So… Final Cut Pro X, eh? Lot of chatter about it. Lot of controversy.

I bought it the day it came out expecting to jump in and find an editing Nirvana. Instead I found something that made my head hurt. I believe this reaction was not unique. Being slightly busy, I resolved to keep an open mind and give it a proper go when I had the time. Turns out that time is now: six months later!

I want to put my thoughts about it down properly, so I’m not going to do so here, now. I want to finish my initial experiment so I can report fully, but it is getting under my skin. So much so that I dreamt a haiku last night that I could remember when I woke up. It goes like this:

New app taxes mind

Solace in lovers’ embrace—

Magnetic timeline.

Well, I was asleep.

As a teaser I’ll just say that it’s anyone’s guess if Final Cut Pro X will ever be a contender against the traditional track-based editors in professional workflows, but simply considered as a way of editing video, and especially as a way of managing media, it’s simply marvellous.

There are very good reasons why many pro shops need to switch to Avid (or even Premiere) now that Final Cut Pro 7 has been End of Lifed, but surely that’s good? I had the impression that Avid (or DigiDesign, or whoever they are) weren’t doin’ so hot; it’s good that they’re benefiting, good for everyone. Apple, on the other hand, is doing very well, thank you, and can stand to lose some pro customers in the short term. They certainly no longer need the “life-support” that many pro users felt they gave them in the ’90s. It’s true that the pro market probably kept Apple afloat during those dark times, but I don’t hold with the idea, put forward by some, that Apple now owes those users, and should take profit-killing decisions out of gratitude. Bought Apple gear in the ’90s purely out of charity did you? Wished you were on Windows the whole time? Bullshit. They stuck with Apple because Apple served their needs better than anyone at the time. If that’s no longer the case, take your custom elsewhere. Oh, you have.

Anyway, I’ll give my full account in due course; suffice to say that I don’t hate Apple for Final Cut Pro X, think they might just have done exactly the right thing, but don’t expect it to be any use to high-end broadcast or big-budget movies just yet (or maybe ever, but we’ll see).

Stay tuned…

Technorati Tags: Adobe Premiere, Avid, editing, Final Cut Pro X

© 2012 The New York Times Company

The New York Times magazine has this excellent article by Bryan Curtis on George Lucas. I’ve long been an apologist for fan of the Star Wars prequels, and I remember taking a sceptical friend to the world’s first six-movie marathon in Leicester Square the day Revenge of the Sith had its London premier. Upon emerging for our 15 minute break after The Phantom Menace, I tried to find consensus midway between our opinions (he was no convert) by opining that, “Obviously no Hollywood studio committee got anywhere near that.”

I meant it. There are things in it that are undeniably clunky (my wife is always driven to scream when Jake Lloyd’s Anakin yells, ‘Yipee!’), things that would’ve been ironed out by committee to make it more like “other films”. I don’t believe or argue that these should all be forgiven as artistic quirks to be revered in the slick modern homogeny of mainstream movies, but I note that audiences in general seem less able to cope with quirks than they were forty years ago. Whether that’s a raising or lowering of standards, I really don’t know.

Lucas is giving interviews primarily to plug Red Tails, the story of the Tuskegee Airmen who overcame racial prejudice in WWII to achieve the same privilege (!) to fight and die for their country as their caucasian comrades. A possible trilogy, Lucas has exec produced what will be the middle part. If it makes money, Spike Lee will make the prequel and Lee Daniels the conclusion, both without Lucas involvement, it seems. Those are to be, he admits, movies that he’s not equipped to make. Red Tails, on the other hand, is directed by Anthony Hemingway, a young (36) director from TV for whom this is a feature debut, so Lucas’s hand should be somewhat evident from his executive producer role. Indeed, Hemingway took more TV gigs during the two years Lucas oversaw the post production. Unlike the surrounding films, this is designed as a mainstream entertainment, which Lucas felt was more his thing. One of those old-fashioned glory-of-combat movies that honours those who stand in harm’s way with big fanfares and sweeping, if simple, sentiment.

And no one wanted to know.

Amazingly, movie execs refused even to watch it. Having already financed the production personally (to the tune of $100 million), Lucas only persuaded 20th Century Fox to distribute it by agreeing to meet all those costs too. Is it cos dey is black?  Lucas doesn’t think so. He just thinks its lack of guaranteed, built-in audience means none of the suits thinks it’ll play. From the trailers, I’d give it a go anyway, but given this history, I’ll buy my ticket in support of the personal filmmaker, even if that personality demands simplicity, naivety and entertainment for its own sake.

Lucas announces his retirement from the mainstream (such as he was ever in it) in the Curtis article. He’s concentrated on making entertainment for the masses and the masses have literally accused him of raping their childhoods. Well, haters, he’s finally taken the hint. I, for one, look forward to the ‘personal’ films he’s been promising/ threatening us with since he embarked on Phantom Menace in the mid-nineties. When the youngsters on YouTube and the like are trying their best to imitate the style of those who need a multi-million dollar opening weekend to even survive (and hence owe fealty to the lowest common denominator), perhaps Lucas can show us something new… again.

Technorati Tags: George Lucas, Hollywood, Red Tails

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Nina Burleigh has a great article in the New York Times in which she tours Italy, seeking out the locations of gothic English and American novels.

The original gothic writers were much inspired by the duality in the bel paese. Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe and other masters of the romantic and horror genres set some of their most famous works in Italy.

“Italy was the Gothic writers’ favorite background,” wrote Massimiliano Demata, a professor at the University of Bari, who has made a study of the form. The country’s baroque portas, ruined castles, eerie reliquaries and catacombs were a gateway to the uncanny, possessing, as he put it, “a labyrinthine and claustrophobic architecture that was the novels’ perfect physical and psychological setting.” Today, these same books can serve as unconventional guidebooks for tourists who tire of the sun and want to explore the country’s macabre past.

link

Technorati Tags: Ann Radcliffe, catacombs, Edgar Allan Poe, Horace Walpole, Italy, Naples, Napoli, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Roma, Rome

Dannsa hits Episode the Third with a trip to Taynuilt, near Oban. Well, relatively “near”: Taynuilt isn’t near anywhere, which is sort if the point of Ballet West. In idyllic surrounds, the ballet degree students have few distractions, other than the odd stag sticking his majestic head through the studio window to enjoy a rehearsal.

The music goes thus:

1. Human (Armen van Buuren mix) by The Killers

   Killers again. For some reason they write the perfect opening songs: catchy anthems that seem to beg to be remixed for the clubbers. This week: Human, reprised.

2. Starlight by Slash

   The director’s Rammstein suggestion for episode one had linked Ballet West and rock in my mind. As with the Heavy Smokers in episode one, Slash’s solo album was still reverberating round my head.

   When I first heard this song I felt like I’d heard it before, but not in a derivative, clone/ parody type way. More like when an old song comes on in an unexpected and incongruous place, like in M&S when your just holding/ guarding a bunch of dresses which may or may not get purchased in the next hour or two. A song comes over the tinny store speakers and your immediately back in a moment you thought you’d forgotten.

   With this album, and this song in particular, Slash has entered that pantheon of rock survivors who have enough of a fanbase to please themselves, musically, knowing there’ll be an audience. Prince, Springsteen, Kate Bush, Paul McCartney, folk like that are still writing and recording vital material without an eye on the Top 40. They may not be cutting-edge, as they all once were, but they have proved that there was more to their genius than mere fashion, and their fans are well provided for.

   Starlight is sung by Myles Kennedy, a guy so in tune with the rock era that he could stand in for Robert Plant in the as-yet unreleased ‘Led Zeppelin in all but name’ project. Check out those ball-curling high notes (which he can also reproduce live, btw).

   The Killers may have a gift for the modern anthem, but this track, for me, stands outside time, demanding you lift you spirit just to accommodate it. For a montage of ballet dancers seemingly floating on air, what could possibly be better?

3. Here’s Where the Story Ends by Tin Tin Out (feat. Shelley Nelson)

   The Sundays’ original is great, so it’s a testament to Tin Tin Out that their cover is the one you still here. Whoever performs it, what a piece of work: airy, melancholic, catchy. We use it here to introduce the school with contributions from our key players, and everything about it sets up the nature of the story to follow.

4. Grand Pas de Deux of “Le Corsaire” Act II, Variation for “Ali” (fast) by [no idea]

   This episode was a (basic) education in ballet for me. I had no idea that there were so many variations, revivals or even what a Pas de Deux was. It seems that there is original choreography that is basically preserved through the ages, though occasionally modified.

   So pay attention:

   • Le Corsaire 1.0 was first staged in St. Petersberg in 1858, choreographed by Joseph Mazilier to music by Adolphe Adam.
   • French Jedi ballet master, Marius Petipa, fiddled with it repeatedly over the course of four revivals, beginning in 1863.
   • The other three, each with new dances and music (by Cesare Pugni) were in 1868, ‘80 and ‘99.
   • In the midst of this, there was a revival by Joseph Mazilier himself in 1867, this time with new music by Léo Delibes.
   • This kind of thing went on and on, ad nauseum.

   I think this pas de deux variation emerged as late as 1955, but please, please don’t quote me. I certainly haven’t a clue who composed the music.

   I use it here to foreshadow Duncan’s performance in the prestigious Genée competition. Also, it’s nice.

5. Flowerbed by Take That

   The selection of this track dates back to before the first episode, when Dannsa was a fiery ball of potential, waiting to be wraught into the magnificence before you. At the time, I had just (God help me) bought Take That’s album, Progress. While experimenting with different styles of editing, I tried cutting a solo ballet piece to Eight Letters and liked the results.

   For Sarah’s account of her school days, and the salvation her dancing offered, I could think of nothing better. Besides, it’s cool to like Take That now, don’t you know.

6. Here Comes Your Man by Teenage Fanclub

   Nice to get a bit of Glaswegian power pop into the show, and another gentle ribbing of Andy Howitt. He’s the Man, you see, and he’s coming to visit Ballet West.

7. Champion by Chipmunk (feat. Chris Brown)

   A minor theme for Duncan as Andy offers his first thoughts on the company and how they might best fit into his Grand Finalé.

8. Release by Black Eyed Peas

   Once again I turn to the BEP. This time, it’s for our palate-cleansing jaunt over to Dundee and the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance. Their class in “release” technique contrasted nicely with the poise and precision of the ballet students. I needn’t tell you why I chose the track, I trust.

9. Lose Yourself by Eminem

   At this point in the story, there is doubt as to whether Sarah’s dress for her Genée performance will make it to Ballet West in time for their departure to London. This instrumental version ratchets up the tension.

10. How it Feels to Fly by Alicia Keys

    I needed a real moment here. Sarah’s story is one of personal empowerment through dance. The Genée competition seemed less important to her as a career move than it was for Duncan (though its importance for any dancer can’t be overstated); more, it was having the strength to face the situation, with its pressure and stress, that we concentrated on. In that way, how well the performances went fell mostly on Duncan’s shoulders in the final portion of the show. Putting on the dress that had had such difficulty finding its way to Taynuilt, then, ought to be an instant of semi-resolution for Sarah, i.e. molto importante.

    Once again, Alicia Keys saved me. I went straight to her Element of Freedom album and this song leapt out in a brisé. The sentiment (“I’d risk the fall/ Just to know how it feels to fly”), the imagery (Sarah’s already described the feeling as “floating”) and the melody made this a moment large enough that I could afford myself the editing equivalent of a bow: the fade to black.

11. London Calling by The Clash

    I could be accused of making an obvious and unoriginal choice here, as the gang arrive in London, but I defy anyone to come up with a better summation of the capital’s foreboding. Duncan and Sarah are about to be put under enormous pressure and the contrast between sleepy Taynuilt and frantic London couldn’t be put to any better music, imho.

12. Step Up by Samantha Jade

    Following on from The Clash is this breezier offering, more “dance” but the lyrical content sustains the notion that our heroes need to dig deep to face the challenge of Genée, especially as the competing dancers are, shall we say, good.

13. Here We Go Again by The Hives

    Musically, this frenetic track illustrates the adrenaline and pulsing heartbeat of waiting to compete. Because Duncan and Sarah were to perform separately, the title of the track (barked as a chorus) allowed me to reprise it to good effect.

14. Dance ’til We’re High by The Fireman

    Did I mention Paul McCartney earlier? His third album with Youth as The Fireman is a doozer, and this is from that.

    In keeping with our emerging pattern of inspirational closing tracks, this dreamy anthem (there’s that word again) speaks of inner strength and triumph, perfectly capping all the themes and emotions of the episode.

Next week, it’s to the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, where the stakes are Genée-high for all the fourth year students facing the Big, Bad, World of forging your actual career in dance.

It’s a roller coaster.

Technorati Tags: alicia keys, dannsa, music, Paul McCartney, slash, The Clash, The Killers

Following on from last week’s blog, here’s what I have to say for myself regarding the music choices in Dannsa, episode 2, which is on tonight at 10pm, BBC Alba.

This week, we concentrate on the Fusion dance group in Aberdeen, with a brief sojourn with Livingston’s b-boyz (and girl), the Heavy Smokers, kicking off with…

1. Somebody Told Me (Mylo Mix) by The Killers

   To a certain extent, the Killers became Dannsa’s opening act. Because of licensing, you can’t use a track more than twice as a theme, but if we’d been allowed we’d have used the Armin van Buuren mix of Human every time. As a compromise, we found three more funky mixes of Killers tunes and, using each of them twice, used them to kick off eight of our shows. Something about the kind of song the Killers write, funkified by some painfully cool dude suited us. This week, Somebody Told Me.

2. Let’s Get it Started (Spike Mix)

   Another mix of the Black Eyed Peas classic.

3. Northern Light of Old Aberdeen

   Andy Stewart. This is to introduce Aberdeen, obviously, and originally mixed into Whip My Hair by Willow Smith (see next track). Takes me back to Sunday dinner when I was a kid. Roast beef, always roast beef, and Ken’s Ceilidh on Radio Clyde. My mum still makes roast beef on a Sunday, but Ken has gone to the big ceilidh in the sky.

   Put a lot of compression on the track, and a dash of reverb, trying to suggest it’s coming from a distance, wafting across the salty sea air. All the better to contrast with…

4. ‘Til the End of the World by Britney Spears

   Like I say, this was originally Whip My Hair by Willow Smith, but that track proved a tough one to license, so we switched it for the Britney. Ironically, this song is far less annoying than Whip, but I was sorry to lose li’l Ms. Smith. Somehow, it fit perfectly (probably because the Fusion dancers were whipping their hair a lot in rehearsal). ‘Til the End of the World, though, has the same energy and works just fine.

5. Who’s That Chick? (feat. Rihanna)

   A good song for introducing… well… a chick; not that I’d normally use so patronising a term to describe a woman. Anyway, the bird in question is Lynne Brown, Fusion’s choreographer. Everyone on the team who met Lynne was taken with her enegy and infectious enthusiasm, so I had a certain responsibility to make sure that translated to the telly screen. That can be trickier than you might think. It’s like folk who are really attractive in person but who don’t take a good photo—sometimes it just mysteriously doesn’t come across. I think I got it, and certainly everyone who saw the final cut remarked, unbidden, on how much they admired her, her skill and how much she obviously cared for the girls. Hope you agree.

   So that’s who that chick is.

6. The Fame

   A flashback to last week’s episode, so it made sense to reprise the good lady’s anthem. Somewhere in the darkest subconscious of the audience, the connection will be made.

7. ‘Til the End of the World

   Another blast of the Brit, bookending this intro section before we delve into our characters proper. I enjoy ringfencing sections in this way: it’s not too obvious but gives a wee narrative handrail to the viewer. A musical, “And now for something completely different,” if you will.

8. 9 Crimes

   What a song; a grower. Our use of it was dictated by Lynne, as she’d chosen it for the Fusion girls to devise their solo pieces to. We owe her a debt of gratitude. From Rice’s second album, this extraordinary ballad was perfect for Lynne’s purpose: inspiring the girls to explore deeply personal experiences to base their solos around. I have to say, I never got tired of any of the music we used in Dannsa (as can so easily be the case in an edit), but this one positively grew in stature the more I heard it. That haunting refrain, “Is that alright, yeah?” has seeped into me, seemingly never to leave.

   All the girls’ pieces were marvellous, and will be properly showcased before the series is out, but Sarah’s story struck us as perhaps the most extraordinary. Sarah, if you remember, was the dancer whose natural talent made her a shoe-in at the audition, despite her relative lack of experience. Here she tells of her battle with a terrible illness, recovery and how it inspired her solo piece.

9. Promise This by Cheryl Cole

   I needed something with the same poppy pizazz as the Britney without sounding too similar. A useful resource, I found, was the Radio 1 playlist; I’d just have a wee trawl if I was stuck and something usually suited. In this case, it was this.

10. Whole Lotta Love

    A pun for Lottie (geddit?), it was great to get some Zep into proceedings. Musically, too, Jimmy Page’s zinging speaks here of Lottie’s fiery character, as described by her mum, by Lynne, and by the girl herself.

11. Opposite of Adults

    This was a track that had been selected for the Heavy Smokers before I even joined the project so I can’t help but identify it with them. Here, it underscores meeting Heavy Smoker, Steven.

12. Dancing on My Own (Radio Edit) by Robyn

    Catchier than a head cold, this song must be impossible to dislike, surely. In the episode, Lynne talks Kevin through how the show’s going to go. I loved that we could include this: great stories take care to explain what you should expect to happen, with success or failure judged on how much you stick to plan. (Think the briefing room before the Death Star assault in Star Wars, or Doc Brown’s ill-fated scale mock-up in Back to the Future.) The other groups do this to a certain extent, but because Fusion have to change location so often within the performance (and might have to improvise because of the weather), having this walk-through is invaluable. The flip side, though, is pure exposition can be pretty dry. Luke argues with that bloke about bullseye-ing wamp rats; Doc Brown’t model catches fire; I add a soupçon of Robyn.

13. The Man Comes Around

    Each of the episodes that focuses on one particular group has a section where Andy Howitt—the man who’ll have to bring them all together for our finalé at Glasgow’s Tramway—appraises the group, analysing their peculiarities and predicting how he’ll incorporate them in the larger project. I decided to cut and include an intro to Andy that spelled out this rôle for those who may not have seen episode one, along with a recap of the five other groups.

    As for the music, what can I say? It was getting late and this song leapt to mind immediately. I should point out that, when it gets late, I often have strange ideas that seem amusing at the time but turn out to be inappropriate in the cold light of day after a refreshing dose of sleep. I worried that this was one of them. Was I being too irreverent with Andy? In the absence of any better idea, though, I figured that I could change it easily enough if everyone else thought I had misjudged it.

    To leave room for explanatory voice-over, I looped the opening guitar strums to keep it instrumental, only letting Mr. Cash pipe up on, “There’ll be a golden ladder coming down/ When the Man comes around.” He almost sang, “golden,” over shots of the GOLDEN group, which seemed like a good omen.

    The next day, everyone seemed tickled by the song choice and no one thought it disrespectful, so it stayed. Along with the previous episode’s Mendelssohn, the precedent was set to have fun with Andy’s intros, and in the coming weeks, fun we did have.

14. Dannsa Bed

    As I reported last time, I felt it was a shame to use proper songs as music beds that the audience will barely hear, so I hoped to find and use some specially designed bed music—essentially a simple rhythm an riff that will fill out the aural landscape without distracting from the main chat with lyrics or complex composition. Production music libraries sell this stuff by the yard, but there’s always an excruciating process of auditioning tracks, swapping CD after CD looking for a track that doesn’t sound naff in context. Well, I hadn’t the time to do that, so I just sparked up GarageBand, threw down some loops, and there was our bed music. I used it for Andy’s chat with Anne as he discusses this week’s group, and, later, used it for Anne and Kevin’s links, too.

    When it came time to do music reporting, it had to be given a name, just for the paperwork. I was at a loss, but the director suggested Monty’s Revenge, after my best pal in the world.

15. Time is Running Out by Muse

    I was turned on to Muse by the same pal who alerted me to Slash’s solo album (see last post). His band in Korea were covering this song at the time he was raving about it. That was a few years previous, but I’ve liked the song ever since and thought it’d work as a build up to Fusion’s performance.

16. The Performance Medley

    I wanted to use for this the same music Fusion themselves had used—it’d be too much of a liberty to take with their performance (which is the climax of our story, after all), to suggest they were dancing to music that they weren’t really.

    The trick was to cut it down. In reality, their performance lasted fifteen minutes—half the length of our episode. They would let each song play out before they and the audience changed location. I had to make the songs blend together and sound like natural bedfellows as a medley, despite their greatly varying keys and tempos. You’ll have to watch the show to see if I managed it. Here they are in full, though.

    • Boogie Wonderland

    • Beggin’

    • Rock that Body

    • Jai Ho

17. Sleeps with Butterflies by Tori Amos

    Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m madly in love with Tori Amos. I mean it: madly in love. My wife and I have an agreement that I can run off with her if I can arrange it. (My wife’s allowed to run off with Patrick Stewart.) This is from her Beekeeper album and has her signature blend of melancholia, kookiness and sheer melodic majesty. You can’t hear it in the episode, but one of my all-time favourite moments in Ms. Amos’s career is the way she slightly slurs the line, “Are you having regrets about lasht night?”

    I simply melt each time.

    When I needed a song to close the episode that was both triumphant and poignant, my head filled with the opening strains of this. I invite you to bask in it.

So, farewell then, episode two. In many ways, this was the first true episode, the first being more of an overview, a teaser of the series rather than an example of it, where time demanded less than five minutes with each group, which isn’t enough to make any emotional connection with them. Here, though, I hope you found the group as talented and charming as we did.

Next week, Ballet West (with a dash of funky-cool contemporary from the SSCD).

Technorati Tags: led zepplin, tori amos

A new show TV started last Monday, 10pm on BBC Alba. It’s called Dannsa^[1] and you’ll all be able to get it, because BBC Alba has just become available to anyone with Freeview. That’s you^[2]. I recommend the show to you, because it’s rather good. I know this because I worked on it, along with a string of extraordinarily talented people.^[3] And frankly, we all worked damned hard. I don’t want to give too much away, but one aspect of the post-production that I feel I can discuss in some detail is the choice of music. Obviously, the dancers featured dance to something, so music choice was a primary concern.

The show follows six dance groups from all over Scotland with wildly varying ages and dance styles, from classical ballet to contemporary, an over-60s group to a breakdance crew. There’s something for everyone, and it was a joy spending time with them all, particularly when they start coming together later in the series. Episode One introduces us to them all, whereas subsequent editions focus on one group at a time. So this introduction to them all is, itself, a kind of compilation album, a mix tape, a playlist. So the music better be good.

I had, I admit, fallen out of the way of what the kids were listening to. The Top 40 had become a dangerous country, one where I didn’t fit in and those who did would recognise my alien arse a mile off.

Once upon a time I’d stroll idly through the Radio 1 Chart Show of a Sunday evening, comforted by the familiar Michael Jacksons, the Madonnas, the Rick Astleys, admiring the odd new REMs that’d sprout up, all the time hoping the MC Hammers wouldn’t take root.

That was decades ago. Now I’d retreated into a musical isolation, where new Princes, Springsteens and Kate Bushes (rare indeed) were the only fresh inductees. If I really craved fresh meat, I’d go to a place like Pitchfork, which has a pleasingly snobbish attitude and is indie-centric from an American perspective. In short, I was outta touch.

My salvation was Fearne Cotton. I didn’t seek her out, but she was the one on the radio whenever I seemed to be able to sneak a listen. ^[4] What she taught me was: the youth of today still have taste. For example, I have the Mumford & Sons record, and think it’s alright, but I never would have dreamed it would fit for a hip show like Dannsa unless Ms. Cotton confirmed its coolness^[5]. Cool, the radio still tells you what’s cool! It’s like the gym, though, you’ve got to keep it up.

So, thoroughly flexed, I tunified Episode One as follows^[6]:

1. Human by the Killers (Armin van Buuren club Remix)

The director’s choice. The refrain of “Are we human or are we dancers?” is obviously appropriate, and it’s a truly awesome song. This particular mix was unanimously hailed as the most suitable. Sorry, Ferry Corsten, we tried yours and it just didn’t go.

2. Dannsa Theme

Quee McArthur of Shooglenifty composed the original music for the show. A tall order to incorporate so many styles, but he did it in fine fashion. The two longer pieces he composed for the series’ Grand Finalé are awesome, but this and the closing credits music are appetising wee teasers for ya.

3. Let’s Get It Started by the Black Eyed Peas

My turn to be obvious. This is used during the “Coming up on the show…” montage and does just what it says. Showing my disconnection with pop, it was one of those songs that, thanks to its enormous success, I couldn’t help but be aware of, but I didn’t actually know what it was or who it was by. Some searching led me to the Black Eyed Peas and their Elephunk album. However, it was when encountering the cover art of The End — an image so ubiquitous that it had settled, context-less, into my sense memory like a genetic echo — that I felt a palpable shame at having no knowledge of this gargantuan album. Black Eyed Peas and me would get better acquainted before Episode One was out.^[7]

4. Fingal’s Cave by Mendelssohn

The introduction to Andy Howitt, Dannsa’s resident choreographer, as he strides down the corridors of Glasgow’s RSAMD. It had always been the plan to introduce Andy via his work with the Project-Y youth dance company (though they aren’t one of the six groups we follow), but back when the episode structure was still in a state of flux, we’d envisioned seeing them through a full process of first rehearsal to final performance. Andy was choreographing them to Fingal’s Cave by Mendelssohn so we foreshadowed the performance by introducing him with one of its flourishes. In the end we saved the whole rehearsal-to-performance bit for a later episode, but the almost overly-dramatic fanfare still worked for his entrance, so it stayed. In fact, it portended a conceit where we’d have fun with Andy’s entrance music in subsequent episodes. Different every time (principally because of music licensing agreements), it proved a reliable source of fun and mischief in the following weeks.

5. Numba 1 (Tide is High) by Kardinal Offishall Ft. Keri Hilson

It’s hard to find specific stuff for montages that don’t have, shall we say, a philosophy. Dance rehearsals are interesting enough to look at, but no one writes songs about them. The initial vibe of this track struck me as suitable for this Y-Dance rehearsal showing Andy at work, but when Hilson’s vocal’s kicked in I was immediately transported back to the Blondie version and happier childhood days. Decision made.

6. Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J

One of my earliest musical misfires was the rehearsal music for GOLDEN, an over-60s dance group based in Edinburgh. I had originally used a piece of 1980s super-cheese called Gravity by Michael Sembello. In my mind, it was a reference to the Ron Howard movie, Cocoon, where octonigarians Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Don Ameche et al discover youthful vigour thanks to some visiting aliens. It was probably the song made the director politely ask if we could stick to more recent works, generally.

On reflection, it was a good shout: who remembers that movie, really?

Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J attracted me with its title: the image conjured of a sassy matriarch advocating violence spoke sufficiently of elderly empowerment for me to give it a listen. The first line, “Don’t call it a comeback — I’ve been here for years,” sealed it. (This is perhaps the first example of my willingness to twist the lyrics of songs to make them a sort of Greek chorus. I couldn’t care less if LL Cool J wants to admit that his “acting career” was a dud or not: in my hands he’s rapping the praises of twenty-odd over-60s who just wanna dance, dammit.)

7. Hungry by Kosheen

Suggested a hunger for life that the GOLDEN group have in spades.

8. Dynamite by Taio Cruz

Such a huge song, I don’t know why I used it as a burbling bed under a presenter link, but I did. I put it to better effect in a future episode. You just wait…

9. Paradise City by Slash, feat. Cypress Hill & Fergie

One of those choices that remind me of a particular moment. As I was cutting a version of the first episode, I friend from Korea was busy extolling the virtues of Slash, the eponymous solo album by the erstwhile Guns ’n’ Roses and Velvet Revolver guitarist. So it was rattling round my head when faced with introducing the mighty Heavy Smokers, a b-boy crew from Livingston. I had a lot of footage of them breakdancing around their hometown in unlikely locations such as deserted buildings and swing parks. The combination of their breaking and the specific location suggested this version of Paradise City. The vocals are shared between Cypress Hill and Fergie, which seemed more in keeping with the crew’s ethos than the 80s original. The friend that had turned me on to the album doesn’t actually like this version, being a GnR purist. You might agree, but for the Heavy Smokers, in my humble opinion, it’s perfect.

10. Bringing it Back by Black Eyed Peas

The Heavy Smokers discuss life in Livingston, and it turned into a montage for which I literally searched “b-boy” in iTunes. The 30 second iTunes preview of this track contained references to both b-boys and b-girls (the Heavy Smokers have a full-time female member which, unfair as it may seem, is unusual). Also, being the second appearance of the Black Eyed Peas, this was to be a portent of how much I’d look to them. Them and a certain Ms. Keys, as I’ll explain in a bit.

11. Weisses Fleisch by Rammstein

Director’s choice. From the start he’d talked about Rammstein scoring the Ballet West students, counterpointing their grace with the badassss German metal lords. Plus, Rammstein are funny. I think all metal’s funny, really; the heavier, the funnier. Rammstein just seem aware of it, and I find that refreshing. And funny. Worked as well as the director had imagined.

12. Halo by Beyoncé

I’d liked this song for a while, attracted principally by its dreamy, ethereal video. It’s co-written by Ryan Tedder, who co-wrote Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love, which was more successful but is, in my opinion, a far weaker song. Here, Halo introduces the serenity of Taynuilt, near Oban where Ballet West is situated. The students can work in near-isolation in these idyllic surroundings, and I needed a sharp change of pace after the Rammstein.

13. Ridin’ Solo by Jason DeRulo

Accompanying young ballet dancer Duncan’s account of his being bullied at school for his love of ballet, this defiant hymn of self-sufficiency set against his sublime dancing illustrated his right to the last laugh beautifully.

14. Jump by Girls Aloud

Okay, it’s a sequence where co-presenter, Kevin Walker, is taught to jump, ballet-style. Jump. That’s it. For the record, though, I do like this version.

15. 4ever by The Veronicas

More bed music, meaning it’s almost lost under the presenter links. From the next episode onwards I stopped using proper songs for this purpose, but you’ll have to tune in next week for my elegant alternative.

16. The Fame by Lady GaGa

Lyrically and musically perfect for a dance audition, this underscores the Fusion contemporary dance company looking for new blood in Aberdeen. Doin’ it for The Fame.

17. Club Can’t Handle Me by Flo Rida

Still with the Fusion auditions, I just wanted a change of pace when the judges notice young Sarah. Unlike many of the auditioned girls, Sarah hadn’t much dance experience to bring to bear. Most of the others had been dancing since they could walk, but little Sarah was a newb. Nevertheless, she showed extraordinary natural talent and was one of the judges’ no-brainers. It was this twist that made her the stand-out story of the auditions. I didn’t know it at the time, because I hadn’t seen the footage shot for the Fusion episode (next week), but it was serendipitous for us to focus on Sarah for reasons that will become apparent.

18. Stars Come Out by Calvin Harris

The building that is home to the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance in Dundee is called the Space. Space. Stars. Worked perfectly well as we met the students during their intense four-year course.

19. I’m In Love by Alex Gaudino

A theme for Indra, a dancer at the school who, incredibly, is registered blind. She nonetheless participates fully with the course, with neither complaint nor expectation of special treatment. I wanted a song that was just shamelessly joyful.

20. Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart by Alicia Keys

In Maryhill, Glasgow, choreographer Natasha Gilmour uses dance to help asylum seekers and refugees integrate with their new home. We meet her and organiser Remzije “Rema” Sherifi as they explain their roles and, in Rema’s case, her own story of fleeing her homeland. This song introduces us to the group.

On a personal note^[8], this song blew me away the moment I heard it. I still can’t quite get over it. (Perhaps even a Desert Island Disc.) I bought the album, Element of Freedom, on the back of this song and wasn’t disappointed. It was a record that I’d return to throughout the show whenever I was stuck; I always knew Alicia Keys would rescue me, and I was always right. Along with the Black Eyed Peas, Ms. Keys is the Dannsa favourite. She’ll be back.

21. Apache by The Incredible Bongo Band

This was just the song that Natasha was using to choreograph the group in the rehearsal featured in this montage. I sometimes use the same music as the source because you can drop in actual audio from the footage without the background music conflicting. There was no actuality here, but it was just a terrific piece of music, and obviously the timing would be right, so here it is. Not Top 40, but good enough to break the rule. (Finding music good enough to break the rule became a useful challenge.)

22. Get the Party Started by P!nk

P!nk, mirroring the Black Eyed Peas song near the top, this time looking ahead to the series as a whole. Bit on-the-nose, maybe, but it works, so leave me alone.

And that’s it for episode one.

Next week we’ll learn how I continued Radio 1 boot camp and embraced the quirkier side, making every song (well, most songs) do double and even triple duty. For some, their importance cannot be overstated, and the moments when they clicked into place were my favourite part of the edit.

So see you next week for the Fusion girls in Aberdeen. Bring a handkerchief.

Technorati Tags: alicia keys, black eyed peas, dance, dannsa, lady gaga, mneTV, music, slash, taio cruz

Here are the Amazon DVD reviews of one Mr. M. E. B. Woods “markbernard1981″ (Bristol, UK).  There are three of them and they warmed my cockles.

Some choice observations (apply a sic to everything):

From Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot: “Stalone thinks he’s hard cos he plays a cop who doesn’t play by the rules. Big deal. Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson didn’t played even less by the rules better.”

From Shallow Hal: “Someone told me that Steven Siegal was in this movie as a cameo, I watched it three times and there wasn’t a single reference to him.”

From My Giant: “A lot of the times Billy Crystal has more lines than my giant which is ludacris.”

I assume that Mr. M. E. B. Woods “markbernard1981″ (Bristol, UK) is perfectly sane, lucid and just having a wee laugh, but they tickled me.

Just watched the political discussion show, Empire, on Aljazeera. Jolly good. I’m quite enjoying switching to the Doha-based network whenever BBC News starts wittering about cricket and there’s nothing good on Parliament. They had, among others, Carl Bernstein of All the President’s Men fame going on about Wikileaks, cyber activism and national security.

The whole thing got me thinking, though, how much of my morality is framed in the context of Star Wars. No, really.

The word Empire has negative connotations for me, but not because of Gandhi or Zephaniah, but Palpatine.
When I was a kid, you had to read the novelisations even to know his name was Palpatine: in the original trilogy he was always simply The Emperor.

And he was bad.

The Star Wars universe was always more complex than people gave it credit for. Critics spoke of a simplistic, black and white morality but, cheap shots aside, part of us did want to see an Ewok take one in the ghoulies (in the same way that Kubrick’s The Shining’s great strength, in my opinion, is that part of us does want to see Shelley Duvall get an axe in the head.)

But, admittedly, the good-guy–bad-guy divide was never too blurred. The Empire wasn’t nice and no one but those on the payroll had a good word for it. It had tons of cool tech that let it kill more people from further away, and that only made us root for the plucky rebels with their makeshift, temperature-sensative devices and teddy bear allies.

This was brought to my mind as I played a FPS game with a pal in his flat. It wasn’t Call of Duty or Medal of Honour, I don’t think, but it was of that ilk, complete with modern Middle East setting with Afghan mountains, all pale brown dust and blazing sun. We, the protagonists, operated several flavours of automatic weaponry. At one point we were in a helicopter with destructive capability that would terrify an AT-AT.
Our opponents, on the other hand, were always on foot, armed with AK-47s (and the occasional makeshift anti-aircraft gun) and were generally running into a hail of bullets.

Before anyone starts breathing faster, let me stress I mean to express no opinion (here) about the UK’s recent and current Middle Eastern adventures; nor do I wish to suggest that might automatically equals wrong. I just mean that as we killed more people from further away, I felt very much like I was the agent of a bloated empire. And the empire I mean isn’t the undead British Empire, or the American Empire By Any Other Name, but THE empire: the Evil Empire in a galaxy far, far away.

The extent that that reflects any empire of actual history, recent or otherwise, is the doing of the filmmakers’ agendas, conscious or otherwise, or their accidents. I’d be prepared to accept that, in Hollywood, might might really equal wrong, so strong is an audience’s empathy for the underdog.

So perhaps I should read no more into it than that I absorbed a storyteller’s trick, framed in a particularly arresting galactic context, too liberally as a child.

The Afghans are not Ewoks, but the Emperor was a very bad man.

Technorati Tags: Al Jazeera, Empire, star wars

There’s a truism in the world of copyright and media piracy: you can’t compete with free. Thing is, though, you can.

Take me: I’m not a huge connoisseur of classical music — what little I know I know from my dad — but I’m occasionally moved to listen to (or even buy) it. Today I paid £4.99 for Bach: The Cello Suites by Yo-Yo Ma. I’m listening to it now. It was on the front page of iTunes in a series of classical albums going for that price, and although I did quite fancy it (at 2hrs 20mins it’s a bargain), the thing that really made me click ‘Buy’ was the fact that of all the albums in the offer it was the only one to come with liner notes.

Liner notes, surely, are great. What value for money: you thought you were just buying an album, but you’ve bought a wee book with it, a wee essay. They’re always a great read and have often helped ease me into daunting entities like Bitches Brew by Miles Davis. But aside from being entertaining and useful, they’re such a sign of quality. Someone gave enough of a shit about this piece of music to sit down and pour his heart out about it. I may not end up liking it, but I know that some folk surely do.

Some favourites: Alan Leeds’ terrific insider dot-joining on Prince’s The Hits/ The B-Sides collection; Janet Jackson’s surprisingly eloquent ode to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On; and the aforementioned Bitches Brew commentary by Ralph J. Gleason.

When I was young, my musical taste rarely overlapped with my dad’s but he had the drop on me in the liner note department. I used to watch him open an opera box set, fish out the first vinyl disc to set playing, and settle back with a mammoth tome that might include an essay, a track listing and the full libretto (in several languages). Nothing in my collection could hope to compete.

The movie equivalent are DVD extras. The promise of superior picture and sound didn’t do much for me before I got my first player, perhaps because I wasn’t migrating from VHS the way everyone else was, but from CD-i, an early incarnation of Video CD which only took off in Asia. The MPEG-1 encoding wasn’t up to much by today’s standards, but it blew VHS out of the water and having sunk several hundred pounds of paper round money into that technological dead end, I was in no rush to invest in new equipment and start building a collection from scratch again. What got me about DVDs were the extras, specifically the director’s commentary. The idea that you could have such a thing astounded me. (It’s a trend that started with LaserDisc — a real movie fetishist format, and one that, thankfully, I spent not a penny on.)

I remember the day we got our first DVD player. I think the discs we got were Jaws and Erin Brokovich, neither had main-feature commentary, although their extras were good, with Jaws in particular being a treasure trove of outtakes and near-forgotten lore. The first commentary track I heard, though, was for Alien. (This is way before the Director’s Cut, btw.) The movie started, Jerry Goldsmith’s score sent tingles, and then, cigar-chomp clearly audible, came a matter of fact voice: “Hello, I’m Ridley Scott.” I was about to watch Alien with Ridley Scott. It didn’t disappoint.

Here’s the thing: this USP of DVDs tends not to appear on any of those dodgy editions you get from the bloke in the pub, or from your AVI downloads. For some reason, the pirates don’t seem to bother with it. This, then, must be the way to beat them! Offer something for money that you cannot get for free.

Even downloads from big vendors like iTunes seem to lack this feature. Sure, they have iTunes Extras, but they tend to be featurettes (the third lowest form of DVD extra, behind trailers and ‘menu’). Considering how easy it is to swap audio tracks in QuickTime movies, why iTunes seems incapable of offering commentaries escapes me. The upshot, though, is that I’ll always pay for the edition that has the best commentary, be it as an audio track, or in a pleasantly compiled booklet.

I lamented in a post a while back about the unwillingness of record labels to use mp3 (or aac) metadata to better effect. Surely at least the lyrics can be contained in the file (you can add them manually in iTunes). Since then, I’ve discovered that iTunes has a version of iTunes Extras for audio called iTunes LP. Initially sceptical, I took the plunge with one when buying some MIKA music to use at work. I bought his The Boy Who Knew Too Much as an iTunes LP and was pleasantly surprised. Essentially, it’s the album in a DVD-style interactive menu with artwork, lyrics, photos and animations. It had no liner notes, right enough, but how much is there, really, to say about MIKA? Most importantly, the individual audio files were accessible just as they normally would, with no nasty DRM. I was so impressed, I immediately checked what else was available in the format and bought The Beatles’ Past Masters vol. I & II (with beautiful liner notes).

(It’s worth noting that, yes, iTunes has often sold pdfs of CD booklets along with albums, but in my experience they’re always formatted just as they are for a CD case and are a chore to read from. The iTunes LP is much, much better.)

Now whenever I’ve bought classical music from iTunes, I’ve been positively amazed at the lack of liner notes. In this field of music, where the listeners are so passionate and fetishistic, you’re expected to buy the whole of, say, The Marriage of Figaro and just listen to it, without commentary or translation. I couldn’t believe it. I suppose the record labels who produce this are niche, and hence small, and would make no return on having all their old tomes converted at least to pdfs for iTunes customers, but still: it used to be the one thing my dad’s record collection would trounce mine on, and now it’s being let down.

So, a wee pdf with Yo-Yo Ma’s record made my pony up a fiver. It’s still playing, by the way, and it was a fiver well spent. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to read the liner notes.