(no subject)

[thuviaptarth]

I am in a terrible mood and discouraged about the vid I'm (not) working on, so let's resurrect this meme:

Pick any section of a vid or a paragraph or any passage less than 500 words from any fanfic I've written and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet of what I was thinking when I made or wrote it, why I wrote it, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the vid or fic, and anything else you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

Comments

[oracne]

The first "Iron Man" section.

Hey Ho - the first chorus & verse

[thuviaptarth]

Usual caveats about my intent not superseding other readings, etc.; I just got tired of typing "I intended" over and over again. This is what I thought I was doing. Whether it's what I actually did is up to other people to decide.

I'm not sure whether you wanted to include the credits section; I think of it as a prologue, rather than part of the Tony section per se. Anyway, that section summarizes the vid in miniature: science, soldiers, childen contributing to the war effort. The World War II footage primes the viewer for the later introduction of Steve Rogers and the Howard Stark/baby Tony footage foreshadows the indoctrination of children at the end. The home movies framing initiates the critique of media narratives as part of the military-industrial complex, although this won't become clear until the end.

The Tony section itself depicts Tony Stark as serving the military-industrial complex whether he's wearing a business suit or the Iron Man suit. Either way, he's a war profiteer. The Iron Man suit is another weapon (a plastic gun); the single Iron Man suit becomes an army of Hammer drones; the proliferating missiles of Iron Man 1 become the Iron Man drones of Iron Man 3. A canon fodder soldier throws up a peace sign; Tony throws up two. (I picked it for both the visual echo and the context: it's from the scene where he says, "I privatized world peace.")

The first chorus sets up a bunch of lyrical associations that will continue throughout the vid:

• The point of sale: weapons, soldiers' bodies, comics
  
  
• The puppet show: soldiers, soldiers, children
  
  
• The merchant kings: Stark Industries, Stark Industries, Marvel Comics
  
  
• Labor: Iron Man blowing things up (war), Stark Industries' R&D (profit and scientific development), drawings of Iron Man (comics/entertainment).

"Someone's dread and darling boy has fallen on his saber"doesn't map as tightly as the other lyrics; I figured I could leave the association looser because those lyrics basically end up applying to the entire vid. Also, I hoped that strongly associating the line with weapons in the first chorus would carry over, reinforcing the idea of the Captain America uniform and the Iron Man suits being weapons in the second chorus.

Miscellaneous notes:

• Figuring out that I could associate the lyrics about kids with visuals of adults and then bring up literal kids in the end was the realization that made the vid fall into place in my head.
  
  
• I went through a lot of possible scenes for Tony to be ignoring in the intro, only to settle on one that's only a few seconds off what was showing on the screen in the first place.
  
  
• It was really important to me to include the scene where Rhodey/Iron Patriot menaces Afghanistani civilians for laughing at him. The vid is solipsistic in that it focuses on the damage the American military-industrial complex does to Americans. I think that's a legitimate topic in itself, but I wanted to get in at least a token acknowledgement that harm is being done elsewhere.
  
  That's the only time in the entire Iron Man trilogy that the US military intentionally threatens civilians, by the way.* It's a joke. The audience laughs at it.
  
  *Unless you count the Hammer drones.
  
  
• The first draft had some Incredible Hulk clips to fill out the military sections, but three separate betas hated them for three separate reasons, so I pulled them.
  
  Except for the one stealth Hulk clip I left in.
  
  
• I got huge delight from putting flashes, salutes, and theatrical Tony Stark gestures on the beat.

Re: Hey Ho - the first chorus & verse

[oracne]

Thank you SO much. Now I need to watch it again. I really loved the gestures on the beat! It was so Tony.