New vid: Afire Love (The Normal Heart)

[anoel]

Title: Afire Love
Music: "Afire Love" by Ed Sheeran
Fandom: The Normal Heart (additional footage: We Were Here (2011), How to Survive a Plague (2012))
Focus: Felix/Ned
Summary: You're not the only one.
Content Notes: Physical triggers (e.g. epilepsy or migraine: strobe lights, bright lights, “stuttery” cuts between 2-3 stills).
Notes: Made for Vividcon Challenge. Thanks to thingswithwings for the beta!
Download Link: Afire Love (89 MB MP4)
AO3 | Tumblr

"" (Watch on YouTube)

I saw The Normal Heart when it first came out and it emotionally destroyed me with the main pairing and the LGBT community's struggle to fight AIDS. My knowledge of AIDS activism was very limited so the movie helped bring the early struggles to light for me. I heard this song last summer and found it to be a very powerful song especially the ending that brought in the family aspect. It seemed like the perfect vidsong to me but I couldn't think of what fandom had the powerful family relationships I needed - until I realized that family can also refer to a community of people such as the LGBT community which would fit perfectly with The Normal Heart. After I realized that, the structure of the vid became clear to me and I realized I could use historical external source to make the queer community aspect more broad and diverse than was shown in the movie to hopefully make it even more powerful.

I had intended to make this vid for Escapade but after I got into a new ship, I didn't have the time to make this vid as well. Then the VVC Memory Challenge theme worked perfectly with the vid idea and I didn't have time to make my two initial Challenge ideas so I decided to make this vid for Challenge. The clipping was fairly painless and I read about AIDS activism in LGBT communities and watched a few documentaries about it including the two I used: We Were Here and How to Survive a Plague which helped provide some incredibly useful footage. The vid made me cry a lot while making it (especially the ending) but I figured that was a good sign for the emotional reaction I was going for. thingswithwings provided some super helpful feedback that made the vid even better and in the end, I'm really happy that I made it and with how it turned out.

Comments

[grammarwoman]

This was so beautiful, and so heart-breaking! TNH is one of those movies that I want to watch, but I have to be prepared with gallons of water for how dehydrated I'll be after sobbing through it. I really appreciated the documentary footage you included with it; it emphasized and grounded the movie in the larger context.

[gwyn]

I really enjoyed this, even if it did break my heart. I don't stay for the discussion, so I hadn't known it was yours, and I was really pleased to find that out. I think your ending clip, especially, was perfectly chosen for the Challenge. Endings can often be one of those things that people get wrong, but this was perfect.

[deelaundry]

Very powerful. The Normal Heart was way white like seriously, so thank you for pulling in the historical footage to show the reality.

[bironic]

Watched it again and cried again. Beautiful.

[jb_slasher]

This is so beautiful, so heartbreaking, and inspiring at the same time. Excuse me while I go bawl in a heap. <3

[cinco]

I cried through the entire film of The Normal Heart, and all the way through this as well. Very well done, especially with the use of external source!