nicky flowers

been listening to REM exclusively the past 2 days. desperately want to make jangly guitar music now... such is the curse of Peter Buck and his magic Rickenbacker

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gravis again @cathoderaydude7/15/2022, 4:24 AM

automatic for the people is 100% banger

nicky flowers @nicky7/15/2022, 4:33 AM

i'm more into their IRS Years but you cannot deny Automatic

gravis again @cathoderaydude7/15/2022, 4:32 AM

have you seen the video for imitation of life that nobody talks about and which desperately deserves an HD remaster

nicky flowers @nicky7/15/2022, 4:36 AM

what da helllll why haven't i seen this yet!! this is so good. how'd they DO all that? lol

gravis again @cathoderaydude7/15/2022, 4:46 AM

I'm split between a lot of hypotheses.

one is that it's basically all practical, that it's just a masterpiece of choreography, but I don't think that's possible. it was shot and mastered in SD, in an era when HD barely existed, for a band that was no longer on the ascent. i doubt they used cutting edge technology, and if this was all shot on a single SD camera it would not even be this legible. there are even some Definite Chromakeys going on.

so then it's just a question of exactly how composited it is. what i suspect (and what was pretty common at the time, i believe) is that they taped everything on location, but in segments, and then did a lot of temporal mixing and matching to make things line up better - because yeah, this would be a monstrous act to choreograph and you'd basically get one or two takes tops.

but what I think is more likely is: the whole thing is fake. they got a clean plate of the set with maybe the foreground table with the mirror, drink in the face, etc. and everything else is shot on chroma sets and composited.

this is supported by the wild differences in resolution during zooms. sure, some of it could just be weird effects from compression, but imo the pixel density doesn't quite agree with itself. certainly there are parts that were shot from as far away as they look; the people in the way way way back, I think they were really back there. but the people dancing in the lower left? absolutely on a bluescreen. michael stipe is also Being A Weird Little Guy on a bluescreen which is 40% of the reason to watch the video

gravis again @cathoderaydude7/15/2022, 4:48 AM

i'm also transfixed by the lady who seems like almost the central figure of the whole ensemble, the one getting the drink in the face, because she looks like... i can best describe her as a split between lisa edelstein and julianna margulies and her shocked pikachu face is like nothing else. five stars

gravis again @cathoderaydude7/15/2022, 4:54 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMNe71tBZmE here we go. someone reconstructed the wide shot. this is true information age obsessionism. i love it

nicky flowers @nicky7/15/2022, 5:05 AM

yeah it's gotta be like, mostly bluescreen. doesn't make it any less impressive though. everything looks like it all fits together as a coherent Place, you know?

i can't imagine the amount of pre-production and storyboarding and LOGISTICS this thing took. this is like...... genuinely how is this not a music video talked about way more often??

let's hope they shot it on film and someone cares enough to polish it up a bit

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