VID: The Game (Aeon Flux [1991], PG-13)

[rhivolution]

Title: The Game
Vidder: Rhi (rhivolution/rhipowered)
Fandom: Aeon Flux (TV series)
Music: The Motels, "Only the Lonely"
Warnings: Physical triggers--use of quick cuts
Length: 03:01
Summary: Don't hate the player, or; Scenes from the Monican/Bregnan war of attrition.

Notes: Made in Final Cut Express and VideoMonkey, for Cara Marie/caramarie in Festivids 2015. Hat tip to Silvia Moreno-Garcia for tweeting about 'Only the Lonely'--I'd been desperately looking for a track and had somehow never heard the Motels before. Thank you to her, and to all the folks who have put up the Aeon Flux series for streaming online, and to Peter Chung and company for letting them stay up. I had a hell of a time trying to source the video (yaaaay obscure fandoms) until I realised it was all already HERE.
Aeon Flux and me go way, way back--it's the fandom where I did my first (aborted) attempt at vidding in college, for a start. Western animation for adults has become a hell of a lot more solid in the intervening years between now and then, but Peter Chung, and later Sam Kieth, among others, pushed out the boat. I have a lot of thoughts about this! I will spare you!
After the sourcing issues, this was probably the easiest vid I've ever done in terms of construction, as the non-linear ugly-beautiful choppy nature of the canon lends itself well to remix (though it does mean some of the transitions look ugly...because the source is). The vid is shippy, though only in the sense that Aeon and Trevor aren't ever actually shippy, but a fucked up twisted mess. Somehow I managed to pull a narrative out of it all, and without realising it, tipped my hat to MTV of the 80s/90s.


Source Material: Aeon Flux (TV series, 1991-1995), created by Peter Chung. "Only the Lonely" (1982) by the Motels, written/composed by Martha Davis.

Download: Mediafire (MP4, 32.65 mb) | subtitles by request


Streaming:

The Game from Rhi on Vimeo.

Password: rhicake

Lyrics:
We walked
The loneliest mile
We smile without
Any style
We kiss altogether wrong
No intention

We lie about each other's drinks
We live without each other
Thinking what anyone would do
Without me and you
It's like I told you
Only the lonely can play

So hold on, here we go
Hold on to nothin' we know
I feel so lonely
Way up here

You mention
The time we were together
So long ago
Well, I don't remember, all I know is
It makes me feel good now

It's like I told you
Only the lonely can play
Only the lonely
Only the lonely can play