Re: This Woman's Work

[heisjohn@juno.com]

Chris wrote:
>>John wrote:
>>I've never felt this way about Kate's *recorded* work, but I do just
>>about every time I watch her early videos.  
>>
>>The lighting, direction and effects in some of them ("Army Dreamers" 
>in
>>particular) are so amateur-looking, I've always believed they were 
>shot
>>that way on purpose -- for artistic reasons I apparently just cannot
>>appreciate.
>
>   Huh? I suggest you take a moment and check out some of the *other*
>videos from that time period...VH-1's "The Big 80s" or "8-Track 
>Flashback".
>Compared to most of the competition, her early videos were actually 
>very
>sophisticated. I have a report from that time from ABC's "20-20" that 
>uses the Keef "Wuthering Heights" as an example of the (then) 
>state-of-the-art in music video. John Stossol said: "...from the 
>simplistic band in a box  look of this Tom Petty video, to the 
>sophisticated computer graphics of this video by Kate Bush."

Although I agree that the Keef WH video is very well done -- it even
holds up today -- I certainly wouldn't call it groundbreaking.  Queen had
already been toying with quite similar video effects for 3 or 4 years by
then.

>Her early videos look amazingly rich for something shot in one day for
$20,000. >If she had several days to make them, if 
>she had the budget to shoot on film, hire more people, etc she could 
>have produced something that would compare more favorably with 
>*current* music videos.

All true -- which is EXACTLY what I'm saying!  In essence, your argument
says: "Her early videos look amazingly rich for <insert qualifier>,
<insert qualifier>, <insert qualifier>, <insert qualifier>, <insert
qualifier>".  I've always felt compelled to "justify" some of the earlier
works with a similar string of reasons and excuses for why they simply
aren't up to par with her recorded work.  

Kate & Keef came out of the box with a very strong effort with WH, then
proceeded to go absolutely nowhere.  To me, their final joint venture,
Army Dreamers, stands out as the worst.  It looks like it was lit with
cheap fluorescent bulbs over a bad chroma-key!  And those flash pots --
ugh!

John