Here's 'Amateur' the wonderful new video from Lasse Gjertsen, who makes music by editing video - his previous clip, Hyperactive was seen half a million times, and attracted a host of imitators and spoofs, like Supershitty Beatbox, these guys, this guy, this fellow from Portugal and this dude, who isn't really so good. With 'Amateur', Lasse has really taken it to Da Next Level. (Thanks to everyone who sent this in - and also everyone who wrote about the Air Guitar Shirt)
UPDATE: Here is a (rather clickly) guitar version of the same thing. Anyone know where Michel Gondry's 'Drumb and Drumber' short film is on the web? He's here playing the small child drum kit...
Posted by Tom Whitwell.
Comments:
It's refreshing to see people using new forms of media to express themselves.
What makes his stuff so great is that not only is it fresh, original, clever and cool, but that there is a subtle humour, a way about him that is almost magical.
I agree, I expect an ad campaign using a similar idea, but I think they'd need to get Lasse to work on it, as without that humour it's not nearly so cool...
I think all that editing make him go a little nuts, though...! :)
Years ago in an experimental video class, these videos cut up to make beats (out of visual sfx) featured every other moment. Then it was a tiresome trend on TV ads, I remember one that demonstrated the durability of a car's exterior (shopping carts slamming into it, etc). If I had known this to be another video of this ilk I might not have watched it.
Luckily, I did tho. and this blows them all away. It takes the concept and does with it what it really should have been in the beginning. Absolutely beautiful, the best internet video I've seen, and thank you for sharing it.
Hmm.. I'm not so impressed. If it looked seemless, maybe... as it is, he's just cut it up according to the audio in some (Sony) Acid-like program, presumably, which is piss-easy to be frank. And it automatically cuts the video up to go along with it. The only thing that makes it stand out is the slight humour, and the 'production values' of not being done in a bedroom with a webcam. Video DJs have been doing similar stuff for years, the Korg Entrancer demo video springs to mind.
Pidgin...well obviously "he's just cut it up according to the audio in some (Sony) Acid-like program". Did you think we all thought he used 2 VCR's or something? And obviously "it automatically cuts the video up to go along with it". That's what editing does. And it doesn't matter that it's "piss easy". It's the idea and the execution that matters. Squirting paint out of a tube onto canvas is piss easy, but we can't all paint like Jackson Pollock. (Lasse is still a few master works away from being Pollock but you get the idea.)You're right, loads of people have done this sort of thing before, but have mostly all just been saying 'i am a vj, check out my clever laptop', and it's tawdry, pretentious and boring as shit. The medium is invisible in Lasse's stuff. All you perceive is the message, and it makes a lot of people smile. Nice one.
Its fun and all that, but I kind of worry about what it will inspire countless other people to do. Lord knows there are already too many other people with vlogs that nobody wants to see as it is.
Innovative and fresh. Its always cool when someone comes out with something new. Abbey Konowitch has always been able to come up with fresh new innovative artists and such. I was reading his blog and he works with disney people now though. He is super interactive with it though so he is alright in my book. Abbey Konowitch
what i find fascinating is how it plays with your expectations that it's a live performance; your brain tries to close it down, and animate it, even though there's no real definition of what order everything was in.
Yes, that Christian Marclay exhibit is amazing! Although this particular video is probably a bit more akin to an instructional video mashup by Kel McKeown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y7Oa4CpjRY
Why does everything on the internet has to be either excellent, brilliant, beautiful... or pathetic idiotic shit?
Can't we just think it's "nice!" or something? It's a nice video. That's it. It didn't hurt.
I think the most important part of the piece is that the drummer is playing the piano and the opposite. As in "we shouldn't make barriers between pop rock and classical music". Lasse found a NICE way to say that. But more important than the WAY he did... is that he DID it.
Anonymous dude (the one who apparently emailed lasse) what you said is total bollox i'm sorry. He just uses video editing software, no samplers, no sequencers and nothing like that.
And it's pretty clear if you pay attention to the long piano upward scale that those notes aren't sampled at all and the little crackles made by video editing are more clear.
If you want another proof listen closely to every crash hit, you will notice they all have different decay time, thats because the sound immediately stops exactly when the next video frame is played. If your theory was true, he'd have to sample the crash at least 5 times, not to mention the lower tom too.
signed: a guy who actually emailed lasse and doesn't like people who make up stories on the internet.
These are nice. EBN (Emergency Broadcast Network) were also doing this in the early 90's. They were editing together "how to" music tutorial VHS tapes from various famous drummers, bass players and guitarists. They'd create entire songs out of snippits from these how-to videos. They were using a really primitive video sampler built out of a MAX patch (prior to the MAX/MSP/Jitter combo or inexpensive NLE editors like Final Cut that make this really quite easy).
Not meaning to disrespect to belittle Lasse's work - it's nice stuff! go cat go.
Kurt Harland from Information Society fame (http://inSoc.org) did this 20 years ago, probably with two VCRs, at home, two years before the band charted a Top 10 Billboard hit and started making some money.
Here it is, the instrumental Outro of "Running":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY2d2k-su6g
And he did this for another band:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdI_VifAxME
These videos came to my mind on the second I watched this guy. Of course, he's very good, but Kurt is a real genius!
: 3:08 pm