Monday 28 March 2011

Dubstep Video Mash Up

Screen grabs from the video which can be played below


Scroll down for part two of the video
Although delighted by the popularity of our mixes on the Soundcloud platform, we wanted to try something a bit different with this latest mix of the latest dubstep by DJ Tommy 2 Bob, so decided to attempt a 'video mash up' to compliment the beats with imagery and graphics. Influenced by the VJ exploits of Warp Films and a host of 'gorilla' film makers on the web we chucked a wide range of out favourite films, music videos and other random sources into the video blender using Adobe Premiere. (Wish we had Adobe After Effects as well but we managed with Premiere alone which is not everyone's favourite video production suite but its the one we are the most familiar with.)

We acknowledge we have run rough shod over copyright laws to achieve this but think we have come out with an 'art work' in its own right that could bring a new audience to some of the film makers and artists involved. We recommend you check out the source material itself, so in that spirit i will list the source material here :

1. Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance, is a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke.
The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse stock footage of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. A 'cult' film in the late seventies and eighties and has been a favourite of 'VJ's' (Video Disk Jockeys) in clubs for years. The soundtrack by Phillip Glass has also been hugely influential. 
The film provides most of the background visuals in Part 1 of the video.




 2. Naqoyqatsi: Life as War, Follow up film to Koyaanisqatsi is a film which could be described as an experimental documentary, although not a straightforward documentation of reality, or an art film. It is the third and final film of the 1983-2002 Qatsi trilogy written, directed, and produced by Godfrey Reggio, and edited by Jon Kane. The three films of the trilogy have musical scores by composer Philip Glass, but no commentary or speech.The film makes up a lot of the background images in part 2 of the video and is more disturbing and less pastoral than Koyaanisqatsi.







3. Rize is a documentary movie starring Lil' C, Tommy Johnson, also known as Tommy the Clown and Miss Prissy. The documentary exposes the new dance form known as krumping that originated in the early 1990s in Inner City Los Angeles. The film was written and directed by David LaChapelle, previously known as a Vanity Fair photographer. It gives a political context to Hip Hop dance culture by reflecting on the aftermath of the 90's LA riots and the notorious community relations of the LAPD (LA Police).
We chroma keyed (the 'flying Superman' effect normally used with a blue or green screen, but we got around that)  a lot of the amazing dance sequences that in the original sometimes look like they have been artificially 'sped up'. We did in fact speed them up as well as slowing sequences down. Do yourself a favour if you enjoy watching dance and see the whole movie, its a must. 


4. DJ Majuva Township Funk Video, 
Elvis Maswanganyi, better known as DJ Mujava, is a South African DJ.He was raised in the Pretorian town of Attridgeville, where local taxi drivers distributed CDs of his music to their fares.The fantastic video can be found here : DJ Majuva Township Funk Video .
Township Funk is a  Kwaito style track, Kwaito is a music genre that emerged in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the late 1990s. It is house music combined with local African sounds and is championed by western DJ's like Diplo.  
We also included Busta Rhymes absurd and surreal classic video for his track Woo Ha (Got u all in check) I think its directed by Spike Jones and featured Busta at the top of his game (Why did he cut off his locks?) We used this because of the track 'Disco Rekah' by Loefah that opens the mix and samples the track.




4. Non Newtonian Fluids & Bass.
Using excellent examples of experiments on youtube of the effects of non-newtonian fluids such as the conveniently simple mixture of cornstarch & water added to a speaker cone probably playing dubstep. Don't do it to your Dad's new stereo! Find out more here :
Bass so deep its underwater , Colin's Lab DIT Cymatics,
Creature in the sonic liquid
5. One for the heads who remember 'Charley Says' was a series of very short cut-out animated cartoon Public Information Films for children, shown in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s for London's Central Office of Information.
Couldn't resist matching it with the hilarious cautionary warning about the drug M-Cat in High Rankin's track 'Meow Meow'. Just say no kids!




 6. Um Bongo and Kia-Ora fruit drinks advert from the 1980's. Included for their pure nostalgia content really. The crows pretending to be dogs in the Kia Ora advert were always cool, and the Um Bongo advert was the first to include graffiti to my knowledge, and no, they do not drink it in the Congo to my knowledge!
We started putting this video in late Feb 2011 (takes ages to 'render' footage like this, even with a fast PC) but friends who have seen it thought it was about or included references to the Japanese Tsunami and Nuclear disaster. Well it wasn't meant too as the event had not even happened and the images of waves, floods, damaged buildings and nuclear power plants were all coincidental but perhaps a Little prophetic. Spooky or what?



The full audio mix is pasted below (we had to cut it down for the video due to youtubes 2gb upload limit)
Dubstep Video Mash Up Mix by blessedlovestudio

  Set list
Rusko : Come Ere and Say That
Rusko : Woo Boost (Bogmore Remix)
Loefah : Disko Rekah
Bird Peterson : Zutopong (Akira Kiteshi VIP Mix)
Breakage & Roots Manuva : Run 'Em Out
Ivory : Hand Grenade (Datsick & Excursion Mix)
High Rankin : Meow Meow
Bassnectar - Boombox (DJ Vadim & Mixicans with Guns Remix)
Bassnectar : Teleport Massive (RJD2 remix)




No comments: