Tears and Rain

Vid
Title:	Tears and Rain
Creator:	charmax
Date:	August 2005
Format:	digital, DivX AVI and Real Player
Length:	3:38m
Music:	James Blunt
Genre:
Fandom:	Veronica Mars
Footage:
URL:	http://charmax.livejournal.com/8614.html (offline)
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Tears and Rain is a Logan character study vid by Charmax.

Vidder's notes:"This is a Logan character study. Logan is much more vulnerable than he at first appears. This video aims to get behind that brash, arrogant facade. There is very little of Logan/Veronica as this vid focuses much more on his inner demons."

Reactions and Reviews

Review By Astarte

What a powerful character study with each view there is something new I discover and you really made me ache hard for Logan, which isn’t hard itself, but you worked out his emptiness and pain so clearly it’s agonizing to watch and like I said, there is something new each time, who calls for my attention and make me go ‘Ouch, that hurts – so bad!’

Logan is so isolated and cut off in your vid, such a lost boy wandering through a world that doesn’t care or give a shit and he knows it, not in a defeated sense of self-pity, but in the knowing that he can do whatever he wants, girls, booze, drugs, bum fights and it is just the same. Nothing is touched by him or touches him after what happened to Lilly and his mum. His life is vacant of love and the waning memories are haunting him, not sure if he wants to forget or cling to them. His attempts to become numb or content are unsuccessful and he can’t seem to fill the gaps these two left in his soul. His feelings of loneliness and longing are a constant presence in your vid, raw and exposed and it creates such a melancholic sadness, that just burns and leaves a taste of smoke and ashes in your mouth while watching.

God, I have a real hard time progressing my emotions in words with ‘Tears and rain’, so much heartache is going on. So many things I want to point out, so many subtle and subconscious meanings floating through the images you created, so I skip the technical aspect completely, because you know damn well that it is perfect there and the song? To die for, no wonder you are obsessed with James Blunt, he is a genius. Hope you don’t mind me going through the lyrics itself :

Your vid is starting out with Logan’s screwed normality, the routine we are introduced as his life, preparing himself for more pain, handling the belt with the same wariness and simplicity at the exact moment like everything else. It’s just another day in the Echolls’ home and even when he doesn’t know it back then, the source for all his scars is always the same; his dad and this introduction sequence works on so many levels, because you established Logan’s state of mind completely. He can only operate at a deficit, his mom and Lilly and the swirls the camera makes over the dead body or the car it symbols is really lasting. His loss over the course of less than one and a half year is enough to break even a normal person, adding the abuse issues and you understand the jump to the next picture, when the words start flowing ‘I wish I could surrender my soul;’ and yeah, you get it the first time without looking further. Logan is contemplating suicide and the thing is, the vid only gets worse from here. Both the opening words and the image is potent and merge into one emotion, Logan’s defeat by life as whole. And you gonna show the audience in the next three minutes, why he is sick and tired of it. ‘Shed the clothes that become my skin;’ what I love about this image, is the subliminal metaphor it creates with the lyrics, Logan’s funeral suit is his new skin, the same way he can only express his emotions through it . He can’t show his grieving openly or without restraint, because he still has hope and he still has his dad and the same way, Logan hates the public image Aaron created for himself, it’s the skin he is pressed into and unable to break out of it. Shed the money and all the things he is envied for into nothing. He is caged into a role he loathes and existence he can’t escape just like his mother. Something you highlight seamlessly with the next line, ‘See a liar that burns within my needing.’ Showing the picture perfect past of Aaron and Lynn Echolls on the sideboard, the life his mom leaded and embraced. All fun and parties to throw and celebrate being a successful society butterfly and beloved wife on the surface and then the fade to the day to day stuff. The transition with Lynn’s turn smiling from the camera to the next scene is beautiful. Sitting on a couch breathing misery, numbing the pain and the need with alcohol and pills, isolated in her own luxurious world, which really isn’t hers at all, debilitated by Aaron’s need to control everybody around him. Unable to break free of the bounds she found herself trapped in. Unable of so many things concerning her son’s well being and her own. The most impressive thing about the next sequence is the camera movement you captured and the way you kept the important things in one frame at exactly the right time. I adore the timing here and the faultless way it intensify Logan’s emotions, how his focus shifts. First we see a boy caught alone between his parents, both completely ignoring him and Logan looks so young and lost in the first shot, at a complete loss of words, totally out of place and eventually that is what’s it all about. He doesn’t belong, not with his father and sadly not with his mother. ‘How I wish I’d chosen’, but there isn’t anything he had a choice in, right? He can’t side with his dad, the strong and dominant one, Logan sees the darkness he represents too clearly to be enthralled by him. The violence which lies underneath the blending personality he created. The way he starts to look at Lynn demanding a reaction, something, anything and then avert his eyes, because she won’t give him that much. It plays out almost like he can’t look at her weakness, the way she bends under Aaron’s grip. So there is ‘darkness’ and Logan made his choice for ‘cold’ a long time ago and perhaps he regrets it sometimes, even before her disappearance. Because with Aaron he had at least someone to match, to fight, to hate. With his mom he had someone to protect, to love and to pity and that is one of the hardest emotions to bear. You can’t pity someone for long before you start to hate them for their weakness to not stand up for themselves. So Logan does it for her, tells his father off and we get the three of them in one frame and how he let her slip away. And I think this is one of the few things Logan deeply regrets, that he focused his attention on his father in that instant, instead of following her or ‘screamed out loud’ for her. She’s gone in a flash of gorgeous legs fleeing to the one place Aaron can’t follow and Logan is left behind in a golden cage. I love the way you insert the sun here, how it flashes over her car and in the room and over the match, everything is shiny and glowing on the surface reflections of a life left behind, overexposed and a son left with nothing, so yeah, you can sympathize with Logan’s ‘Instead I’ve found no meaning.’

‘I guess it’s time I run far, far away;’ leaving Aaron behind is something Logan should do without doubt, but he can’t, not for long anyway, because he depends on him, not because of the money or his underage. It’s the least of his reasons, but because Logan needs to remind him of his crimes against his mother - again and again. Because his dad is to blame and nobody does this job the same way Logan does it, not the media, not the paparazzi, who is preying but not hunting him down. Just a bystander in a personal tragedy, just a tool to use and Logan is familiar with it. Better than he should be at his age, he learned from the master and Aaron is the best mentor in manipulating the masses. So he tells him what he thinks of the peace offering not in the seclusion of their home, but out in the open where it hurts Aaron the most, where he can’t shrug it off or threaten him down, where he has to hear him out and can’t beat him down. Logan is without mercy and straight forward telling Aaron, that she is gone, because of him. Because of all the things he did to her and Logan is walking away, but he knows even than that he has no choice in coming back to reinforce this truth into his dad. Logan’s insincere acceptance of the condolences is his way to ‘find comfort in pain.’ He is torturing himself with it, makes it real, makes it hurt, makes it into something unbearable. I love the cut into the solemn emptiness of his room, there is only so much he can take, before he cracks and him watching the Christmas party is the way, he should remember his mom, wearing her strong face and expensive armour, hiding her pain behind a smile, the same way Logan is hiding from the world, because ‘All pleasure’s the same: it just keeps me from trouble.’ Because sometimes you’re too wary to fight, know too well, that you would explode, if you get another empty sentence or look of pity. And she wouldn’t want that, she would want him to behave. So he does, he ‘Hides [his] true shape, like Dorian Gray.’ And the way he rips of his sunglasses, his defensive mask is so telling, because after all, he is Logan and he is 17 and he is angry at his father and the world as whole and ‘I’ve heard what they say’ what they will make out of his story, that it won’t be about him or her, but once again about his dad. ‘But I’m not here for trouble,’ he just needs to know, be sure and Veronica despite all their tainted back story can give him that certainty and ‘It’s more than just words: it’s just tears and rain.’ I admire the way you worked in the two times Logan felt personally betrayed by Veronica into the next sequence, because back in the pilot, I keep thinking, what gives him the right to confront her about her dads investigation and with 1x04 grew the understanding, that Logan had every privilege to do so, he was more than a distant classmate, he was part of the famous foursome. He was the ex-boyfriend, best friend and former friend and he could demand answers to questions others were afraid to ask, because Lilly was as much his loss as she was Veronicas. So it’s almost ironic how things changed, when he is confronted with Veronicas wrath, she is also on the edge of tears like he was, also full of righteous anger and full of conviction, that he was the one to blame. Of course he is the same way innocent in her rape, than she was in her dads investigations, both were out of their hands. But the door slamming is still telling a story of it’s own.

I find it always truly shocking how painstakingly happy Logan seemed in Lilly’s presence and of course the next segment made me ache, hard, because as corny and cliché as it sounds, Lilly was his light, was the one thing that kept his darkness at bay in more than one meaning. Because his dad wouldn’t leave a fresh wound were it could be easily discovered by a girlfriend and Logan was to busy looking at Lilly, than searching for trouble in this time. So yeah, I can imagine the heartbreak Logan is in for, when discovering how close the yin and yang of his life truly were after the season finale. But back to ‘Tears and rain’, even while watching the tapes of her, Logan is instinctively smiling, he can’t help it and ‘I wish I could walk through the doors of my mind;’ shows how flawless special effects can be influential an audience just this little bit more, how it can trigger just the tad more emotional response, how it can narrow down what this vid is about to the mark. Because we walk through his mind, see what he sees, while he ‘Hold[s] memory close at hand,’ and Logan is being blissful and cheerful and playful and a good kid and heads over heels in love with this amazing wild child and you want to cry for what is lost and in fact it ‘Help me understand the years.’ The flashback and the way it distance itself from the present in form of the computer monitor, dives into the real thing and then back out with the silver screen is just wow, because this sequence covers so many things and still creates the feeling of being trapped into the past, especially with the soft background lyrics over the memorial service, ‘I wish you were’ the words fade to mute and you don’t need to be a mind reader to fill in the last word in that sentence. And after this section the next one is even more uncomfortable to watch, ‘I wish I could choose between Heaven and Hell.’ Once again Logan has no choice and this time even visually none, there is just hell for Logan. No escape route, no plan B, just him and his dad and the media celebrating this extraordinary son/father-bond in public and how generous Aaron could be – except not. They both play with the media and publicity to get what they want, after Logan is throughout fucked by them with the bum fights stories and being the ungrateful son in the public eye and his daddy the hero who sweeps in and saves the day and it is wrong on so many levels, that you cringe while watching. And as the line ‘I wish I would save my soul’ plays, you aren’t sure if Logan is only afraid of Aaron’s repercussions of his latest misstep or the thing he becomes under his daddy’s influence. Flash forward to the time after and the one good thing Lynn’s exit produced, ‘I’m so cold from fear.’ Her son is becoming the icy cold, she wanted to be, he isn’t afraid anymore, not of his father, not of anything at all. The damage is done, the worst scenario has come and gone and Logan is still standing, sure his denial helps here and that Aaron doesn’t know, what his son truly thinks, but Logan’s newfound confidence makes Aaron uneasy to say at least.

‘I guess it’s time I run far, far away;’ and Logan tries to get away from his father, when he can’t stand the acting anymore and Aaron is playing his role as always first as grieve-strive husband, second as overbearing father to the notch. Grabbing his son hard enough to bruise, when Logan is done with this shit of happy family, because ‘E.W.’ is nowhere in sight and he knows this familiar routine well enough, Logan ‘find[s] comfort in pain.’ Because after all he knows the real person Aaron Echolls is, can deal with it, because what is a hard grip on something vanishing from his hold compared to other stuff? If this person was comfortable and cold-blooded enough in the past to use belts to keep him in line. So yeah, pain management in form of alcohol is an old friend of Logan, him wearing a flask around in high school is enough prove of this evidence, but the champagne is a new sight for a new pain, but really it so doesn’t matter, because ‘All pleasure’s the same: it just keeps me from trouble.’ The next transition from ‘Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray’ is also remarkable, Logan hides in both scenes at first, at the beach from Veronica and at the school from the other students. He gets ready for the confrontation, he knows he is in for a fight and it is telling for his whole character that he needs this time to catch his breath, to get his casual façade up, when he is hurting himself. I love his walk of shame into the school after the Christmas scandal, because it was so obvious in that scene what a shark infested sea Neptune High is and when they smell blood, it doesn’t matter how many dollar zero’s are attached to your last name, you’re in for a mess. So of course Logan ‘heard what they say’ not only on the radio, but because he isn’t stupid, ‘but I’m not here for trouble’ is also the thing he radiates when he first enters the school, doesn’t last long, but you’ve got to cut him some slack for trying…

And here is the part where the end sequence starts in my eyes, everything just floats by and I love the way we see Logan walking away from the truth, ‘Far, far away;’ as a matter of fact, he isn’t completely ready to leave his comfortable denial behind and when he is, he ‘find[s] comfort in pain’ with is old friend booze. Using the same strategy, which didn’t save his mother. But in the end, ‘All pleasure’s the same: it just keeps me from trouble’ and everything is fair game to numb the pain, Yolanda, liquid X or getting totally wasted. Because there is Lilly breaking up with him and being a total bitch about it and then she is just dead, then there is a car on a bridge and false hope and the end of innocence and then there is a stalking fan stabbing his father and Logan being concerned and scared in spite of everything, because he is still 17 and Aaron is still his dad and ‘It’s more than just words: it’s just tears and rain.’

And then we see Logan walking away for real, for a lot of different reasons and I think this is my favourite sequences in ‘Tears and rain’, because the movement just seems right, because you keep thinking, that was a good reason, that was a bad one, there he is all troubled, here all snarky, there he was the only one who turned around and here he just wants to get away and here he is all giddy and there all defeated and he is ‘Far, Far away;’ till his movement is suddenly stopped, he is forced into stillness while he ‘find[s] comfort in pain.’ Gets once again used to the feeling of being left behind. And it’s almost a relief to see his sarcastic mask sliding back on his face, because ‘All pleasures the same: it just keeps me from trouble.’ Keeps him sane, keeps him going and then the harsh cut to the psychiatrist, because she demands words and ‘Its more than just words.’ Logan struggling for them for real is so agonizing and deep like the whole vid, he is at a complete loss, because ‘its just tears and rain’ and no words can cover that fact or the feelings bound to them, just a fade to black."

"Review by Milly

Tears and Rain - Oh my, I didn’t think I could possibly love Logan more than I already did, he’s so definitely my favorite character. I loved the song, I thought it was perfect to highlight how under all the ‘pleasure’ (parties, girls, alcohol, hell, even drugs) he gets himself into, he’s so scarred. I mean, with his father, Lilly and his mother (hell, even Veronica), he’s such a deeper character than what we could have expected of him when the show began. This video just flows wonderfully and damn, girl, you made me download every James Blunt song I could find!

Jerk it Out - wow, so much going on. I was awed at how you edited the two of those together, because it didn’t feel like it was two things pieces together, it felt as though they were interacting in the same world (by example, the wave from the car and the window, or…pretty much all the time, like when they are in the car). I loved how you played with the speed to make it fit the beats (not just like faster and slower, but the sort of like jumps the footage had, which were just perfect).

All I have to say is, superb job on both accounts."