Here we go... season 6! Another super difficult season to work with, for a few reasons. Where do I start? I'd say that starting from season 5, the show suddenly forgot to focus on the sisterhood, and it REALLY shows here. When was the last time the three of them properly hugged it out, or stood together in an iconic shot that did not involve magic, demon fights, or a fashion show? Those become incredibly scarce in the second half of the series. The core idea of this show is that at the end of the day, these three women have a sisterly bond, which is the reason they are so powerful. Where am I going with this, you ask? Let's focus on season 6...

The three sisters' lives are now officially completely separated from one another. Each has her own problems, Piper's focused on Wyatt and moving on from Leo, Phoebe is the Mary Sue of San Francisco (rich boyfriend, perfect advice column, perfect tv show host, new convenient power, too busy with her job, etc), and aside from Paige's new love interest, she doesn't even know what she wants anymore, a life separate from magic or magic all the time, but at least she remains the only living member of the Warren line to actually care about saving innocents (for now). All this accumulates to create a dissonance in the Charmed sisterhood, which unfortunately SHOWS VISUALLY! That means no real sisterly moments, thus no abundance of sisterly shots, which is what the ORIGINAL CONCEPT is all about!

Ok, now let's go through the changes in order now:

It's always good to start by coming clean.... It pains me to say that, despite my efforts, I had to cheat a couple of times... starting with the overlayed flash of the sisters at :06, which is obviously not from the first 6 episodes, but considering the point I made earlier, you can understand why it was difficult finding a variety of suitable shots. Anyway, the second "STARRING" shot was almost from "Love's A Witch", which included some nice wind, but had bad blocking/composition and just didn't work. I wanted to avoid using shots with different hairstyles, but the Goddess shot just seemed to fit so well.

All sisters get new power clips and name shots. Piper rarely freezes anything anymore, and I did not want to cheat by choosing from future episodes, so I combined 2 separate shots for her freezing power, just because the original shot was too tight on her face, and you barely see her hand motion. I chose Piper's name shot mostly because it reminded me so much of Prue's name shot from seasons 1-2, and feels appropriate now that she's (supposedly) taking on the role of the big sister.

Phoebe's shots were tricky; I eventually decided to keep the premonition the same (it will change for season 7) solely as a protest to what her premonitions have become. Seriously, what happened to the young woman who had a premonition about an innocent every other episode back in the day? Throughout the ENTIRE sixth season, Phoebe does not have a single premonition involving a real innocent (we don't count Jinny, obviously). I was hoping to include an astral premonition, but since we are sticking with the rules of the original concept, we just don't have anything that best represents what premonitions are for. I would've included a shot of Orin shooting straight at her, but that felt too self-involved. Premonitions are mostly danger warnings about other people, preferably complete strangers that should be saved, so the one with Nick Correy getting hit by a car seems to be the best representation, which is why I kept it and slightly altered it to resembled Phoebe's "Advanced" premonitions.

For Empathy, I could've easily used a push-in shot of her using it or even her deflecting a power, but the latter makes it look more like telekinesis. Let's be honest, Empathy is more of a verbal power rather than visual, so it's difficult to find a shot that clearly shows that, which is why I went for something that touches on a few aspects: A shot of Phoebe in front of a computer, to suggest how she developed her power due to her work, and how that power helps her reach out to the people writing her. I also creating a light ray that connects with her mind/eyes shooting outward, representing the mental link this power creates with the other (offscreen) person. So we end up with what looks like Phoebe having a moment of clarity by establishing a link with someone else's mind/emotions, which allows her to help that someone.

As for Levitation, Phoebe only does it twice in the first six episodes, and frankly I did not feel guilty cheating this one; her last time levitating EVER was in fact a nice sequence, but for the sake of fitting everything in, I settled with showing her already in the air.

As for Paige, I tried using the best shots for her, but overall the power shots aren't as great as they used to be.

We'll end here, apparently my description's "too long" :P
Fingers crossed for season 7! #charmed #openingcredits #season6