Two Words (Angel vid)

Vid
Title:	Two Words
Creator:	sisabet
Date:	August 2004
Format:	WMV
Length:	4:14m
Music:	Kanye West featuring Mos Def, Freeway, and the Harlem Boys Choir
Genre:
Fandom:	Angel
Footage:	Buffy/Angel
URL:	download at the vidder's website; vid announcement; streaming version at the Internet Archive
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Two Words is an Angel vid by sisabet. It was recommended at crack van on July 26, 1996. The vidder also offered extended Vid Commentary notes on May 25, 2005.

Vidder's notes: "So, the vid came together and there were very few changes from the first to the final draft and I was angry. The vid is angry. The vid is also full of love because I dearly loved this show and I wanted to just... I wanted to *show* that this is *my* show and why it was my show and I wanted to highlight all the wonder and pain that makes this MY SHOW."

Vidder's summary: After five years, it all comes down to this.

Reactions/Reviews

• "Sisabet wrote: Moments that told me, this is Cordy, this is Wesley, look at Gunn, Look at Fred... this is my show and this is Angel's family and it is all happening in the span of his sword. In a vid filled with wonderful moments, this is my favorite, because of all the work you did to build up to here. This is the part that makes me choke up without fail."
• "I really really dislike most rap songs -- really -- but there was always something that kept me coming back to this vid in spite of that. I get something more out of it every time I watch it, and it gives me goose bumps and makes me tear up every time I watch because it's Angel. My show. The climax, the last chorus, with the choir and they're all raising their hands, that gets me every time, but the more I watch the vid, the more bits get added to the "makes Wolfling tear up" list. I figure if I watch it a few more times, I'll be bawling all the way through. It really is a complex, layered and wonderful tribute to the show and the characters and it's fascinating to read your thought processes and choices for structure and clips and see how much I "got" watching on my own."
• "I already told you how much I love this video, but...man, I love this video. The atmosphere is just incredible...it's moody and adult and dark and fast-paced and sort of sums up for me why I adore Angel so much."
• "I think my strongest thought on this vid, is that it seems so mature. It really highlights the difference in the atmosphere between Angel and BtVS. This is the Buffyverse beginning all grown up, if that makes sense. And you put a very impressive highlight on the way the show is shot. Mature is just the word I keep coming back to."
• "technically I thought this was stellar. You had movements that ran both with and counter to the music, the cuts were sharp, and you didn't linger too long on any one scene, and you didn't go overboard trying to make the actions in every scene match the lyrics - but where you did it ("bra"; "throw your hands up; "cheerleader prom dated... mom and pop, bootlegged it") it worked spectacularly well."
• "Oh, fabulous! I loved it! The rhythm of the music is perfect! And I adored the similar way in which the video starts and ends: with Angel swinging his sword at the end of NFA and the chorus in crescendo. (It can be seen in a sort of symbolic way, isn't it? Ats is about redemption and fighting the good fight and there will never be an end.)"
• "The music choice here will make you blink for all of two seconds, after which it becomes stupefyingly clear that despite all laws of the universe, the song works with the source material so amazingly well I’m half-way convinced it was written for the sole purpose of the video. The editing here is something else, giving brilliant clip-lyric matching, but never losing the beat and feel of the underlying music. Every viewing of the video, another clip opens up and I’m awed anew by the detail and talent with which it is put together. More than that, there is a distinctive tightness in my chest every time I watch this vid. It is, in a word, epic. It’s about the constant struggle, fighting even when you’ll never win, the friends you gain and lose as a consequence. If you’re familiar with the canon, you’ll most likely cry. If you’re not, you might anyway."
• "My favourite of hers though, is the tribute she put together for the show after it ended. Set to possibly the only Kanye West song I like, Sisabet reminds us of exactly why we love this show. In just over five minutes, she progresses the storyline through all five seasons, hitting all the highlights and heartbreaks. It's a fast paced vid (at times, it's blink-and-you-miss-it fast), with amazing synchronicity to the music. Every time I watch it, I fall in love with the show all over again."

The vid Have You Heard by yhlee was created in tribute to Two Words.