New old Media Cannibals vid online

[gwyn]

Tender Comrade is the latest entry in the digitally remastered Professionals vids from the Media Cannibals, by way of justacat's tireless efforts, on the Professionals Circuit Archive. It's a lovely, quiet look at the bonds between comrades in arms, to a (for its time) very unusual a capella song by Billy Bragg.

Back in the day, morgandawn and sherrold used the stunningly high-tech method of hitting pause on the casette recorder to shorten the long silent pauses in between lines and to cut a verse. And you computer kids think you have trouble editing music. And this was one of the first vids I ever worked on with the MCs -- I had had the chance to work on the Pros part of "You Gotta Be" as my introduction, and then they began working on this, so I really got to see how vids were made and yet didn't have to do any of the hard work except suggest clips and do thumbs up or thumbs down on Sandy's edits. Yup, those were the days.

It is really incredible to see this vid in such crisp, beautiful footage, all color correcty and cleaned up. The lads have never looked as pretty.

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Wow, fabulous remaster. I wouldn't have ever guessed the song had been edited. It's also amazing to see an arc of action and tension to a song that remains pretty much the same. My compliments to all the MCs who worked on this.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Isn't it beautiamous? I am beyond thrilled that it's up and available now.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Icon hee!

I needed that bit of giggle.

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

sherrold used the stunningly high-tech method of hitting pause on the casette recorder to shorten the long silent pauses in between lines and to cut a verse.

oh, my god, how awesome is that??

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

God I flashed to me sitting on gattigria's couch, clapping out the beats, Sandy by the cassette player - poised, taut and intent, finger on the stop button.......

[sherrold.livejournal.com]

I think "scared I was going to screw it up" would be more accurate -- but it was hella fun having you there to help!

[lordshiva.livejournal.com]

gwyn! I can't get sound on your vids. Even with downloading extra bits from Quicktime. I'm sorry. They looked great:-) Disappointed.

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

try downloading and using VLC. It comes with most necessary codecs.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I need more info in order to help! You should be able to hear these okay -- I haven't had anyone else mention this, so I am sure we can figure it out. 1) You've got a Windows machine, right? Is it trying to run these in Windows Media Player? Sometimes people set it up so that WMP is the default player, and it will open a QT file and totally barf. You have to turn off the default player setting in WM in order to get it not to do that.

2) Are you playing it in a regular QuickTime window, if not WMP? For some reason, QT won't play QT Divx files very well (the Divx avi codec is a variation from a different company on the QT media player). You mention getting the extra bits, so I assume you meant you DLed the QT Divx codec. There are some settings in the QT player preferences you can check that might be unchecked, but I'm not sure what you've got in this case.

3) If all those are not the case/the case, and it's not playing sound, have you downloaded the VLC media player? For some reason, that's the only one that really reliably plays the Dvix avi files that I'm encoding with. It's super easy and sets itself up nicely, and it makes the picture look a lot nicer. There's a link at the vids page if you need it.

Otherwise, I got nothin! Unless you have an error message, or can maybe tell me more...

[sherrold.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad to see this one cleaned up! Such a beautiful song, and it was always one of my more favorite of the older vids.

You and Justacat are so wonderful for taking this project on!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you are happy! I've got a nice piece of feedback to send round to you all, and hope that maybe some more might come in to add. This is such a huge favorite of mine. I not only adore the vid, but I have such fond memories of when we made it.

[przed.livejournal.com]

It's wonderful to see this re-mastered. You and justacat have done a wonderful job. The song is perfect for the lads and you all did a brilliant job editing to a challenging song.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it -- they are so crisp and clear and the song is so crisp and clear now, and everything about it makes me ridiculously happy now.

Tender Comrade

[taverymate.livejournal.com]

Seeing Tender Comrade remastered and available again is fantastic! I know that remastering is a labor-intensive job, and finding such odd timing problems was an additional hassle. I'm so thankful that you and Justacat persevered. The final product is so worth the effort: it's gorgeous and a wonderful example of how much could be - and was - done in early vids.

Having the Media Cannibals' Pros vids available again is such a boon for Pros fen - and fans of vids in general. Thanks so much for all your hard work!

Re: Tender Comrade

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm hoping that we can make the DVD more widely available at some point here in the near future, too, for the fans on dialup or who just don't want to DL vids. This one, though, was definitely one of my favorites, always and forever, and I'm so glad it's up and that people can share it.

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

I have so enjoying all these Professionals vids. I sure wish the series was out on DVD because I am a big Martin Shaw fan and he looks gorgeous. I can certainly see the slash potential there.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Do you mean out in R1 on DVD? It is out in R2, but since the series was never really shown here, they've never bothered to make it available outside Britain. I wish they would at least make R1s for Canada, where it *was* shown, since that's how I discovered it way back when.

At any rate, if you get a multiregion player like the Philips, you can set it to read the R2 with your own TV. The Philips is incredibly cheap, easy to use, and will also play avi files like so many vids are coming out in these days. It's a helluva bargain!