Sunklands

Part v of vi of the series describing baker b.’s personal journey through the golden age of synching… coming at ya! Former parts here:

https://bakerbloch.wordpress.com/category/carrcass-artists/

We remain in 2002 for the twinned synchs Horton Hears The Who and The Point of The Wall, created about 4 months apart during the second half of the year. Both employ a famous rock opera on the audio side, and perhaps the 2 most famous: The Who’s Tommy and Floyd’s The Wall respectively, both double albums. The dubbed videos are “Horton Hears a Who!” and “The Point”, two lower grade animations from 1970 and 1971. In each case the album is edited to scenes from the film. The main difference is that the base film for Horton Hears The Who remains unbroken and whole in the synch, while The Point is edited to fit The Wall as well as visa versa. Otherwise the two synchs are quite similar to each other, with parallel climactic moments.

Horton Hears The Who has 6 separate tiles. The Point of The Wall is a bit more complicated with 9. Each are similar in length (approx. 25-30 minutes). These are more compact and somewhat less ambitious works that either Pink Vertigo or WSF2K. The strength is an attempted fused storyline between audio and video. The editing is a bit rough as this is all analog generated still, so apologies for that — hope it doesn’t detract from the overall experience. See what you think.

Next up: the final part featuring SID’s 1st Oz; where it was all heading…

password: synch
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/642ntpd6l3zh7lc/AAASpdCW6W8IGjC2GNgvFz04a?dl=0

Part iv of vi relaying baker b.’s personal journey through the golden age of synching (1997-2003 or so). Parts i-iii are here…

https://bakerbloch.wordpress.com/category/carrcass-artists/

Our trip brings us now to Walt SIDney’s Fantasia 2000, which represents another step up for me at least in terms of producing an obviously synchy and quite watchable work. Like Pink Vertigo, this is an attempt to tile a complete or equivalent complete movie with audio. Unlike PV, devoted to Pink Floyd alone (albeit tracks from a number of their albums), WSF2K cracks open the barn door a bit more to allow artists like Nirvana, Stevie Wonder, Radiohead, Paul McCartney, and Electric Light Orchestra to enter and join in the fun, in addition to, yes, a pretty hefty dose of Floyd at the end.

I was pleased to find an old website on the subject last night, so perhaps I won’t have to yammer on as much about this one. Check it out here if you wish…

http://www.appstate.edu/~brittanma/oldersites/wsf2k.html

http://www.appstate.edu/~brittanma/oldersites/wsf2k1.html

Here are the lyrics for the various tracks…

http://www.appstate.edu/~brittanma/oldersites/wsf2klyrics.html

Some key ideas:

WSF2K evolved directly out of Shared Fantasia, the latter which I consider a pivotal work in the golden age of synching for certain. I was pretty shocked to find out I could create a virtual double or twin in so short a span (3 nights). 10 cues are involved, with the last cue spanning 2 animation segments and playing right over the gap where Angela Lansbury is introducing the last one. Interestingly, that final animation, dubbed by the Floyd song “Sorrow” (original music: Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite.”), may represent the best stretch of synchronicity in WSF2K and one of the best I’ve been able to produce in my own work. Yet since the cue of this tile comes in the animation before it (which also works quite well in and of itself), the section can be viewed as being further away from manipulation or *synchronization* than anything else in WSF2K; ironic juxtaposition, then. Synchronization and synchronicity become more mixed up here and hard to surfacely differentiate.

The weakness of WSF2K, and by association, Shared Fantasia, is the lack of an overall storyline, like we had in Pink Vertigo. The animation blocks in both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 are separate from each other and do not weave together in any way except through commentary. We’ll deal with this issue more in the next part of my personal journey through the golden age of synching: “Rock Operas”. See you then!

password: synch
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f7q60xyq2hptrmy/AADpis9nsx6KLPKrwsALedr8a?dl=0

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Previously:

part i:
https://bakerbloch.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/23204/

part ii:
https://bakerbloch.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/messiaen/

Part iii (of vi, I believe) of baker b.’s personal journey through the golden age of synching brings us to Pink Vertigo, a still solid looking early synch from late 2001. PV represents my first attempt to tile, with various cued regions, a whole movie or equivalent whole movie. This would be Alfred Hitchcock’s enigmatic Vertigo, which some rate his best. Personally I would select Rear Window for that title, but — apologies to Nightmare Before Christmas and The Wizard of Oz — Vertigo is still probably the best film I’ve worked with on a synch to this point. I think the jump up in complexity here is, in part, an attempt to match or resonate with the energy Hitchcock put forth in this masterwork.

We have not 1 cue (MessiaenSphere/ Piper’s Nightmare Xmas), not 2 (Full of Secrets), not 3 (Messiaen Trek), but 9 now in Pink Vertigo. The first tile I found in the synch would be the cue between the title sequence of Vertigo and the 1st track from Pink Floyd’s soundtrack album “Obscured by the Clouds”, which many consider the best among their several offerings of this kind. This would also become the first tile of the completed Pink Vertigo synch. The following 8 cues/tiles came in a bunch a bit later. These are their conditions:

1. Use the *first track* from all of Pink Floyd’s pre-Dark Side of the Moon *studio* albums *except Ummmagumma* to equivalently tile the movie Vertigo in a front to back fashion.

In order, these early Pink Floyd studio albums (minus soundtracks) are: 1) Piper at the Gates of Dawn, 2) A Saucerful of Secrets, 3) Ummagumma, 4) Atom Heart Mother, and 5) Meddle.

2. Start at Atom Heart Mother (no. 4 studio album) instead of Piper at the Gates of Dawn and work in chronological fashion to Meddle (no. 5) then back to Piper (no. 1) and Saucerful (no. 2). Again, in the middle of the synch, as it were, we “skip” Ummagumma (no. 3), which has already been used in a baker b. synch I might discuss later.

3. Repeat the process twice in round robin fashion.

4. Although divided into a number of sections to increase royalties, I’m counting the entire Atom Heart Mother title composition as track 1 of the album. When you repeat its use in Pink Vertigo, you simply pick up exactly where the first part left off. So part 1 of Pink Vertigo employs sections 1-3 of this title track, and part 2 of Pink Vertigo uses sections 4-5. Section 6, the last, is left out of the mix.

5: One last condition: Instead of using the 1st track of A Saucerful of Secrets we are using the *last* track in this synch (“Jugband Blues”) — in both parts. This is the also the track ending parts 1 and 2 of the synch.

Sounds complex I know but it’s pretty straightforward when you look at it and if you know the Pink Floyd albums involved. Oh… one more trick. There’s a dialog bleedthrough in part of the second Atom Heart Mother tile.

See what you think. Next up: Walt SIDney’s Fantasia 2000. Thanks for reading!

Password: synch

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s5ncax5ukodo28e/AACNM12xwdwzNLp2Vp91OHRua?dl=0

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Part ii of baker b.’s personal journey through the golden age of synching. Part i can be found here now… link up for several days more on that one. https://bakerbloch.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/23204/ Regarding the newest batch, we have two movies dubbed by the late music of 20th Century composer Olivier Messiaen. Classical music synchs were rather uncommon in 2000 and 2001, when these were created. Messiaen is one of the giants of the last century, and ranks pretty high on the list, I would assume, among all composers by now.

Messiaen Trek starts out with an accessible piece from Concert à quatre called Vocalise, akin more to Messiaen’s early work. This is overlapped with the Enterprise entering the gargantuan V-jer cloud in Star Trek The Movie. As Kirk then roars out an additional command to go further into the cloud after some debate with others (mainly visiting Comm. Decker) we ride along accompanied by Un Sourire (A Smile) from 1989, composed by Messiaen for the bicentenary of Mozart’s death. The track is suppose to run unbroken in the synch. However, two pieces of the movie are employed here, with the second starting right as Spock’s stolen jetpack fires, flinging him toward the heart of the cloud and the encounter with an emotionless deity.

MessiaenSphere is the natural counterpart to Messiaen Trek. It’s not one I’d recommend for introducing an outsider to the world of synchronicity. It’s not as openly synchy as Messiaen Trek either (which *might* be a good introduction). But MessiaenSphere’s the complement nonetheless. At about 42 minutes it’s almost triple the time of MT. We also travel through water instead of space, but in each there is a critical and climatic encounter with an alien being, a sentient golden sphere from the future in the case of MessiaenSphere. MSphere also involves just one cue, but with some added tricks. The music is Illuminations from the Beyond (1994). Only tracks 1-2, 4-5, and 7-8 are used in the synch, with 3 and 6 cut away. The second trick is the bleeding through of 6 stretches of dialog, with the music still playing in the background.

I’ll leave it at that — see what you think. I’d definitely start with M Trek here, and then move on to MSphere if you enjoy the music and find the concept interesting. Otherwise I’d save your eyes for other synchs — don’t force the enjoyment. smile emoticon This will be up for about 7 days, once more. Enjoy if you can and if you wish!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/16e82o7pxx6snzo/AAAnNslt1EKGk8Xya8_Qqnhka?dl=0