exsequar | Music Video: "Alone and Colder." BTVS, Faith POV/character study

IfinishedIfinishedIfinished!!!! *bounces around spastically* It took me almost a year, but I DID IT! And I am very very proud of the finished product. I'd really appreciate if you all took a look at it. I also wrote up a lot of thoughts and commentary, those are optional though :P

Title: Alone and Colder
Vidder: Anne (

starsouls1013)
Song: "No More Good Guys" by Skindive
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Seasons 3 and 4)
Character: Faith POV, with focus on her relationship with Buffy
Summary: Faith struggles internally between self-hate and a sense of betrayal by Buffy.
Disclaimer: Joss owns them. Obviously. I grovel at Joss’s feet for giving me this kind of material to work with.
Feedback: Is my bread and water. Seriously. I'd really love to know what you think!
A/N: I was really trying to say something about Faith with this video, about her inner turmoil and her complexity, so I think for a real understanding of this vid, you need to listen to the lyrics as you watch. It’s told from Faith’s mindset after the season four episode "Who Are You". Also, it's very important to recognize that a large portion of the video (at least half) uses footage from Faith's nightmares when she is in the coma. So if you haven't seen the show, all the times where Buffy is freaky and evil are in dreams, and Faith only gets stabbed once.
A/N2: Thank you so much to

hermioneluna for a lovely beta job; she really saw the message I was trying to get across and helped me to perceive the video as a whole much more clearly. I’m not sure how many changes I actually made after talking to her (largely because this damn thing took me A YEAR and I was ready to be done with it already!) but she pointed out some really interesting things that I hadn’t even noticed. So thank you hun! :)
A/N3: A huge debt of gratitude is owed to

heres_luck, whose stunning Faith video "Superstar" inspired me to start this one. Her written commentary especially taught me so many things both about the technical aspects of vidding and the complexities of Faith as a character. So lots of thanks to her, and I really recommend her vids to anyone.

Download (21.7 MB, wmv) (Right-click -> Save target as...)
(Thank you thank you thank you to Elena over at www.Cheesejoose.com for hosting me!!)
ETA: That file is a little big, so I saved a smaller version. Here is a YSI link for a 9.34 MB version: http://s60.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0HCJYZH4U67NH1DMF7IKM9SYOZ

Lyrics to "No More Good Guys" by Skindive

I died today
But I’m still breathing
Bleeding
For now
I’m broken

You left me here
Capsized and sinking
Thinking
Right now
There’s no more good guys

You left me standing here
Alone and colder
I hope that someday soon
The pain inside will
Stop

You died today
But you’re still breathing
In my mind
That is
There’s no more good guys

I hoped you’d see me
I hoped you’d understand
Or crucify me
For my own failings
My cruel ambition
Hardly justified
And the pain inside will
Stop

So this is the basic idea I was going for: Faith has a fundamental internal conflict. On the one hand, she feels incredibly guilty for all of the terrible things she has done, and hates herself for it. On the other, she is angry at Buffy for stabbing her, and the result is that Faith feels that there are “no more good guys”. Buffy was always this steadfast pillar of goodness, the one who gave Faith the most chances, but then she committed a terrible act of violence against her. Faith obviously knows on a certain level that she deserved it, but of course she feels betrayed. So there is this torment that she is going through, anger mixed with hurt.

Two major moments that highlight Faith’s mindset can be found in the season four pair of episodes, "This Year’s Girl" and "Who Are You" (which really serve as the focal point of the vid). The first is when Faith has Joyce hostage in her own home, and she is nagging about Buffy never being home for Joyce. She starts getting all worked up, and then she accidentally slips and gives us a peek into the true root of her anger. This is what she says:

"Sooner or later you're gonna have to face it. She was over us a long time ago, Joyce. Too busy climbing onto her new boytoy to give a single thought to the people that matter! I mean, you're her mother and she just leaves you here to die!" (emphasis mine)

Faith is revealing how hurt she is that Buffy has finally turned her back. Without Buffy, the only other person who can possibly understand her, she feels abandoned and alone. Faith’s reaction to that feeling is to lash out angrily, violently, spectacularly – taking Joyce was really a bid for Buffy’s attention. And she got it, didn’t she? In the form of another massive fight, of course, but Faith lives for that kind of thing. However, the point is that Buffy’s regard is incredibly important to Faith, and it is in moments of vulnerability like this one that that comes through clearly.

The second moment is when Buffy and Faith (or Fuffy and Baith, actually) are fighting in the church at the end of "Who Are You". When Faith-in-Buffy starts beating up Buffy-in-Faith, it becomes intensely vicious and hateful, and Faith-in-Buffy grinds out a furious monologue as she is beating the shit out of her own face: "You're nothing! Disgusting! Murderous bitch! (grabs her head and pounds it against the floor) You're nothing! (starts punching her again) You're disgusting!" Here, Faith’s self-hatred becomes clear. She switched bodies with Buffy to escape herself, the shell that she had become, where she could not stand to be any longer. When confronted with her old self again, she falls to pieces. Her own past is something she can’t handle anymore, something she would do anything to get away from. The aftermath of this can be seen even more clearly when she shows up on Angel season 1, but I wanted to keep the focus of this video narrow and precise.

Some technical notes and things... first of all, I have to say this song was a blessing from God. Honestly! The lyrics could not be more perfect, and it’s slow and haunting while still having a very precise beat that is very conducive to the type of vidding I like to do. You might notice that I am quite a stickler about getting things to land on beats. I just find that adds immeasurably to the impact of the video and the experience of watching it. A note about the pacing: I don’t like using long clips at all, so as a result this thing moves along pretty quickly, with sharp cuts happening often. I showed this to someone when it was about half done, and they said that that didn’t really suit the music – my thought is that Faith herself is a very jagged person, with a broken psyche, so her thoughts would be harsh and sharp like this, so the effect is very true to the subject matter. So if you didn’t like that either, there’s the explanation :)

I used Windows Movie Maker, which was, as usual, a huge pain in my ass, which is a large part of why this took half a year to complete. It’s also extremely limiting, so keep that in mind while watching. I, however, do not have the patience nor time to learn Premiere or any of those ridiculously complex programs. Not right now at least. Maybe at some point in the future!

Now for some play by play commentary, just to point out some of my personal favorite bits and clarify what I was trying to say.

The musical intro (0:00 – 0:32) - This section basically outlines the basic premise of what I’m trying to say. Usually I don’t like to vid sections without lyrics, but when I started this vid this whole section appeared very quickly, and I haven’t changed it since. Both technically and thematically it makes me very happy. I think the motion within the clips fits the music and the beats perfectly (some of this was serendipity, some my own machinations). For example, Faith falling off the building and landing in the truck – the cut in the middle of that lands on a subtle beat in the music, but it just works. I also love Faith dropping the knife, and Buffy’s little head tilt.. Now in terms of what I was trying to say here, you may notice a pattern to these bits – they alternate between evil/guilty Faith and victimized/stabbed Faith. In order, we have: 1) Faith in her coma, 2) reaching toward the man she killed, 3) falling off the building after Buffy stabs her, 4) announcing "I don’t care" to a stunned Buffy, 5) in the grave during her dream and psychotic!Buffy looking down on her, 6) pushing the dead demon off her and dropping the knife in shock, and 7) Faith and Buffy exchanging blows at the very beginning of The Big Fight. It’s suitable that this last clip kicks off the rest of the vid, because just as it is the start of the fight that will so lastingly effect Faith, so it begins her journey into the mindset which we find her in this video.

Bleeding… (0:48) I just have to point out that I did not tinker with the timing of the blood drops. I threw that clip on the timeline, anticipating much heartache trying to get it in time, and lo and behold it was perfect!

I’m broken…(0:55 – 1:04) Another instance where the timing worked out unimaginably well. First, her hands striking the ground as she pulls herself out of the grave are in perfect sync, and then the lightning flashes, randomly timed as they are, go with the weird pulses of music. I love it! :D Now, thematically, this bit is interesting for a reason that I did notice, way after the fact, but which

hermioneluna also pointed out to be – in this clip, Faith is actually emerging victorious over Buffy in her dream. So how is she "broken"? Well, I chose the clip because she *looks* broken, soaking and screaming into the rain. But thinking about it, she’s broken because she had to fight Buffy, because Buffy has become evil (in her eyes). Buffy was goodness, and Faith recognized that even while she envied and despised it – so she is screaming for the loss of that goodness ("there’s no more good guys") and the fact that she had the ability to defeat Buffy, which is a very mixed thing for Faith.

You left me here… (1:04 – 1:11) I’m very pleased with this section. I’ve never used intercutting before, and I wanted to juxtapose Buffy tenderly kissing Faith with their normally violent relationship. The section begins with Buffy holding the clean knife and ends with her looking at it covered in dried blood. I particularly love on the word "here" how it transitions from Faith running in the graveyard to punching Buffy hard. The framing of those shots and the internal motion makes for a really neat connection.

The pain inside will… stop (2:00 – 2:12) From the very beginning I knew that I wanted the moment where they switch back to land on “stop.” For visual reasons, because their hands coming together like that is such a visual and arresting moment, which fits perfectly with the intensity of the word "stop". Thematically, this is the moment where Faith is displaying her enormous self hatred by beating the crap out of her own body, so it is key. In that moment Faith is trying to destroy herself, wanting everything to just *stop*, as the lyrics say, but ironically, instead of stopping, she is thrust back into her own body, which she loathes. From a technical point of view, this section was very very hard to do – to get the punches to land with a rhythm that didn’t jar with the music. It was more difficult than I anticipated. I ended up having to use two different shots of Faith-in-Buffy next to each other, so you may notice the slight change in lighting and position at one point in there.

You died today… (2:16 – 2:26) Another part I had in my head from the beginning. In fact, this line, put together with "I died today" in the beginning of the song, was one of the key reasons I chose this song. There is a very strong parallel between Buffy and Faith’s experiences on this day. I know that Faith technically doesn’t even know about this happening, as she was sort of comatose at the time, but it just works too well to not use it. Also, Angel biting Buffy? Really hot :D

There’s no more good guys… (2:38 – 2:47) This is the second of only two times that this line appears in the song (as I edited it). You’ll notice both times have Buffy as the aggressor, the one who is no longer a “good guy.” However, as

hermioneluna pointed out to me, brilliantly, this would have been an opportunity to show that Faith no longer sees herself as a good guy. I really wanted to change to a clip that underlined Faith’s guilt and self-hatred, but I didn’t have the clips I wanted and was too lazy to go and rip them, and also, again, I just really wanted to be done with this video. But that would have been really cool! :P Nevertheless, I love how Buffy jumps into the grave, falling downward with the music.

My cruel ambition, hardly justified (3:04 – 3:11) This section requires some knowledge about what is going on to understand the context and what her cruel ambition is, which I apologize for to anyone who hasn’t seen the show, but it was necessary. In keeping with the focus on Faith’s relationship with Buffy, I wanted to make her "cruel ambition" her plan to take Angel from Buffy by turning him evil. So her ambition is shown when she is trying to cozy up to Angel by coming crying to him, and it’s "hardly justified" both when the "evil" Angel beats her up and when it’s revealed that it’s a hoax (that’s one of my favorite shots ever, by the way, Faith turning around in slo-mo). I’m not sure how well that comes across though, I’m too close to see it objectively.

Stop (3:20 – 3:23) This one is also ironic, as Faith stabbing Finch is actually where all her pain began. The clip changes from color to black and white halfway through, just as Faith pulls the stake out – this represents her world’s complete alteration with this one act, and the cause of her slide into evil. Also, it just looks cool.

End sequenceThis is my least favorite part of the vid, but I was too burned out to change it too much. I do like how Faith slams her hand into the wall right on the ominous downbeat in the middle of this sequence. The style of it is a departure for me, obviously, with the fades and the inexact timing. Which is why I don’t like it, although I’ve been told it works. I wish I could say there was some cool reason why the last two clips were in color, but really WMM just decided to be a butt and refuse to grayscale any more clips. It’s like it ran out of grayscaling juice. But it works out, so it’s okay. And then Faith wakes up again, bringing the video full circle.

So I’ve rambled on far too long. I apologize. All of this was mostly for my own benefit anyway, but if you read it, thank you and I admire your patience! Please let me know what you think :)