VID: Blow (The Prisoner)
May. 18th, 2013 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jetpack_monkeyTitle: Blow
Source: The Prisoner (1967)
Song: Ke$ha - Blow
Made for:sweetestdrain
Spoilers: The whole series.
Warnings: Some quick cuts. Gun violence with muzzle flash.
Summary: By hook or by crook, this place about to blow.
Vimeo password: likeblazes
Download H.264 MP4 (right/ctrl-click and "Save link as")
This premiered at VidUKon 2013, my very first VidUKon premiere (and I believe the only time I've had a vid show there ever). I was sad I could not be there to see it with the crowd. Oh well.
So, when I was 19? 20? A friend sat me down with the first couple episodes of The Prisoner and just said, "Watch." And I did. And then I borrowed his box set and watched the rest. It was just so... weird. And surreal. And it had a very strong point of view that I didn't always agree with, necessarily, but I felt the passion behind the arguments and I never felt put out by the conflict of ideals. Then the ending came and it's like "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?" Seriously. What. I had no idea what I just saw, but I felt so invigorated by not understanding.
Long story short, this sucker's lived in my brain this whole time. And what's most fascinating to me has always been Number 2. Different actors (nearly) every week, different personalities, different approaches... But always the same title and always the same goal.
And they are insidious. Their job is bend Number 6 without breaking him because (conveniently) he is far too valuable to scar permanently. So what do they do? They let him have his little escape plans for the first half of the series. They try using them to their own advantage, although Number 6 is a little too clever for that. Then, when they get fed up with his escape attempts, they spend an entire episode ("Many Happy Returns") sending him a very specific message -- leaving here is possible. Escape is not.
The message succeeds; Number 6 stops trying to escape after that point. But blocking off Number 6's singular obsession -- and doing it by flanking him successfully in the ongoing mind game -- is ultimately their undoing. Number 6 realizes at that point that the only way to leave the Village is to completely undo it. And so the rest of the series (where it's not ridiculous divergences that came from ITC ordering more episodes than McGoohan wanted to make) is a series of episodes where 2 tries to break 6 and 6 tries to break 2 (and by extension, the Village).
Basically, I always wanted to do a Number 2 vid, even bearing in mind that the multiple-actors-same-role thing would be tricky to pull off (this isn't Doctor Who, after all -- The Prisoner doesn't have nearly the same level of popularity, nor does it have easy visual markers like regenerations).![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jumpercut was a huge Prisoner fan (check out her vid) and we spent some time babbling about the series there and on IRC afterward. And I just... something clicked. So that's why it's for her. Because I might have come up with the idea for the vid before we became close friends, but she's the primary reason that there is a finished vid at all.
Thanks to Sweetestdrain andabsolutedestiny for valuable betaing and notes. Thanks to VidUKon for showing my vid.
Be seeing you.
Source: The Prisoner (1967)
Song: Ke$ha - Blow
Made for:
sweetestdrainSpoilers: The whole series.
Warnings: Some quick cuts. Gun violence with muzzle flash.
Summary: By hook or by crook, this place about to blow.
Vimeo password: likeblazes
Download H.264 MP4 (right/ctrl-click and "Save link as")
This premiered at VidUKon 2013, my very first VidUKon premiere (and I believe the only time I've had a vid show there ever). I was sad I could not be there to see it with the crowd. Oh well.
So, when I was 19? 20? A friend sat me down with the first couple episodes of The Prisoner and just said, "Watch." And I did. And then I borrowed his box set and watched the rest. It was just so... weird. And surreal. And it had a very strong point of view that I didn't always agree with, necessarily, but I felt the passion behind the arguments and I never felt put out by the conflict of ideals. Then the ending came and it's like "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?" Seriously. What. I had no idea what I just saw, but I felt so invigorated by not understanding.
Long story short, this sucker's lived in my brain this whole time. And what's most fascinating to me has always been Number 2. Different actors (nearly) every week, different personalities, different approaches... But always the same title and always the same goal.
And they are insidious. Their job is bend Number 6 without breaking him because (conveniently) he is far too valuable to scar permanently. So what do they do? They let him have his little escape plans for the first half of the series. They try using them to their own advantage, although Number 6 is a little too clever for that. Then, when they get fed up with his escape attempts, they spend an entire episode ("Many Happy Returns") sending him a very specific message -- leaving here is possible. Escape is not.
The message succeeds; Number 6 stops trying to escape after that point. But blocking off Number 6's singular obsession -- and doing it by flanking him successfully in the ongoing mind game -- is ultimately their undoing. Number 6 realizes at that point that the only way to leave the Village is to completely undo it. And so the rest of the series (where it's not ridiculous divergences that came from ITC ordering more episodes than McGoohan wanted to make) is a series of episodes where 2 tries to break 6 and 6 tries to break 2 (and by extension, the Village).
Basically, I always wanted to do a Number 2 vid, even bearing in mind that the multiple-actors-same-role thing would be tricky to pull off (this isn't Doctor Who, after all -- The Prisoner doesn't have nearly the same level of popularity, nor does it have easy visual markers like regenerations).
jumpercut was a huge Prisoner fan (check out her vid) and we spent some time babbling about the series there and on IRC afterward. And I just... something clicked. So that's why it's for her. Because I might have come up with the idea for the vid before we became close friends, but she's the primary reason that there is a finished vid at all.Thanks to Sweetestdrain and
absolutedestiny for valuable betaing and notes. Thanks to VidUKon for showing my vid. Be seeing you.
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Date: 2013-05-19 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-19 03:54 pm (UTC)I think this is the best vid you've ever done. I am seriously impressed. The lyric-clip matching is exquisite, the structure is tight and well-considered, and the way you exploited the limitations of the footage to keep this thing rocking, well...take a bow, dude.
If I don't get to dance to this at Club Vivid, I will be very disappointed.
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Date: 2013-05-19 08:08 pm (UTC)If I am indeed not drunkenly dancing to this at Club Vivid, it will be a sad day.
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Date: 2013-05-19 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 09:40 pm (UTC)These are my favorite kinds of vids to make -- taking years and years of background mental processes and then putting them on a timeline.
Also, it has a beat and you can dance to it.
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Date: 2013-05-24 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 08:08 pm (UTC)LIKE. I DON'T EVEN KNOW THIS SOURCE. BUT.
THIS VID. THIIIS VIIIID.
I - I can't even handle the amount of awesome. The "just deal with it" lip sync! The pitch-perfect timing! The awesome use of the zooms in the footage. :DDDDDDD (Uh, you KNOW how I feel about zooms!) The song choice just everything.
*flail*
I have to say, it's been really exciting to watch your development as a vidder, especially over the last year. The stuff you are turning out is consistently fantastic and just plain rocks.
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Date: 2013-05-19 09:46 pm (UTC)As for my development as a vidder... I really feel like I hit my stride. And it's only taken five years! I think it really helps that I feel like I'm fully integrated into this magnificent community of vidders that I love so well.
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Date: 2013-05-19 11:29 pm (UTC)I totally am going to watch this source soon...
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Date: 2013-05-20 05:31 pm (UTC)That was amazingly perfect, and really brought The Prisoner back to life. I watched the series at some point in college, and I remember coming in somewhere in the middle and thinking, "maybe this would make more sense if I'd seen the previous episode." So I watched them in ... odd order. It was bizarre. But I think you showed what you wanted to, with Number 2 and Number 6 and how 6 rather ingeniously undoes 2. Very well done!
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Date: 2013-05-20 08:58 pm (UTC)The Prisoner is a weird show to watch in order, because there are about five or six episode orders floating around and between them, the only commonalities are the placement of the first, penultimate, and last episode.
I have my own preference on viewing order that sticks closely to the order that the original A&E DVD box set uses.
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Date: 2013-05-20 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-21 01:55 am (UTC)I *highly* recommend The Prisoner. It's 17 episodes (less if you skip the inconsequential filler eps "The Girl Who Was Death" and "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling") and kind of batshit.
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Date: 2014-06-28 01:53 am (UTC)This completely rocks.
- the clip for "follow my lead" in the first verse tells you everything you need to know about the Village.
- and it's soon followed by the sequence in which Number Six almost escapes (by boat, by helicopter, on foot, by raft, possibly by Monty Python-esque coconut shell horse clopping)
- oh yay there's the female Number Two!
- Six's madness increasing... Six's desperation increasing...
- all the trippy footage from the series finale (not that the rest of the series isn't trippy, too, but... I watched this show for a class in college, and after we saw the finale we had an hour and a half session that consisted almost entirely of "What. the hell? No, really, what the hell?")
( http://greekedtext.tumblr.com/post/90113779143/monkeyswithjetpacks-blow-by-jetpack-monkey )
Just wanted to say thank you for this vid, and also I am now really looking forward to those other Prisoner vids you linked to!
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Date: 2013-05-30 02:29 am (UTC)So you should see it! It's awesome.
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Date: 2013-05-19 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-20 08:30 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for posting.
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Date: 2019-02-23 08:24 am (UTC)Great work lasts a long time
Date: 2020-06-18 09:46 pm (UTC)Wow, this was outstanding. I love that the images match so well with music that's 47 years older, and that's mainly down to your exquisite timing.
(And now I want to rewatch the Prisoner!)