New vid: In Te Domine

[ash48]

This is my ao3vidders auction vid. It's for my winning bidder yourlibrarian


Banner by secretlytodream *smish*

Title: In Te Domine
Vidder: ash48
Music: Gloria, U2
Characters Castiel and ensemble
Category: Character study, meta
Length: 4 min
Size: 44mb

Stream: You Tube
Download: Sendspace (.dixv) OR 4Shared (.avi)

This also fills a vid_the_grid prompt secondary characters \o/



Thanks
First off, HUGE thanks to yourlibrarian not only for her bid, but for her detailed brief and valuable input while I was working on this. I truly hope this is close to what you envisioned for this song hun. Many thanks again. <3

To my wonderful beta _sharvie_ who came back on-line just when I needed her most. *smishes* as always honey. And to greyowl88 for some much needed hand holding. <33

Notes

The idea:

I admit to freaking out just a bit when yourlibrarian sent me the song and her ideas for it. Mostly because I've never really given Castiel a lot of thought and didn't really have the first idea where to begin. She said she wanted Castiel to be given a "clearer arc", than what we saw on the show, especially in his search for God. We agreed that even though he never found God as such, his journey helped him discover more about who he was. I decided to basically start at the beginning and work through his journey over the 2 seasons. My main focus is his connection to Heaven, the other Angels and to Sam and Dean. I wanted to draw out his sacrifices (his and Jimmy's), his betrayals, his loyalties, his doubts and his convictions.

Something we both discovered in the making of this was how much of what he experienced in season 4 made him what he was in season 5 and that is more aggressive, self assured, and determined. (BAMF as we discovered). I've tried to draw that difference out in the vid. I also discovered, to my surprise actually, that the Castiel that we started with - arriving with power and conviction, is the Castiel we ended with. So, full circle.

Lyric Interpretation: (found by _sharvie_ on the U2 site)

What does "In Te Domine" mean in the song "Gloria"?

It is a Latin phrase meaning "In You, Lord". In = In, Te = You, Domine = Lord. Also of note is that "Gloria", the title of the song, is the Latin word for "Glory". [AC]

In Latin, the beginning of Psalm 31 is "In te Domine speravi..." "In you, O Lord; I take refuge." As for the other Latin bits in "Gloria," "exultate" and "miserere" -- these are the beginnings of Psalms 33 and 51, respectively: "Exultate iusti in Domino..." "Exult, you just, in the Lord." And "Miserere mei Deus..." is "Have mercy on me, O God..." Source

In many ways this guided me in some of my choices. I wanted to play with the idea of the angelic experience, for both Jimmy and Castiel, as one that is not particularly merciful. It's fraught with pain, indecision and heartache. It also requires sacrifices.

It's been an interesting and challenging vid to make. Also a first for me (working with someone else's song choice and idea) but I loved doing it.




All comments are appreciated and cherished and if you want to meta Cas to me GO FOR IT! I dare you! I'm soooo up on Castiel now!

Comments

[ash48.livejournal.com]

Wow Dot, this is great! <3

You seem to have outlined his redemption arc,

Yes. Because Claudia requested that it focus more on his search for God it led me in this direction. Castiel seems to be always in search of something and it felt to me that by then end he had found some sort of answer to his search - his doubts and convictions in particular.

The way you used the photograph really got to me, it was a turn,

Yay! I am so thrilled this was picked up on. I really liked the idea that he had found a "new" family. And it gave him some sort of strength and belonging. I nestled it in between the "angel family" to hopefully show the juxtaposition of the 2 families.

I can also see it as a triumphant arc and how he's grown and changed in addition to it landing full circle.

Yes. Yes. I really wish I had had more of an opportunity to explore this slow descent into his drug and alcohol dependency (I think the Cas of the future started in season 5 - and I think Dean was showing him the way, with both his introduction to alcohol in Free to Be and then drugs in a later episode) but there was just too much to explore there in this vid. So I think his triumphant at the end is doubly poignant because he didn't end up taking that route after all.

But yes - I certainly felt like he was feeling more "whole" and it was a triumphant way to end. I think that may have been lost by the sheer intensity of what the boys were going through. (I certainly was thinking about Cas by the end of 5.22!)

it's fascinating to me that you ended it on Castiel walking away from Dean. I really liked that, actually, it's like he's standing on his own and the character needs that).

Again yay! I was conscience while making this not to have any ship (and I gotta say I can see how easy it would be to - man, the way they look at each other!!) so his walking away from Dean felt like it was part of his new strength and I wanted to highlight that with that very last shot of him standing there at the end without his wings showing.

Sorry I blabbed. It's extremely exciting and satisfying to hear about what a viewer takes away from watching a vid. I appreciate you taking the time to let me know.

*hugs*