Sunday, March 25, 2018
Sometimes, I can't win
This is not what I was looking for.
Well over twelve years ago, I found a brilliant mash-up of "Koyaanisqatsi" and Underworld's "Cowgirl". The video managed to distill the climax of the film to half the running time and still keep the major themes of the film. It had a kickin' track and was downright awesome.
And then it was gone.
Since then, there have been a couple uploads of a very low quality copy of said video. (Either of those links will do.) You'll see the editing was much tighter, beat matches were better, and it's all-around a better piece. The only problem is, it's terrible quality.
When I'm digging around looking for videos for the live show, video quality is one of my tripping points. It might look fine in a little box on your home PC, but it's going to look like total crap on a big screen.
Granted, this is a pretty long piece. I've been trying to keep clips to less than three minutes for shows, as that's long enough to get the point across without getting tedious. I've always imagined the show to eventually use Sesame Street style pacing: in, out; no fuss, no muss. Slap the brain about a bit and then move on.
Now, story time:
Long ago, a buddy and I went to see a live performance of Koyaanisqatsi. That is, the film would play while the Philip Glass group would play the soundtrack live. There's one little part during "The Grid" sequence (the climax of the film, really) and my buddy was suddenly looking at me and I was suddenly looking at her because both of us were having Sesame Street flashbacks. We talked about it later. She'd never seen the film before, but she knew that bit and it poked a part of my brain I'd obviously not used for a while. It's always startling when something like this happens, so I wanted to share that with you.
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1 comment:
As a huge fan of Koyaanisqatsi (and someone who's a bit jealous that you had the chance to see the concert presentation), thanks for providing the link to that video. I'd never encountered that re-edit before and it's pretty great.
I also absolutely know that "this footage is too janky to actually use" feeling and the frustration of not being able to find a projection-quality version of a beloved clip. It must be extra frustrating to see that someone got close to providing the edit you wanted...but not quite!
Finally, for what it's worth, my own philosophy regarding footage length is that you can open Hell with absolutely anything. If people have waited to get in they'll sit through whatever you lead with, basically no matter what. Alternately, you can always take a longer piece and use it to end Hell. If the big finale doesn't work and folks start to wander out, well, they were about to leave anyway, right? I'm not saying I go out of my way to clear the room like that, but a while back I wrapped Hell up with Roger Mainwood's "Autobahn" animation - all 12 minutes of it - and while it did cause two-thirds of the room to give up halfway through, I can't say that I regret it. If you do ever find a solid copy of your preferred Underworld/Koyaanisqatsi edit, I reckon that would make for a terrific finale, length be damned!
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