TXF-vid: Scully PoV - Matches to Paper Dolls

[astarte]

Artist/Song Title: Dessa - Matches to Paper Dolls
Subject: The X Files, Scully PoV, Scully/Mulder
Summary: ’Built like a moth you see - I still get chills when you talk to me.‘ Truth is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
Length: 03:31 | Size: 59 MB | Format: 720x400 - AVI - zip
Links: megaupload, mediafire, permanent link

So uhm, I think I broke my speed record on vidding TXF - under a week. Not bad. Perhaps one day xandra_ptv will stop making fun of me. The song was a gift, I discovered Dessa through giandujakiss amazing Nikita video Seamstress, because vids are the way to go to discover unknown artists, fandoms and shows. After listening to the album on repeat for four days, 'Matches to Paper Dolls' suddenly hit me as perfect Scully song. One week later I have a finished vid. I love when creativity strikes.

Comments

[xandra-ptv.livejournal.com]

Totally fab, babe. You know how I feel about our lady Scully. You know I love you. And I'll always make fun of you, like you will mock me for my own faults. But totally love the vid, and can't stop listening to the song.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Love you too, babe, this project wouldn't be half as fun as your constant comments made it. I think Scully softened your usual blows, you just love to see her in motion and making fun of the plot holes is a added bonus. Now all we need to do is stick to our Season-challenge and find songs. I still have two weeks off.

[xandra-ptv.livejournal.com]

yes... we have so many ideas and so little songs. Mmmm, Scully. Sorry got distracted.

[lytab5.livejournal.com]

Amazing! ♥
The song is definitely something different but it's working perfect. And the scenes you used work so well, in particular because those aren't the overused (though still loved) ones seen in almost every vid.

What I'm trying to say here: thank you so much for sharing! :-)

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Oh this is gorgeous! You have such incredible clip choices - each one is so unusual and evocative and you put them together so beautifully. I'm glad I could introduce you to Dessa :-).

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

This is great! It really brought back for me all the love and disaster that was the XF and Mulder & Scully.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Before I could sleep today, my brain decided how we should approach our Season-challenge. I will fill you into the details that made perfect sense in a dreamlike state later.

[xandra-ptv.livejournal.com]

alright lovey. I await you insanity.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

You're welcome and I'm thrilled that you loved the vid. Dessa's album is incredible and once I made the Scully connection to this song, I was flooded with possibilities.

I mean the beauty and challenge of vidding XF is the absurd amount of footage you have of these two people over the course of almost a decade. So I had alternatives for pretty much every lyric and there were some hard clip choices to be made, because damn, how often did Scully 'bat her lashes'? Thank you again for your lovely feedback.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

I was in music heaven for a whole week, her album is so fantastic. It reminded me a bit of Poe in the way I connected to it and it's a vidders dream to have such a female voice to use.

I always feel like discovering Scully brand new while vidding TXF and falling in love all over again. And lucky for me Xandra reined that in early with her question, why this vid was becoming a close-up montage of Scully's face. I still had four clip choices on the timeline on too many occasions. Okay, thanks again for the introduction to Dessa, your rec and most importantly, that you enjoyed the vid.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

You used my first summary for the vid: The epic love and disaster of Scully and Mulder. I'm so happy you enjoyed the vid.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

In a few hours, I have a friend to entertain.

[xandra-ptv.livejournal.com]

it's good though, you missed the 2 hrs journey for me and my father to buy something at a fire sale.

[sol-se.livejournal.com]

This is fantastic!! <3

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you - you are getting your Dessa fandom fix, it seems. And thank you so much for the rec.

[miriad.livejournal.com]

This vid is amazing! We're doing a full series re-watch right now, so everything was fresh for me and boy, did this hit hard.

And the song choice was just DEAD ON. Thanks for introducing me to a new artist.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, Dessa is so marvelous. I love her style.

And I'm happy you loved the vid. The X Files was never shy of pulling punches, Mulder and Scully were put through the wringer so many times, it's hard to believe that they walked away at all in one piece.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Very cool--sharp but shiny and great use of Jillian's lovliness and strength.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I really love how easy Gillian makes it to fall in love with Scully. She is just too cool and growing up with her left a great impression.

[tree]

this is a fantastic song choice and gorgeous vid. as someone else said, i love when vidders choose less familiar scenes to vid with. i really like how you used some scenes to highlight certain lyrics, too, especially 'between love and cholera', 'tried dynamite' and then 'back to the battle site', 'you flash some fang and i bat my lashes'. oh and the funny little change of expression from bad blood for 'uh'. i'm sure if i watched it several more times i'd pick up others, but i didn't want to spam you too much. :) thanks for sharing this.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this wonderful feedback, I'm glad you loved the vid and enjoyed it so much. It's funny that you mention lyrics I either had on the first try or the ones I had what felt like twenty choices. The 'between love and cholera' line was too easy, I was tempted to change it, just because it was too literal. 'You flash some fang' one edit, done. But the 'and I bat my lashes'? I had so many choices, playful, angry, flirty and every mood in between. I settled on unintentional sensual. So I really had a blast playing with this song and I hope it shows.

[thingswithwings.livejournal.com]

This was fabulous. Your Scully POV is amazing . . . her intelligence and self-knowledge and need all come across so beautifully. And it's such a great portrait of the realities of the Mulder/Scully relationship, where it's powerful and enthralling but also destructive as hell and full of stops and starts. I love this vid.

[tearful-eye.livejournal.com]

oh my god, this is so gorgeous <33

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you so much, your review made me flail a bit, because whatever I say next, won't come close to the way you described the vid. Especially the self-knowledge, because that is a really big part of Scully's character for me. The song was remarkable on that front and I'm thrilled that you loved the vid, I had such a fantastic time vidding it.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Merci beaucoup, happy you enjoyed the vid. Heh.

[wendelah1]

Here via a rec from amyhit. I loved everything about this vid, and you are right, "Matches to Paperdolls" is a great Scully song. Thank you.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you so much and yes, the song really captured some of the darker aspects of their realtionship. I'm so happy you enjoyed the vid.

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

I'm actually here about your vid cover, rather than the vid itself. Did you do the coloring on the main image of Scully? If so, can I ask how you got it to look so gorgeous and pastel? It's absolutely lovely, and I love how it makes her eyes stand out like that. I am new to Photoshop, and I'd love to learn to do something like that.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

This cover was actually done in under ten minutes, I used an action from rocked-out (http://rocked-out.deviantart.com/gallery/), sadly when I checked to give you the set number I saw that s/he removed most of her stuff. But a few action sets are still available. You should definitely check the galleries out. I uploaded this particular set of rocked-out here (http://www.mediafire.com/?43ps9wa01qp4bht), I'll remove it once you download it. I used PS Action 48 on that blend. So you download the zip, unzip it and put it into Adobe - Presets - Actions and double click on the set. Now it should load in PS and there you can play the action, but I would recommend to use a copy of the original project to possible undo the changes.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Oh I just saw, that it must have been a different action than 48, but you will still get the idea -

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Um, I think I must be more of a novice at PS than even I realized, because I don't know what an "action" is. Could you explain?

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Actions in PS are automated work steps, they make life so much easier. You can for example record the workflow if you always use certain basic effects to lighten up icons after you cropped them. And then you have the more elaborate actions like the ones from rock-out, which are basically a recording of the way the artist manipulated the coloring in their ps. After you loaded them in your PS and press play they simulate the coloring.

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! Thanks! :)

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

I was so happy when I first discovered them, because you can reduce the time-consuming recurring tasks enormously, if you work for example with screencaps and then really work with individual coloring. So you're very welcome.

[williwawz.livejournal.com]

Beautiful vid and beautiful song. I too, am introduced to great new music through the vids that vidders make...and I really like the artist you chose, though I have never heard her before. I loved the use of fire and explosions as allegory in the vid...not just...explosions.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

You should definitely check out Dessa's whole album, she has an amazing talent and range. It is so much fun to listen to it. And thank you so much for your comment, I'm happy you enjoyed the vid and yes, their whole relationship is flame resistant.

[write-out.livejournal.com]

Here from amyhit's rec- I LOVE LOVE LOVE this vid. "Clear the Area" was #1 (which I also found through amyhit), but I think this one will take over the top spot. I'd never heard of Dessa before this; this song is marvelous and the lyrics are perfect for Scully. You were spot on with matching up the clips to the lyrics too. There just isn't anything I don't like about this. I love that people are still so into this fandom!

Friending you, if that's okay? I don't want to miss any more of your work.

[astartexx.livejournal.com]

Sure, friend away, I'm friending you right back.

There will definitely be more X files in the near future and once the vidding meme is finished, I won't overwhelm you with posts. I mostly use LJ as reading list, even when I don't comment enough. And thank you so much for your feedback, I'm thrilled you loved this vid so much, because I felt like there was no way to top 'Clear the area', so I might as well have fun with this song.

This is going straight in my Vid Hall of Fame folder.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

Wow. Oh wow! Right, I'll try to be a bit more articulate. This video simply blew me away. Even more so when I checked the lyrics in more details. This vid embodies so perfectly the wonderful and damaged push and pull mess that is the Mulder and Scully relationship. My golden standard for XF vid has always been Giandujakiss's "Hell of a Place". I never found a vid that summed up the show in such a subtle precise way, or that sent such chills of glorious nostalgia down my spine. Until today.

Bravo. I know I'm late to the party but I'm so, so glad I was rec'ed this.

[runawaynun]

This is an amazing vid - I never thought of matching this song with the show, but it works so very well for Scully.