Vid rec: "Forever" by Zi (ST:TOS, Kirk/Spock)

[marycrawford]

I found out about the vid Forever by Zi thanks to mrs_underhill, who posted about it on kirkspock, and I just adore it.

It's a Russian Kirk/Spock vid, with the mythic, larger than life feeling that I also get from killabeez' gorgeous TOS vids As and Dante's Prayer -- THEIRLOVEISSOFUCKINGEPIC pretty much sums it up, and it makes me so happy. This vid is classic in terms of editing style -- no heavy effects, fairly long shots, but a great sense of mood and building up to emotional impact.

Also, I think what Forever does with landscape is really cool, and something I can't recall having seen elsewhere; the closest related vid I can think of is sisabet's due South vid Icebound Stream, where the polar bears in the snow are used as a metaphor for Fraser and Victoria. In the first minute of Forever (which is all instrumental), the imagery is intercut between Earth and Vulcan, then deserts and oceans, and then finally the two meet in a flyover shot of the beach, then up into the clouds, above the clouds into space...and to the Enterprise. It feels dreamlike and gorgeous and uplifting, and it sets the theme and the mood perfectly. I thought this was partly external footage, like the polar bears, but I am assured that it's not -- all the desert, ocean etc. shots are from Trek.

I love the Russian song, and it inevitably loses something in translation, but I did my best: I've made an English subtitle file for the vid, with the vidders' permission and based on mrs_underhill's initial translation of the lyrics. I went a bit more literal in places, because all of a sudden I had my translation professor in my head telling me to cut out the poetry, so you may like her version better!

Vid: download and streaming links - I recommend the "worksafe" version, I think it's by far the best. On their website, click the download link below the streaming video. This will take you to a Russian download site, similar to mediafire or megaupload. Here's what to do next in handy screencaps: step 1 - step 2. It may take a while for the vid to download.

Subtitle file: (right-click and save)

The way this works: you save both the vid and the subtitle files to the same directory. Then you open the vid in VLC player (or another player, but I know it works with VLC *g*) and VLC will automagically pick up the subtitle file. If necessary, you can then turn on the subtitles by clicking Video > Subtitles Track > Track 1, and turn them off again with Video > Subtitles Track > Disable. You can also change the size/color/font of the subtitles in Tools > Preferences > Subtitles & OSD.

It's a lot easier to make an .srt file than I thought; you can even do it in Notepad, but I chose to use an editor. If anyone is interested I could do a how-to post on that later?