Come Undone

Vid
Title:	Come UnDone
Creator:	Ferdalump
Date:	September 21, 2007 (posted to YouTube as a "remake" in Vidder's notes.
Format:
Length:	05:18
Music:	"Come Undone" by Duran Duran
Genre:	crossover, constructed reality, het
Fandom:	Smallville, Batman Begins
Footage:
URL:	Vid on YouTube
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Come Undone is a Smallville/Batman Begins crossover vid by Ferdalump. It is a constructed reality vid with the het pairing of Bruce Wayne/Lois Lane. It was posted to Youtube on September 21, 2007. The vidder makes a notation that this is a "remake" of her original vid (date unknown).

From Vidder's notes: "Considering that Come Undone by Duran Duran is my alltime fave song, I have decided to re-vid it since the first time I did I knew absolutely nothing about editing. This is a new version altogether, and of course is my favorite pairing- Bruce Wayne and Lois Lane."

Reactions/Reviews

This vid was reviewed by Milly at the reel vidding community on January 1, 2008:

Overall impression: An impressively well-constructed AU that makes you believe both in the relationship and the story itself

Titles: At the beginning, over the clip of a man's hand tracing the contours of a woman's body. I thought the choice to have the titles over such a sensual backdrop was very true to the video itself, as well as the music.

Music choice: I thought the song choice was quite appropriate, very sensual as I said before, and very appropriate for the subject matter.

Narration, Tone and Movement: I have to admit here that I had seen this video before, just a few weeks ago as I was judging the POTHVA awards with , and on the first watch, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have a soft spot for well-done AU vids, because I know just how hard they are to pull off. And the narration here was just amazing, it felt like reading a fanfiction. I don't think people who haven't tried to make AU vid can understand how hard that actually is to accomplish. As for the tone... well, I truly enjoyed the overall sensual tone of it. It was introduced well by the titles, supported well by the song, and it just worked, which is not as easy as it sounds - it could have looked trashy if thrown together quickly, but it very obviously wasn't. And finally, where movement is concerned, my main observation was not about additional movement, but how well the movement within the clips were combined. AU vids constructed from various shows often look rough around the edges because the scenes keep cutting back and forth between various movements and colorings. Everything, or almost, matched here.

Cuts, Transitions, Effects & Colouring/Coloring: As I said above, the coloring and the effects were all well done, to make all the scenes match and make everything look believable. My only real downpoint about the vid would be that I think the music could have been a bigger focus, that the cuts and transitions should have followed the movements in the music more. This aspect was much stronger at the beginning of the vid, but it gradually lost some of its focus. Storytelling, while it's incredibly important, shouldn't trump the musicality in a music video.

Specific vid & music notes:

• 0:30 That transition felt a big rough
• 0:50 I thought Batman fading in the smoke worked quite well.
• 1:04 Like for the other overlays putting them together in the same shots we see throughout the vid, I had to go back and look again, because it looks so very real. Good job on those.
• 3:22 I like the whole section that starts here, with the hands, together, then the wedding band, then putting on Batman's glove, quite powerful storytelling here.

Final notes: For an AU vid, I would have to say this was quite close to the 'amazing' end of the spectrum, but as I said before, for a music video, there should be a bigger focus on highlighting the music then there was here (and one that is solid throughout the video, which isn't always easy to pull off). I think other than that, there is absolutely nothing that I can say here, because taking into consideration that it is AU, and that so many sources were involved, I don't think that that this story could have been pulled off better than it was.