"Moviola Dance
Series " 05/89 RATED "G".The complete 19 minute movie
re edited and in three parts for the internet.
THE
VERY DEFINITION OF A "MIKEVIDEO"
Although most of my current MikeVideos
utilize my own photography and videography, originally the idea was
to combine my own footage with "found footage" and scenes
from movies, television shows and other media. The perfect "MikeVideo"
would include many disparate elements, yet upon viewing, seem to coalesce
into a "whole experience". Most of the drawbacks inherent
in compilng clips lie in the actual obtaining and transfer of the material
itself. I'm in the process of modifying my home computer so that it
is optimized for video editing foremost, and I recently obtained a 320GB
extermal hard drive, so I could record a lot of raw footage from my
VHS masters and put together a comprehensive "history" of
my early endeavors, and in the process, remake and re-edit some of these
raw or unfinished projects to make them palatable for the internet viewing
audience.
In 2003, when I created the "new"
MikeVideo webpage, which you are reading, I captured one of the musical
sequences of my 1989 VHS Video, mastered from laserdisc, called "Moviola
Dance". This clip is called "The Roxette Sequence from Moviola
Dance" and was one of the
first videos uploaded to my YouTube.channel. in 2005. I now am in
the process of reimagining the complete half hour video as "internet
movies". There are three segments, each containing three or four
of the musical numbers. In 1989, I was collecting laserdiscs, and of
all the pre digital video formats, this was by far the superior product,
and the CAV version of the discs allowed one to pause, frame advance,
"rewind" and otherwise manipulate the moving image. I didn't
edit together lots of separate clips, but I chose particular musical
numbers, specifically from the 1979 clips compilation film
"That's Entertainment", a 1974 MGM feature that essentially
traced the musical legacy of the studio. Instead of using the original
music, I played replacement soundtracks from a variety of sources, and
used the controls on the laserdisc machine to "match" the
movement of the dancing on screen with the music.
I finished this endeavor in 1989 and
showed it to my workmates and friends on VHS. Now for the first time,
the complete video is available online. I am not uploading this particular
series of three video segments to YouTube. Warner Brothers caused YouTube
to pull my
"42nd Street Dance" video for violation of copyright procedures.
I can't afford to have the service pull another of my videos, because
this time they would shut down the account. So I've stored these vids
both on my own server, with downloads of the higher quality wmv files,
and on Google Video. Links for the downloads are below. The embedded
"chapters" immediately follow.
More recent MikeVideos like
"Clowns" and
"Betty Boop Dreams" are almost pushing the envelope for
what I can accomplish with image manipulation and layering in the digital
present. In 1989 I was still using multiple tape recorders to accomplish
my goals, and still the results are pretty good. Even though I am using
copyrighted material, I acknowledge this fact, and list all source material
in the credits. I certainly couldn't indulge my muse without the film
libraries of MGM and Turner Entertainment, or the various music conglomerates
who hold the copyrights for the music and songs featured in the video.
I do not intend for these videos to be sold or otherwise used for profit.
They are merely for entertainment and artistic purposes,
Moviola
Dance (Part 1) (1989-2007) Part One is just 9:34 and is a windows
streaming video file of just over 100MB. The resolution on the download
is geater than on this embedded video on Google Video. Some resolution
loss is understandable owing to the fact that the source tape is on
VHS, which has muddy picture resolution anyway. These are best viewed
in the smaller output screens. The downloads available below are suitable
for playing full screen. In Part One, 30s, 40s, and 50s MGM film stars
Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, Ann Miller
and the cast of "West Side Story" dance to musical selections
ranging from classical to late 80s pop. This section contains four segments.
First, Fred Astaire dances with the hatrack from "Royal Wedding"
to the Drifter's 50s song "Save the Last Dance For Me". Next,
and also a couple of times in the following two videos,Ann Miller dances
with those disembodied instruments in "Small Town Girl". Instead
of jazz, however, she hoofs it to the Franz Liszt symphony "Hungarian
Dance #6".The next segment was excerpted for a "Mike Video
Archives" internet movie in 2004, titled
"The Roxette Sequence From Moviola Dance". The number
pairs the cast of "West Side Story" from the high school dance
sequence to the song "Joyride" by Roxette "Stalin Malone",
a jazzy number by Elvis Costello backs Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly
in "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for the last scene in this
Part.
Moviola
Dance (Part 2) The second part of the MikeVideo "Moviola
Dance" is 7 minutes long and features another four musical numbers
from the vaults of MGM Studios, as collected in "That's Entertainment"
and culled from the CAV laserdisc. This Part begins with footage from
"Grand Prix" scored to "Harlem Congo" by the great
Louis Armstrong A swing tune, "Begin the Beguine" performed
by Artie Shaw accompanies Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell in "Broadway
Melody of 1940". This is the only clip that wasn't "manipulated'
with the dial on the laserdisc player. The clip plays at slow speed,
and the music matches up quite nicely. The wmv file on this page is
flawed somewhat, and hopefully the flaws will be corrected when I master
the larger file for download below.(Currently, this version is available,
but soon I will add even higher quality files with corrections.) A couple
of the music clips are overmodulated (during the recording process on
computer) and though I lowered the levels in the computer, the sound
is noticibly distorted on the Shaw tune and on "All Men Are Liars"
by Nick Lowe, which backs up dancers Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in
"The Bandwagon". Also on the video are Gene Kelly and Jerry
the Mouse from "Anchor's Aweigh" and another appearance by
Ann Miller and Lizst.The final musical selection is pretty humorous,
with Warner Brothers cartoon music from "Porky's Preview"
by Carl Stalling serving as the background music for Eleanor Powell
in "Rosalie"
Moviola Dance (Part 3 The final segment of "Moviola
Dance" features the last musical number from the original VHS video,
the closing dance from "Good News" with Peter Lawford and
June Allyson, scored to The Beat Farmers singing "Socialite".
Ann Miller makes a final appearance. Because the video only had one
complete number, I added the number "Harmonize" from the little
seen MGM musical "Athena" with Jane Powell. I might overlay
some other images later but for now the number is as it was staged,
with no manipulation.
This webpage was completely
constructed on Sunday, February 4, 2007, and the videos were captured,
assembled, and uploaded during the weekend of Feb. 3 and 4. Plans are
afoot to add another chapter of the
History of MikeVideo series, and to display some version of the
1988 VHS video "The Uncle Mike Story" which is my longest
MikeVideo at 90 minutes.
From the credit sequence on the videos:
"All "Moviola Movement" accomplished by using a laserdisc
player on CAV and manipulating the images in real time to the music,
then recording the "performance" on tape. Clips are from "That's
Entertainment" from MGM Studios and MGM/UA Home Video. Turner Entertainment.
Copyright 1989.
All music and film clips are pirated
exclusively by MikeVideo Enterprises"
Below
are three links to download the highest resolution versions of the videos
to your computer. To download, right click the link, and "save
target as" to a folder on your computer. To view without downloading,
click on the link, and watch the videos on your Windows Media Player
after buffering, whch could take some time on older computers or those
with slower internet connections.Feb 5: Eventually the mpeg files will
be available for download, but right now I only have the wmv files available.
They are clearer than the embedded vids on Google, however.
IMAGE
GALLERY : These image captures
are created in the style of old lobby cards used to promote films as
far back as silent days. The image contains the logo for both the "MikeVideo
VHS Archives" from which "Moviola Dance" was taken, along
with the logo from the completed internet movies themselves.
Each capture is an original VHS image
from the edited master VHS tape. The source material for all of these
was laserdisc. Specifically, the CAV version of the MGM musical montage,
"That's Entertainment".
Images from MGM films are copyrighted
by the studio and Turner Home Entertainment. Music used in the video
are copyrighted somgs and tunes and are listed in the credits as such
at the end of the video.
"Moviola Dance" Image
Gallery: From top left: I prepare for my vacation, posing in the
video with my luggage. On the right is the view of the Brandt Point
lighthouse from the restored sailing sloop "Endeavor" from
the credit sequence of the original tape, which is duplicated in the
internet movie series.
Left: One of the more
interesting combinations in Part 2 is the concluding dance in the film
xxxxxx scored to a Carl Stalling Warner's Merrie Melodies cartoon soundtrack.
Right: Fred Astaire, making the rounds with a hatrack, to the strains
of the Drifters' "Save the Last Dance For Me."
Left:
Ann Miller struts her stuff in "Small Town Girl", executing
her moves in time with Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Dance #6".
Right: A shot of the high school dancers in "West Side Story",
including Russ Tamblyn, scored to "Joyride" by the band Roxette.
Left:Frank Sinatra and
Gene Kelly in "Meet Me Out at the Ballgame" perform their
adapted soft shoe to Elvis Costello's "Stalin Malone". Right"
The original image from "West Side Story" used to promote
the first internet movie incarnation of "Moviola Dance" shows
Rita Moreno kicking up her heels. She and the high school students dance
to Roxette's "Joyride".
