Aspel tapetree tracklist

[Peter Byrne Manchester <PMANCHESTER@ccmail.sunysb.edu>]

       This morning brought a thunderous end to a month of drought here in 
the East (and--please, heaven!--a breakup of the persistent rainy pattern in 
the Midwest).  So much lightning, so close, that I unplugged all the video 
gear and this computer.  But by 11am, when the doorbell rang and the postal 
lady had the tapetree master in her hand, it was merely wet and steamy.  I 
had tape rolling by 11:02, and the first turnarounds in the mail by 2pm.  
Eight tapes are in the mail already, five more ready for first thing in the 
morning, and I am looking for four additional blanks to arrive tomorrow in 
time to go out by end of day.  Here is what is on it; technical comments and 
credits follow afterward.


TRACK LIST

A.  "Moments of Pleasure," lip-synch of the album track for "The Red Shoes," 
    at the piano, on Aspel & Company TV show, June <?date>, 1993.
B.  "Rocketman," b&w video for The Awards, <?date>, 1993
C.  "Die Efteling" Tapes (AKA The Dutch TV videos): Six videos taped in the 
    Efteling Gardens (a gothic theme-park), Amsterdam, April 1978. 
       1. Moving
       2. Wuthering Heights
       3. Them Heavy People
       4. The Man With the Child in His Eyes
       5. Strange Phenomena
       6. The Kick Inside
D.  "Kate": The "Christmas" TV special, U.K. TV, aired December 28, 1979.
       1. Intro music
       2. Violin.
              <All of what follows, within the << >>s (descriptions here 
              clipped from The Garden), did not make it through the 
              conversion made for this master; there was no time to redo it; 
              see technical notes below>
       << 3. Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1, played by the KT Bush Band as
       << background for the two giant violins (Paddy and his friend Andrew
       << Bryant), who mime an introduction for the next song:
       << 4. Symphony in Blue. Sung live with the KT Bush Band.   Kate
       << sings and accompanies herself at the piano.
       << 5. Them Heavy People. Lip-synched to a live recording.
       << 6.  A cappella introduction for Peter Gabriel (Peter the Angel
       << Gabriel.) >>
       6.  Here Comes the Flood, Peter Gabriel
       7. Ran Tan Waltz
       8. December Will Be Magic Again <video drop-out at start>
       9. The Wedding List
      10. Another Day (Roy Harper), duet with Peter Gabriel
      11. Egypt
      12. The Man With the Child in His Eyes
      13. Don't Push Your Foot on the Heart Brake
E.  "Rocketman," Wogan TV, color <?date>
F.  "The Infant Kiss," video made by Chris Williams in 1984 with clips from 
    "The Innocents" (produced and directed by Jack Clayton in 1961, with 
    Deborah Kerr, script by Truman Capote from  The Turn of the Screw  by 
    Henry James).  Kate has often said that her song was influenced by having 
    seen this film, and she liked this video enough (in version 1.0) to call 
    Chris personally to thank him.  This is ver. 2.0, with CD audio.


TECHNICAL NOTES

       Two general points.  First, for this application, mastering to S-VHS 
works; the sub-masters are indistinguishable on screen from the master.  
Second, time pressure is always an enemy.  By the time Chris could get the 
standards-conversions made and all the equipment together in one room, it was 
6pm Monday night, and the last dispatch that could get the tape to me today 
was 8:15.  There was no going back on anything.  I take responsibility for 
enforcing the calendar that had Katemas as  terminus ad quem , and I thank 
Chris for keeping me posted and for his amazing composure as things converged 
toward DEADLINE.  He flew out of the studio with the tape at 8:06, and made 
it by 8:15.  Allow me also--this once--to thank the U.S. Postal Service for 
delivering on the service I paid for.

       The good news:  the new stuff comes through great!  Aspel/MoP on 
Jorn's tape is a second-generation PAL dub, and some graininess on that 
account is inevitable.  But it remains sharp, the conversion is excellent, 
and the stereo audio is excellent.  The b&w RM is plain perfect, as are the 
Wogan color RM and Chris's TIK at the end of the set.  The Dutch videos are 
in state-of-preservation, which is to say, they are from an NTSC conversion 
done years ago that it doesn't seem we are ever going to be able to get 
behind.  The audio has been through a lot of AGC that didn't do it any good, 
and the video is a little smeared--though I was able to boost the sharpness a 
bit with video DNR keeping it from getting funky.

       The material as shipped runs 1hr 13min, but when Chris and I talked 
over the weekend, it looked like we were going to be up against the limit of 
a T-120 at SP, and we well might have been if the Christmas Show had come 
through intact.  I encouraged him to cut the nearly five minutes of vapid 
'interview' that followed MoP on Aspel, and at the moment of destiny, that 
was Chris's call, and I completely support it.  As I watch the tape, I have 
utterly  zero  appetite to see Kate sit around and schmooze after MoP.  It 
goes direct to b&w RM.  There is  no  blather in this set; plenty of that is 
in circulation already.

       The bad news:  the Christmas Show conversion is a botch.  It had to be 
sub-contracted for reasons of time, and when Chris started running it to the 
tapetree master, his heart must have died within him.  The transfer is almost 
too egregious to describe.  Mistracking is so gross that mistracking noise 
and artifacts are over the picture continuously.  At least because they are 
continuous, it is possible to tune them out.  But the chroma signal is weak 
at best, and in-and-out:  out, mostly.  Meaning, b&w with occasional seques 
to a vague sepia.  And then head clogs blotted out three whole songs, the 
"Peter the Angel Gabriel" choral intro, and the video for the first bars of 
DWBMA.  A couple of redeeming aspects:  the picture itself is far sharper 
than the garbage version of the show that I already have, and the audio--once 
I discovered that the video-head track was misaligned so that I had to 
manually move the tracking over for this segment in order to read it--is a 
million times better than I have ever heard for this show.  Many of you who 
will be seeing this tape already have the Christmas Show; for those who have 
never seen it, this is a kind of viable preview.  But Chris and I are 
determined to get a Christmas Show transfer right; some of what it needs 
calls for frame-by-frame hand-painting of dropouts and morphing of missing 
fields.  Stay tuned.  And apologies from both of us for any disappointment 
this time, but louder ones from me.  I was Enforcer for the DEADLINE.


PERSONAL NOTES

       This will be my last post as tapetree topdub, so I just want to say 
that it's been a lot of hectic fun, and something I was delighted to wind up 
in a position to help with.  I've made some new friends, learned some new 
things.  I'm especially proud to have helped Kate share "Moments of Pleasure" 
with her friends, as the first thing she 'released' from the new album.  Off 
what I heard over the phone from Jorn, it isn't particularly representative 
of the album as a whole.  Yes, it's sort of declamatory.  Let it be.

       Here's the most beautiful part.  It was Chris who insisted from the 
beginning that for MoP we needed a good, clear image of the emotion Kate felt 
and wanted to project for that song, and for that his best source was Jorn's 
tape.  And it was Jorn who wanted us to see the b&w RM--which I agree is 
utterly beautiful--and that is what Chris has been able to deliver to his own 
highest standards.  Their mutuality did not desert us; thanks, guys.

............................................................................
                                                            Peter Manchester
"C'mon, we all sing!"                          pmanchester@ccmail.sunysb.edu
                                                     72020.366@compuserv.com