Troy & Gabriella - She is the Sunlight

 

September, 2021 

Fandom - High School Musical Trilogy

Song - She is the Sunlight by Trading Yesterday

Description:

"If right is leaving, I'd rather be wrong" are some of the hardest lyrics to ever hit. Also Gabriella is a literal sunshine of a character and I've idolized her since I was a kid.

I've edited this for The Happiness Project's Nostalgia Challenge! Proudly, this challenge was my idea and I was feeling kind of down that it wasn't going to happen because I didn't have the time to put it together. That said, I started editing this video a few days ago anyways because I still wanted to make it. When I heard that someone else was hosting the challenge I was ecstatic and went straight to finishing this!

Program: VegasPro 18

Coloring: Sunnyvids #7

 

Well this was a fast one to make! Just a few days and some very long sittings. I was surprised how quickly I was able to finish because usually, when I vid a fandom for the first time, it's very slow going trying to find the scenes I want. It was definitely helpful that I rewatched the entire trilogy right before making this and was looking out for parallels. Unironically, those films are classics and I love them.

I came up with the idea of a nostalgia challenge early on in The Happiness Project, and finally it was going to get made as long as I hosted it! For personal reasons, I had to pull out of hosting the challenge at the last moment, so I thought the challenge would be a no-go. I was still really excited about the idea of making this video, which I thought of making specifically for this challenge, so I had started editing it anyways when I saw someone else is now hosting. So after two long days of editing I was ready to go!

Song chosen because I was captivated by the lyric "She is the sunlight," which is a tall order and felt like only a few characters would be worthy of such a statement. Gabriella is one of them, and in each film Troy makes a mistake and loses her. But while the song ends with the lyric, "The sun is gone," I made a contrast and paired it with the very last scene in which Gabriella is yes, gone, but only 32.7 miles away, implying a happy ending with a manageable long-distance relationship. The relationship struggles Troy and Gabriella face are very real, despite the children's nature of the films. I wanted to capture that genuine angst.

 

Editing-wise I haven't really done anything new, besides vidding a new fandom. I threw in lots of overlays though, some of which I hadn't used before. The SunnyVids coloring I chose is one of my favorites (and I've used it before) because it's so wholesome and warm. Fit very well with the wholesomeness of these particular films.