What We Had

Vid
Title:	What We Had
Creator:	cherryice
Date:	August 2008
Format:	DivX .avi
Length:	3:54 minutes
Music:	What We Had by Handsome Furs
Genre:
Fandom:	Doctor Who
Footage:	Doctor Who, Torchwood
URL:	vid announcement vid banner
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What We Had is a Doctor Who fanvid by cherryice. It was reviewed at the vid commentary LJ community by hollywoodgrrl on August 7th, 2009. It premiered at Vividcon's 2008 "Fuck You" Challenge vidshow.

Vidder's Summary: "Martha, Jack, Mickey. It's all just empty space."

Lyrics

It's cold

a plain diamond

nobody's here, just empty space

It's all moving, breathing

stuck to the ceiling, don't mean a thing

and what we had don't mean a thing

and what we had is already gone

Reactions/Reviews

There's such balance in this vid, which is a counterpoint to the inbalance portrayed in the vid. The characters are carefully placed and there is not a single frame misused. From beginning to end I was floored. The difference in what the Doctor takes the companions to see was drastic. Martha is the one usually off by herself cleaning up the Doctor's messes, while others have their hands held. Jack gives his life and the Doctor runs from him, while the Doctor holds Rose and dances with her. The Doctor doesn't even register that Mickey has given up so much and become a different person. The Doctor is looking up with his mind in the stars, while they have to watch where he's going. At the end of the vid, I'm left empty myself because these characters give so much, yet the Master is the one comforted. WTF?

wow, that was fabulous! Perfect editing and flow and totally heart-wrenching and gut-bruising. The images of Martha's hands scrubing the floor and Jack's in manacles, and all the zooms on Mickey, Jack and Martha standing patiently in the background, waiting for Doctor and/or Rose to finish their epic angsting of the moment - just perfect. As in: perfect 'Fuck you' challange response. I cheered for them when they turned away at the end, though my heart broke just a little bit more then. Thank you for taking them out of the background and giving them the room to say fuck you Doctor, they've earned it. And you, you earned the internets and my vote at Gallifrey Awards.

Cherry created and submitted this vid for the Vividcon 2008 "Fuck You" Challenge. And though it certainly does present Martha, Mickey, and Jack in a position of saying "fuck you" to the Doctor and subsequently leaving, I actually prefer to view this vid as something even simpler than that: Without any maliciousness or secret agendas, this is a straight up portrayal of three Whoneverse characters who each happened to draw the short straw. Since What We Had is such a rich and meaty vid, I think it serves as the perfect example of editing within the parameters of Sergei Eisenstein's Intellectual Montage theory. This is the theory of parallels and metaphors. It is an approach to editing that relies upon the audience's ability to grasp a new meaning from two seemingly unrelated shots being juxtaposed. Though all vids technically should play with Intellectual Montage and use the footage to its utmost, (at least I think they should) What We Had does it particularly well. In this commentary I hope to point out all the editing tricks Cherry used to relay her theme. There might even be some flailing. But ultimate my goal is to convince some new sheep of this vid's genius. Because THAT it is!"

A fanvid about Martha, Mickey, and Jack, the companions most screwed over by the Tenth Doctor. You can feel the absolute love of these characters, and the absolute rage at the way they were shafted in favor of white, straight companions.