New Frontier

New Frontier is a Firefly vid by heresluck. The vid premiered at Escapade 2006.
==Lyrics==
:There's a man
:looking over his shoulder
:Getting ready to take that first step
:To reach down inside
:grab his guts and move them on up to the outside.
==Details==
Vidder's summary: "Where good deeds are few and far between."
Vidder's notes (excerpt): "This is the first vid I've made where I was consciously trying to use everything I know about connecting clips visually in the service of A Big Idea. "Cat-Scan Hist'ry" and "Thistledown Tears" are not idea vids; they're mood pieces. Which is fine; but I wanted "New Frontier" to be a vid more along the lines of what I tried to do with "Superstar" or even "Atropine," where visceral grip is combined with a more analytical argument about how we're supposed to understand a particular character or storyline or whatever. I wanted to make a vid that could, at least potentially, produce intellectual as well as aesthetic or emotional response. And since it's been nearly three years since I made a vid like that, and because I'd learned so many other things in the meantime, I had to re-learn how to plan and conceptualize and execute that kind of vid." Read the full notes here.
The vid compares and contrasts the emotional arcs of two characters in the movie: River Tam and Mal Reynolds. In a key moment in the vid at 3:14, the vidder uses a lens flare effect as she transitions from River to Mal to illustrate their awakening, determination and resolve.
==Reactions/Reviews==
*"I loved the internal movement in this vid. I actually broke my own rule of watching a vid straight through before I go with the starting and stopping and rewinding and fast forwarding. When I saw Miranda spinning and then River's brain spinning, I *had* to stop and go back to look. And then I did it *again* when I saw Serenity spinning and River spinning--both of them weapons. sigh. I love, too, how you made your jumpcuts look slippery." ~ feedback at the vid announcement.
*Your ability to use a narrative non-linearly and treasure the heart of the story is absolutely inspiring. And the pacing and the movement and the *moments*--the ones where all of the weight is *right there*...You really do make me feel like vidding is brand new again. And what a brass ring to keep reaching for." ~feedback at the vid announcement.
*"So much fun to read through. :D I found it especially cool because the added detail about how you approached it and worked through it, and the comparisons you wanted to make in each section (or themes you wanted to address) helped me to understand intellectually why it works so well, even while my more impressionable brain-parts were still overwhelmed with the shiny and the movmement and the emotion." ~ a comment at the vidder's notes.
*"A shadow over the settlement in the first act and it hits like a punch to the gut to see it burn in the third. River introduced as figure in the background to Mal's criminal negotiations, a suppressed conscience, then a threat at mutual gunpoint. Rising to fight with him but I love the ambiguity of him contemplating her pacified body in that shot just before the final coda. There was a victory but there was a cost. The funeral scene and the ending, bloodied heroes." ~ feedback at the vid announcement.
*"If you were to break this vid down to a molecular level, you would clearly see that all the particles are bound together with WIN. There's only about 3 or 4 songs that I hear for the first time in a vid that then become synonomous with the video, & this is another one of those rare times. Storytelling, editing, emotional resonance...its all there & it never ever lets up once in its entirety. I especially like your use of jump cuts (an old favourite of mine) & how you kept the clear narrative going in the instrumental sections. I guess thats why it will forever be sitting on my Mediagates HDD, so that I can watch it whenever I please on our big TV." ~ feedback at the vid announcement.
Category:Firefly Vids