Re: "The Whole Story Videos" a bit let down

[nrc@cbema.att.com (Neal R Caldwell, Ii)]

>From article <2770003@hp-vcd.HP.COM>, by neff@hp-vcd.vcd.hp.COM (Dave Neff):
 
> Overall, the videos on "The Whole Story" did not impress me.  The early
> ones seems rather amateur (Wuthering Heights), 

This is a result of ten years of progress in music videos.  Virtually 
all videos made over ten years ago will look "amateur" now.  I'd be
interested to hear of any notable exceptions.

> the ones from "The Dreaming"
> kind of reminded me of Dr. Who (which I like, but also feel amateur),

If I recall correctly, Kate wasn't really happy with the videos from
_The Dreaming_, either.  Most of them were made pretty quickly. Of the 
videos for _The Dreaming_, _Suspended in Gaffa_ is my favorite.  It's 
not much more elaborate than the others but it seems to work better.  

> and the videos off "Hounds of Love", although clearly better produced
> and having a larger budget had an overall "muddled" feeling.  

I don't really agree about them being "muddled" but to each his own.

> Cloudbusting
> was O.K., but Kate's hair style and mannerisms kept reminding me of
> Raggedy Ann :-).  

I love _Cloudbusting_, it's probably my favorite video.  I agree, that
the wig is a bit much but otherwise I think it's excellent.  This is
one that really needs Laser Disc to do it justice.  

> "Running up that Hill" was just some dancing and
> people in masks.  

Um, yeah, so what's your point?  Kate wanted to do a dance video for
this and she did a wonderful one.  It certainly is a lot more
interesting that the graceless jerking about that qualifies as a
dance video these days.

> "Hounds of Love" and "The Big Sky" just seemed like
> a muddled mess.

I don't think _Hounds of Love_ is muddled at all.  I think the story
line is fairly clear and the whole style sort of pays tribute to
Alfred Hithcock.

_The Big Sky_ is just good fun shot full of images of "the big sky".
I guess you could call it a muddle but I enjoy it.  Kate is obviously
having a good time with this one.  

I wonder where they dug up those flags?  Besided the KT flags, I mean.
USSR? Brazil? Iraq?  Strange selection.

Missy pointed out something we'd missed in _The Big Sky_.  Did anyone
(everyone?) notice the recreation of a certain American monument in the
background of one shot?

> I did think the mix of live shots on the "Wow" video were interesting.
> I assume this live footage came off of "Live at Hammersmith", which I

You assume correctly. 

> I don't seem to have "Experiment IV" on any of my Kate CDs.  Where did
> this cut come from?  I didn't watch the end of the video since my 2 year
> old was sitting next to me, so I skipped it when the demon appeared :-).

_Experiment IV_ is a new cut that they put on _The Whole Story_.  This
is another great one to watch on laser disc.  

> Certainly the videos are interesting, and I like Kate's music but on the
> whole I was a bit dissapointed.  I particularly expected more from the
> "Hounds of Love" videos.  Anyway, the Babooshka video alone was worth
> the $24.95 I spent :-).

It's definately a bargain at that price.  We got it from Ken Crane's
for $19.95 which is better still.  

One thing that always irritates me is a blank LD side.  Since it seems
unlikely that _Hair of the Hound_ will ever be reissued, they could
have used that second side to repeat selected videos in CAV format.

A word for those videophiles who are not yet laser disc believers.
Condsider it.  If you buy many prerecorded videos, laser disc is probably 
a better solution.  If you want to have the best possible Kate videos 
it's the only solution short of buying a PAL compatible LD player and PAL
monitor.  There are currently fewer than 1000 titles available for PAL
laser disc players and Kate's videos may not even be among them.
You may have heard folks going on about PAL video here but NTSC laser 
video is better than PAL video tape in a lot of ways.  The superior
horizontal resolution of laser disc more than makes up for the reduced
number of scan lines in NTSC.

Also, laser discs can have digital sound.  VHS Hi-Fi is pretty good
but it sounds like an audio cassette compared to a laser disc with
digital sound.   

Perhaps most importantly, video tapes will deteriorate with age even
if they are completely unused.  Laser disc suffer no wear in normal 
use and have an indefinate shelf life. 


"Don't drive too slowly."                 Richard Caldwell
                                          AT&T Network Systems
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