So after not doing a fan video for years, this is the second one I’ve done for Castle in less than six months. For more on what the series “Castle” is about, I refer you to the blog post for my first Castle fan video, Oh my God.

While I knocked off that first video in less than two days, this one I’ve struggled with for several weeks. The idea to do a video came to me almost immediately after hearing Daughtry’s song, Life After You, for the first time. The lyrics of the chorus are ‘All that I’m after is a life full of laughter / As long as I’m laughing with you’ which I thought was a perfect way to describe Castle’s outlook on life and his affection for Beckett. That was actually something I realized fairly early on in the editing process–if Oh My God had been from Beckett’s point of view then Life After You was definitely Castle’s take on the relationship. I also felt that the melancholy turn the song takes between the upbeat choruses fit well with some of the darker things that have been going on this season. Castle’s investigation of the murder of Beckett’s mother and the emotional fallout from that are a major thread in the series this year and one that feels very different from the lighthearted goofiness of a typical Castle episode.

And that’s where I really began to run aground with this video.

Unlike Oh my God which basically had one thread, with Life After You I felt like I was trying to balance two very different threads.

I started by editing in my typical swiss-cheese style and nailing down all the big emotional beats in the song and snagging the appropriately climactic clips. In this case it was placing Beckett firing her gun and the moment she breaks into sobs and aligning those two clips with the most dramatic part of the song. I then began building the narrative out forward and backward in time around those two clips. That part came together fairly quickly.

After that narrative chunk was fairly well formed, I edited the ending of the video so that I knew where I was ultimately trying to go mood-wise. A lot of the ending is built around Castle walking Beckett out of the precinct on his arm interspersed with clips that show the growing depth of their relationship. The walk is platonic, but the undertone is just a little deeper as is the case with most of Castle and Beckett’s interactions. Again, fairly easy.

But after that it just got very mucky. The bridges I had a heck of a time with as I was trying to find clips that could dial down the mood from slightly-fluffy to broody in only a few shots.

Ultimately, I don’t know if it’s the most successful video I’ve edited. With not even two seasons worth of episodes to pull from, I found myself really having to struggle to find the clips that I felt I needed and I can’t say I’m totally satisfied with all of them. I think perhaps someday, maybe in a season or two, I might come back to this video and see what more I can do with it.

In the meantime, enjoy…