Almost Blue by metzlimoon

Vidder's Notes

Almost Blue (Touching the Void)

One of the hardest things about making a vid is knowing where to start. Sometimes, the song and the images leap into your head and demand to be put together THIS INSTANT. More often it's a case of having a concept, some story you want to tell and then you spend days (weeks even) searching for the right song to tell it with. That's before you even get to the editing program! And sometimes someone presents you with a story- a whole 20,000 words of one. Trust me, that didn't make starting any easier. :-)

On choosing the story:

Not as odd as it sounds. My assigned tale was only the beginning... Touching the Void is a wonderful concept, told with a great sensitivity to the voices of the characters. I knew at once I had to make something that captured those points of view. Which led me to a difficult decision, whose voice? Whose point of view do I use?

The story is very much Ianto's, and very much Jack's -- with the extra complication of their being separated in time that made it very difficult to use them both. Add in that the experiences and concerns of the characters were complex and honestly written- how to choose which aspect (of the many) to bring out in the video? On this occasion, finding the song helped immensely.

On choosing a song:

One thing I wanted was to try and pick something with the right feel for a story set partly in Wartime London. I discarded most of the classic songs of the period because the cheese factor was high, and the fit to the story was low. Early potentials included John Barrowman's rendition of "Time after Time", and Evanescence's "Taking over me" (the latter, not being very 40s, would have produced a very different video indeed.)

While trawling the internet for (and I quote myself) 'something jazzy bluesy and a bit 1940s' I stumbled onto Almost Blue on a covers album. And after the line 'There's a boy here and he's almost you' -- well, how could I resist! One trip to buy the music later and I was ready to start.

At this point the song and the story slotted nicely together. The story I was telling was going to be Ianto's, as he struggles to requite the memories and love of *his* Jack with his relationship with the younger, pre-Doctor Jack. I hope I got that aspect of the story right, anonymous author!

I should also mention I made the choice to clip the song a little- there was a long piece of very beautiful piano that was proving so hard to find clips for, I trimmed it out. Hopefully you barely notice!

On clips:

The Empty Child and the Doctor Dances (I love you, Moffat!) were obviously going to be a port of call for clips of 1940s Jack. I will say, I applaud Billie Piper and Chris Eccleston's tenacious attempts to sneak in on the edges of clips. Thanks guys!

Clips of Ianto in the 40s were going to be nigh on impossible (what I wouldn't have given for Gareth in a Fedora!)- and I also realised I'd barely vidded anything from Torchwood season two so hadn't scrutinised it in any depth. So, an excuse to watch most of the season again then ?

The song gave me a blue theme I tried to return to throughout the video -- aided by the fact that of course, it's also the colour of Jack's eyes and his entire wardrobe. It meant there were some clips I had to abandon using, anything heavily red- so a lot of Ianto's finer weepy moments from Cyberwoman were out very early on. Plus, I was aiming for melancholy not misery....

I also borrowed a clip from one of my previous vids (I was trying desperately to remember which episode it was from but pulled a total blank) -- if you look carefully you can spot it from the artefact I didn't QUITE manage to get out of the frame.

Having picked clips (and done various cruel acts of re-sizing, cropping and reversing out the background and supporting cast) - how now to distinguish between Ianto's thoughts and memories of his own time, and his experiences in 1941? I opted for making Ianto's 'now' the colour sequence, and turned my mind to the thoughts and memories aspect.

Black and white looked too dull, and sepia looked very wrong. What I did in the end was colour pass- which basically means faded out the colours except for those in shades I wanted- unsurprisingly blue. I think it mostly worked and there's a couple of the colour passes I am really chuffed with, particularly because I've never used colour pass before this video! After the opinion of a friend (video beta!) I also feathered the edges of those clips a little to help with the distinction between them.

To back that up, I tried to keep scene and episode consistency ? so the parts from Fragments and Small Worlds are all 'in the past'. I knew quite early I wanted the scene of the rift from Captain Jack Harkness right at the end ? it proved to be a pain in the end getting things where I wanted them for that sequence... although I'm pretty happy with it now. As for the rest, it was a matter of seeing some clips 'happen' with the music, and then coaxing the others along until they formed the story I want to tell.

What I hope I've done is create a video that focuses on Ianto's point of view, as he remembers his Jack and deals with the memories stirred and temptations caused by the presence of Jack's earlier self.

I hope you like 'Touching the Void' I hope you like 'Almost Blue' and I hope, mystery writer, that I have done your work justice!

Made with Premiere Elements v. 3 (with VISTA patch) on my Acer Aspire 5630. Actual working time around 24 hours.

I can has bigger hard drive now, plz?