandwidth.

Thanks for the feedback, though! I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to want to share it with your family :-)

[janet-carter.livejournal.com]

Oh, this works so well (both on the "lasers in the jungle" level and the "miracle and wonder" level) - I really enjoyed it!

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Literalism yay! Completely not-deep metaphors yay! *grins* Thanks!

[copracat]

I love that song. I love your vid. It's wonderful and it makes me smile. I loved your scene choices, possibly most of all for 'a loose affiliation'.

of millionaires, and billionaires, and baby

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

That was most definitely part of the new, nostalgia-y scene choices. Anytime I can use cross-fades to convey growth/transformation/connection, I feel brilliant!

[scarletamethyst.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed watching this video, the scene transitions were very nicely done and the song fit as if it were made for the video ^_^. Watching the video reminded me of when I first saw the Star Wars trilogy so many years ago on TV, when it all seemed so exciting and intriguing. Although I loved the original series, somehow I could never work up the enthusiasm to watch the prequels. This was a lovely video, your friend is a very lucky girl ^_^

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. (And she is, but mostly because, you know, she got married to a great guy, not because I gave her a vid. Heh.)

[magnifica7.livejournal.com]

Awesome. You truly brought back the love!

Thank you! :)

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Aww, I don't think it ever really died. It hibernates in the souls of geeks everywhere.

[nic]

Oh, that was both very clever/beautifully executed, and wonderfully touching as well. I'm so glad you were able to finish this - and thank you for also sharing it with us.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Deadlines are like cattle prods! *grins*

You're welcome. I'm touched by how many people have watched it and remembered being moved.

[qe2.livejournal.com]

Here via friend and vidpimp thefourthvine, and very much looking forward to treating myself to this at the end of a working Sunday. I'm of an age to remember attending the first Star Wars movie and in the mood for a bit of well-done nostalgia. Thank you very kindly for ringing both bells.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! I hope it lives up to your expectations.

[qe2.livejournal.com]

I've no doubt that it will. Thanks again.

[afearfulthing.livejournal.com]

Ooooo. That was really good. Goes in my keeper file. The movement, in the clips and in the cutting, the little wiggle Luke does on the ledge matched with the woom-py bit in the music - great fun to watch. I knew the song already, so I was kind of bopping along to the opening credits. I love the punctuation in that.
'Nostalgia' seems kind of an odd way to put it, to me. Recapturing the excitement, yes... 'Nostalgic' is not the word I would have used. Probably because I watched the old version on video all throughout my childhood, and I don't feel like I ever left it behind.
All the things in those movies I love... but you used the new version? o_O I didn't actually notice that some things were the new insertions the first time I watched it.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

but you used the new version? o_O

Being under deadline for the wedding, I had to finish it before the original versions came out on DVD. I am considering whether I want to go back and drop the original explosions in or whether I am in post-vidding "so sick of this now" mode. Heh.

'Nostalgia' seems kind of an odd way to put it, to me. Recapturing the excitement, yes... 'Nostalgic' is not the word I would have used. Probably because I watched the old version on video all throughout my childhood, and I don't feel like I ever left it behind.

I also watched the old version on video my entire childhood, but I do felt like I left the SW universe behind sometime during the prequels: it started to feel like a joke, and not a very funny one. I let my lukewarm reaction to the prequels color my enjoyment of the original trilogy to the extent that when I came back to this, I had to rediscover why I had loved these movies to get into it. For me, it was nostalgia.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I keep getting an error, server can't be found. Is the link still good? Or is it uploaded somewhere else I can try?

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

I moved servers recently--try it now.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

It worked great!

Wow, what a vid. When the sounded started up, I was a little wtf? Because the intro sounds a little bizarre, but once the lyrics and the clips started going I was totally there. I really like how you make a connection between two things using the song as a bridge, the connection between the two suns and Alderaan exploding, most notably.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Hee, yes, I was inexplicably proud of my use of the fade as a storytelling device. *grins*

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was fun. I think it hit my nostalgia button perfectly. I first saw the very first original Star Wars movie when I was 13, standing in line on opening day with my high school science fiction club. And ps I am a total literalist when it comes to vids - which I know is considered Not The Done Thing, but I don't care - and I loved the lasers in the jungle. So there.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Awww, thank you! *grins* I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[vampirespider.livejournal.com]

Uhm, so I have a thing for this song (like, big thing. I'm not sure why.) and this vid just makes the greatest use of it ever. Seriously. I think I could watch this vid on loop for hours, except that I have a sudden need to go watch the triology. Thank you so much for making this!

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Aw, this makes me very happy. Loved the sense of nostalgia.

Fav parts:
Luke's stumble on the burpy horn blast
The image of the funeral prye--very majestic.
And of course -- lasers in the jungle: hee!

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I love it!

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

:-) thank you.