Choosing a POV: Story vs. Visuals

[bicklex.livejournal.com]

 I'll try to make this brief.  There's this vid I've been meaning to do for a long, long time.  The song is a sort of passive-aggressive one in which the singer complains about being unable to live up to his girl's expectations, with hints that he's afraid of being displaced by someone else.

The movie has three characters who could be plugged into this.  A is the girl.  B is a secondary character, A's ex-lover who is still devoted to her and goes to ridiculous lengths to make sure she's happy even though she's with C now.  C is the main character, who isn't attracted to A at all, but is in a relationship with her for a complex of other reasons (chiefly pity and passivity).

I can't decide who would make a better POV character.  B makes much more sense narratively, especially in relation to the song (the singer really is attracted to the girl, and those passages would have a overly sarcastic feel if C were singing them).  But C makes more sense visually; he gets more screen time in a greater variety of settings, and there's a neat repeated-with-variations image that would map very well to one line in the chorus.

I think the song really can be interpreted either way, with pitfalls on both sides.  If I pick B, I'm going to have to scrape and shoehorn to get the appropriate visuals, but if I pick C, I'm going to have to distort the canonical relationship dynamics.  B would be much harder to do; C would be much easier, but at the cost of interpreting the movie in a way I'm not really sold on.

Anybody else dealt with a dilemma like this?  Any thoughts on which concern should take precedence?

Comments

[obsessive24.livejournal.com]

I could be totally off base here, but reading over this, it really sounds like you want to do B and not C, and it seems like you're only not sure because of the lack of footage. It also sounds like you would be somehow frustrating your own intentions if you "settled" for C. I don't know if that's a fair enough call.

Some stuff just off the top of my head, which may give you some ideas.
- split POV time 50/50 by comparing and contrasting B and C?
- go with B and utilise some sort of external footage or repeated visual metaphor to beef up existing footage?
- Deceptive reveal where it sounds like C is talking but at the end it actually turns out to be B? This can be difficult to handle but could be very effective if fits your song/execution.

[bicklex.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you've pegged my feelings toward this perfectly . . . AND gave me a brilliant idea. The big point in favor of C is that thrice-repeated image that fits with the chorus; I could easily portray those bits as B observing C, to play up the jealousy angle. It just might work.

Thank you!

[obsessive24.livejournal.com]

Glad to have helped. Good luck with the vidding!