Wilson fanvid: How to Save a Life

[laene_lif]

Dedicated to secondsilk because she answered this post. :)

I have finished another video! And I'm pretty happy with it. It's far from perfect - the wide screen/full screen thing is a bit irritating, not to mention the fact that I do not have "Tape" and decided to go ahead and just use stills from it... (I wouldn't have even known it existed if not for daasgrrl.)

So, the video is to "How to Save a Life" by The Fray. And it's full of Wilson!Angst. Basic premise: Wilson remembers his long-lost brother and tries to sort of make up for it with his friendship with House, trying to keep anything similar from happening to him.

Also, I've, uh, gone ahead and cast Ethan Hawke as Wilson's brother. :)

Download Link
Streamload Link (if the embedded one isn't working for some reason)

Comments

[sdragon.livejournal.com]

I've very new to fanvid making, so it's really inspiring to see good vids with nifty techniques. :)

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Heh. I actually still consider myself a newbie to making fanvids, even though this one is, I think, my 10th... I don't really do anything fancy or complicated, and there are usually sloppy bits. Eh. Oh, well. You want to see some truly impressive vidders, check out Hannah Dora (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=HannahDora) and di_br to name a couple examples.

[anon-e-mouse1.livejournal.com]

That was excellent. Really well done!

I have seen TAPE and love DPS and of course House and i think the way you integrated them all was fantastic.

You took a great idea and turned it into a poignant, angst driven masterpiece. You win.


And throwing all that aside, you made a video that focuses on RSL. For that reason alone you deserve mega snaps!

*loves* *mems* *dies*

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

That was such a fantastic idea - my head is spinning from the meta. In a good way :) I was impressed you managed to do so much with the still shots - it did work, and I loved the way you had those two scenes with Wilson putting both of his hands up which echoed each other. Great storyline as well with the cuts between Wilson's 'brother' and House. Imagine actually casting Ethan Hawke as Wilson's brother. The fangirls (myself included) would go mad... Anyway, great job.

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear - don't die! ;) I'm thrilled that you liked it so much. There really aren't enough RSL vids, you're right. Not that I've seen anyway. This was my first one focused on him - I've mostly just done vids focused on House. But Wilson and RSL are awesome, so.

Thanks for watching and commenting!

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Once I got the idea, I couldn't let it go - I was so excited. Don't know why it never occured to me before, actually. (A few people mentioned that they had also mentally cast Ethan Hawke as the brother, but I really didn't think of it until a couple days ago.) It's wonderfully convenient of them to have done films together at different points in time, and of Ethan Hawke to look so sketchy in Tape, lol. Wish I could have used real clips from that, though, which I haven't actually even seen. But thanks to your various RSL posts, I did at least see the trailer, lol. I'm glad you thought the stills worked though. :)

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

Did you get the stills from the trailer? There is a site, keepvid.com, which allows you to pull the video from (some) streaming sites, if it might help, although you probably have no interest in doing so at this point :)

I'm still getting over the whole Ethan Hawke thing. He just looks so different in DPS and Tape and I knew intellectually it was him, but never really tried to process it until that vid, LOL.

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Huh. Interesting... What an amazing tool. Thank you for pointing me to that! lol. It works for YouTube? Goodness, the possibilities... But now that this particular vid is done... you're right, I don't really want to go back now, lol. But maybe. Maybe... I'm tempted. Heh.

And yeah, it is hard to put the different Ethan Hawke incarnations together... Even making the vid, I had trouble seeing it. Same thing with Reality Bites - which I also might have used, except that, heh, I don't have that either. (But again, with YouTube and KeepVid... God, technology just keeps making things more and more convenient. All the old school vidders who ripped absolutely everything themselves and stuff must resent the mediocre masses (like me) churning out all these things! I think it used to be much more of an elite group... Heh.)

I think it might have been easier to enjoy that vid for people who'd never seen DPS or Tape and didn't have to keep thinking, "Right, so, imagine this is Wilson, not Neil," etc. Heh. Which can be tough. Shrug.

Thank you for telling me about that site though. Very cool...

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I can't actually find the trailer on any sites that work for it. It used to be on google, in part of a longer clip, but now it cuts off after a few minutes and says you ahve to pay to see the rest. Wasn't like that before. I got the screencaps from Apple, which plays quicktime videos and doesn't work for KeepVid. Oh well. Still a cool site.

[evila-elf.livejournal.com]

ooh!! Pretty!
Never had occurred to me for Ethan to be the missing brother! And that young picture of him!! Yes, I squeed out loud seeing that :)

After watching the vid several dozen times, *cough* Ethan started to seem like a younger House...there is a small (very) resemblence from the Tape stills lol.

And you need to see Tape! Hell, I have a VHS of it that I can let you borrow if you have no other way of seeing it.

(and keepvid is awesome for me because I can't get streaming files to play on my computer and there are so many wonderful things on youtube)

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

That was completely wonderful.
Excellent song. And the line up with the clips was great - I know best.
And Robert Sean Leonard's mannerisms in everything. That was a nice pick up from Tape to House with his defensive hands.

The song and the clips and stills carried the idea all the way through. Wow.

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

What an amazingly appropriate icon! Heh. I'm glad you enjoyed it. The little Ethan picture was pretty adorable. And yeah, I can see the Ethan=House thing... I think it's mostly the expressions, actually. And thanks for the offer but I'm sure I'll be able to find it eventually. Heh. I haven't really tried yet. I was just too impatient and had to do this vid immediately. ;)

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Glad you liked it, since it was dedicated to you. ;) (I'm such a cheater. I shouldn't have done that meme, lol). Heh, RSL has the greatest mannerisms. It's funny to notice them coming out in different roles. Thanks for watching and commenting!

Holy Cow!!

[atreidesheir.livejournal.com]

Usually when I am reading the comments at the bottom and I see the whole "Dies" thing I wanna roll my eyes. But on this one, I have to agree. This video just hit a place down inside me so deep that it physically/mentally hurt. Seeing Wilson struggling so badly to keep House from destroying himself, to keep him from ending up like his brother, had such an impact on me. I am going through a tough time right now and I had to keep from going into an emotional upheaval over this. The music fit so well, described the situation perfectly, and the clips/video that you used could not have been better. I've only seen 3 pieces on YouTube that I have found to be exceptional, and this is one of them. (And you say that it's not perfect yet). My story that I am writing is all Wilson angst over House's self destruction, among other things, so this fed my imagination nicely. I give you such high praise, I can't even figure out how to post my journal onto here yet, LOL. (I've read the instructions but don't get it). So to make a video this good, just blows my mind!! Thanks for sharing!!

[sous-lepont.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, that was awesome! I love the idea of merging the clips.

Re: Holy Cow!!

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you! I'm flattered that you found it so powerful, though I'm sorry to hear you're going through a rough time. That's very cool that you're working on a fic dealing with some of the same issues! I'd be interested in reading it. Do you mean that you don't know how to post your story to the [info]house_wilson comm? (or [info]wilson_is_love or [info]house_fic)?

If that's your question, all you do is post in one of those communities with a link to your journal. To make it look like it's actually part of the comm - that is, to do a "fake cut" - you can bold your link and put it in parenthesis, but that's not necessarily. You don't even have to make a link with html, you can just paste the URL and it'll be a link. But to do a fake cut, you write this: < b > ( < a href = " your URL here " > click here < / a > ) < / b >

But with none of those spaces. Except between a and href. There is a space there.

Sorry if I misunderstood and that wasn't at all what you meant.

Thanks again for watching and commenting!

(And sorry for redoing this comment three times - the html example kept being actually being html accidentally.)

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm glad you liked it.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

Wow. Intriguing backstory to Wilson; lovely cuts between House and Wilson's brother. I'm impressed that you got all three sources to merge so well in the final fanvid.

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

This is amazing.

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I am rather fond of the brother backstory thing, though it was only ever mentioned that one time in season 1, heh. And I'm glad you thought that they all fit together convincingly. :)

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

BEAUTIFUL!

[navy-brat-1972.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can tell you anything that anyone else here hasn't already told you. This was BEAUTIFUL and I think that putting Ethan in as Wilson's brother worked...especially with the scenes from TAPE and DPS that you chose. This was amazing and beautiful and what everyone else said, I agree with! Just beautiful!

Re: BEAUTIFUL!

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Also, nice icon. ;)

Re: BEAUTIFUL!

[navy-brat-1972.livejournal.com]

Well, I liked it. It was a BEAUTIFUL video.

I'm a HUGE EH fan. Loved him since EXPLORERS. Can't do wrong in my book with Ethan in the film, ya know? :)

[lapetite-kiki.livejournal.com]

Very touching vid!
Great work!