Vid: Grace In This

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Title: Grace In This
Creator: thenewbuzwuzz
Rating: Like the BtVS box set, this is rated 15+ for canon-typical sex. The song is fairly sexual, though not explicit.
Notes: Happy Seasonal Spuffy, folks! Can I offer you a full-length fluffy fanvid in this trying time!

Watch on Vimeo

More notes, acknowledgments, credits:

Perfume Genius has a YouTube channel where you can check out the rest of his music. Admittedly, I have listened to this song LOTS and to his other works hardly at all, so I'm not great at following my own advice on this.

Thank you to:
womanaction for introducing me to this song in her Spuffy fanmix "you're the one" back in 2016;
Alessnox for recommending the free open-source video editor Kdenlive in the "vidding" community on Pillowfort;
Double Dutchess for taking eight months to hold my hand through a collaborative vidding project with training wheels back in 2016 (which was basically everything I knew about vidding for a while and gave me the confidence to learn more later), and for the gift of a couple of extra hours of free time last week, which I spent making sure that every intro clip has a fancy effect and the starry overlay at least mostly stays off Spike's and Buffy's faces, whatever else it does.

I guess the 2016 nostalgia is going to have to be my contribution to the "celebrating 25 years" theme. :D It's been about 25 years, right, more or less?

I used the HD episodes from hdbuffy.tumblr.com and some stock videos by Pixabay users DiaoChun, Engin Akyurt, Artyom Saqib, and juwelfahim48.

I also used some fabulous tutorials, notably the inkdrop effect tutorial by Arkengheist 2.0 and a couple of Photolearningism's Kdenlive tutorials. And I kind of followed marnanightingale's guide to cutting and syncing, until I got impatient. Also, for better or worse, I tried to apply this Photoshop pastel effect tutorial to video editing in Kdenlive.

Welp, basically I tried a bunch of new things for this, and some worked better than others! What are your thoughts? :)

Comments

[thewiggins]

What a lovely start to Seasonal Spuffy! (I had forgotten that you had the first slot this year, meaning that we're exactly a week apart in our posting dates.)

I loved the galaxy effect during the Touched scene and the inkdrop effect in the beginning.

There was a slow, dream-like yet very sensory quality to the vid overall which I appreciated. It particularly focused my attention on the sense of touch and the ways that touch functions in their relationship. There was an interesting contrast or interplay or whatever between the moments when they are in physical contact with each other and the moments when there is physical distance between them. I think the line "put your back into it" (or "n 2 it" I guess) also emphasized to me the important role of touch, of physical support and comfort, in their relationship.

Aaanyway, great work. Truly a beautiful vid and time well spent on your part. I know I'll be coming back to this one.

[nmcilbuffy]

Perfecto Mundo - Love everything about it. Agree with the "sensory quality to the vid..." The inking effects were used perfectly to give that sense of time and flowing that connects with the 25 Years.

Congratulations on a wonderful piece.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Thank you so much! Love your interpretation of the "sense of time and flowing" -- I didn't really give it much thought myself, certainly not in relation to the theme of the round, but it's a very cool reading! :)

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment! <3

Wheeee, I'm very glad you liked the effects. I've always enjoyed the way the lighting works with the colors of Spike's and Buffy's clothing in the "Touched" cuddle scene so that they almost seem to be floating in an expanse of abstract darkness, as though the outside world has fallen away. The galaxy effect was my attempt to bring this out, though it turned out hard to make it look okay. So I'm glad you thought it did.

"interplay or whatever between the moments when they are in physical contact with each other and the moments when there is physical distance between them"
That's an interesting thought! With the clip of Spike at the crypt door in the intro, and then the "Fool for Love" clip that follows it (ah, and the clip of Buffy walking towards the crypt too, forgot about that one; it was almost a clip of Buffy on the other side of the door btw, but that didn't look pretty enough), I did think about distance and bridging distance for a second, so you're on to something! If you also found it in the rest of the video, you may be on to something that happened without my deliberate involvement. :)

"I think the line "put your back into it" (or "n 2 it" I guess) also emphasized to me the important role of touch, of physical support and comfort, in their relationship."
That's another thing that flitted through my head briefly, this time when I decided to include the clip of Buffy half-carrying Spike out of the cave in "Showtime". I agree that these things are important in their relationship! Though for the most part, to me, "put your back into it" was more about effort and commitment: trying harder at something Spike and Buffy have already been doing (their relationship). And together with the next line "there is still grace in this", it's also about not giving up on something (their relationship) but finding, well. Grace is such a lovely word with many tasty meanings, isn't it. Especially when the phrase "saving grace" is right there too.