I’m editing a wedding video for some mates, and just to make sure I wasn’t missing something I did some research on the web for examples of other people’s wedding videos. Nothing too surprising out there, except for this one which (and apologies if the videographer ever finds this link) is possibly the most horrible style of wedding video I’ve ever seen. Granted it’s a short form clip but good Lord. The almost sepia, the blown out whites, the constant slo-mo, the cutaways to, oh, can’t make it out, is it a bush, and my favourite, the weird shot where the camera pauses overlong on the uncomfortable kid and makes it feel like an ad for Childline “Your three pounds a month could save children like Suzie”. It’s a bit like some student horror movie, and you expect something Lynchian to happen.. maybe the bride has a seizure, or the children begin to howl like animals and stone the priest!
Anyway, I am also at the Manchester International festival. The opening event was a commisioned piece Monkey A journey to the West an opera (although only very loosely) with music by Damon Albarn and art direction from his Gorillaz buddy Jamie Hewlett. From the ancient Chinese folk story, and some influence from the 70’s TV show, the tale is told by our anthropomorphic characters, and sung in Mandarin to an ambient but definitely Chinese-y sounding score. We had to crane to see the subtitles projected to the bottom of the stage which was a painful experience. However, you wouldn’t lose much from not following the story. In this context it’s more a way to introduce various fight scenes and set pieces. I found a synopsis of the ancient tale here for anyone nerdily interested.
Performers included Kung Fu masters, contortionists (with those see through body suits on that seemed to play cruelly on the psyche of my companion), poi jugglers, singing starfish, and plate spinners. The flavour also recalls 50’s style musicals, and perhaps the psychadelic whirldwind of Fantasia.
The show travels from Manchester to (I think) Paris, Berlin and Tokyo, but I wouldn’t be surprised if London gets it eventually (once Manchester lets it).
One last thing, a rant to the Monkey organisers: using MySpace for your official website is a Very Bad Idea. For one reason, the PR stills aren’t spidered, and therefore aren’t searchable on the web. You have to log into MySpace to see them.. Unless your idea was to have no images of the show on the majority of reviews. Bloody cheapskates.