A Paired Example, of sorts

April 16, 2007 8:51 AM

Remember these? Of course you do! Well, two new videos make for interesting comparison. Not Washington D.C. but Paris France. Not the subway station but the streets. Not classical but pop. Not Joshua Bell but The Shins. Begin armchair comparative cultural criticism.....NOW!
posted by jmccw (24 comments total)

Playing outside of a traditional concert venue is the new
playing inside of a traditional concert venue.
This. Changes. Everything.
posted by Dizzy at 8:58 AM on April 16, 2007

The same people made a pretty nice video along similar lines by Au Revoir Simone: over here at youtube.
posted by malphigian at 9:00 AM on April 16, 2007

It's kind of like they're sonically urinating on everyone who passes by.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:04 AM on April 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

First thought? Playing music alone in a subway with a hidden camera ≠ Playing in the streets while followed by a boom mic & cameraman holding your beer.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:10 AM on April 16, 2007

Your favorite band busks.
posted by dhartung at 9:12 AM on April 16, 2007 [10 favorites]

don't forget to check out this and this.
I dug the nationals one especially.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:15 AM on April 16, 2007

I actually like the Shins but this kind of made me hate them a little bit. Especially the butchering of Alone Again Or at the beginning.
posted by chococat at 9:21 AM on April 16, 2007

You could have linked to the Blogoteque, who actually made the videos instead of PFM and see all the others they've made. They have an iTunes RSS feed of their video podcasts too. Their recent Arcade Fire video was absolutely incredible. Also see Doveman's.
posted by yeti at 9:22 AM on April 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

Why does that Arcade Fire link give me a warning about the certificate and Google Maps? (I am ignorant about certificates. Among other things.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:55 AM on April 16, 2007

Oooh, "Gone for Good" is my favorite Shins song. I like this.

I'm a sucker, really.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:28 AM on April 16, 2007

I was just reading the Joshua Bell article and practically in tears at how beautiful every facet of the experiment was... I wondered at one point how I might respond to the same thing or,say, the Shins playing outside the El stop I rush through/by on days I don't ride my bike to work.

Needless to say, was really funny to see this... but yeah, pales in comparison to the Joshua Bell bit.
posted by pokermonk at 10:37 AM on April 16, 2007

shins from my hometown, abq..seen a few times in this context..when they were flake and when dave was in scared of chaka
posted by xjudson at 10:48 AM on April 16, 2007

Similar to Pavlov's dogs, hearing about this Bell makes me just want to run away. Stop the madness, people.
posted by adipocere at 10:55 AM on April 16, 2007

That Arcade Fire performance is beautiful. It breaks my heart that these amazing Take Away Shows are going to be lost in a post people are going to skip as soon as they see "Joshua Bell" or "The Shins."

All of them are amazing, but check out The Hidden Cameras, Islands, Jeffrey Lewis, Elysian Fields and Eagle*Seagull

Really, just watch all of them. Thanks for this post.
posted by StopMakingSense at 1:30 PM on April 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

thanks, yeti!
posted by es_de_bah at 3:32 PM on April 16, 2007

(the shins)++

(over-thinking music)--

Thanks for the links, all.
posted by tarheelcoxn at 4:02 PM on April 16, 2007

Oh, man, Islands, CFTPA, My Brightest Diamond, Okkervil River, were all so good!
posted by wemayfreeze at 4:38 PM on April 16, 2007

what a weird coincidence- 'gone for good" just came up on my shuffle today and I liked it a lot. Until now I had always dismissed the Shins because a) their music I had heard was pretty average and b) the whole obnoxious Zack Braff connection.

The quality of this performance of is about what I would expect from your higher-end street performers though.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:42 PM on April 16, 2007

I know someone's going to say I'm missing the point, but couldn't they have mic'ed them a little better? Gone for good is one of my favorite shins songs, but I cut it out before it ended...
posted by oxonium at 6:33 PM on April 16, 2007

Can some video editor in the audience tell me if this is likely the so-called "Bleach Bypass" look, or can you describe another process for achieving this hi-contrast look without ruining the detail and textures?
posted by planetkyoto at 7:45 PM on April 16, 2007

StopMakingSense makes sense. Thanks for the prodding. Would not have clicked otherwise.
posted by HyperBlue at 8:35 PM on April 16, 2007

planetkyoto: from just looking at the screenshots watching a few videos, it looks like a cranked up contrast, reduced brightness, and some fiddling with (or just intentionally incorrectly set) white balance. The exterior day shots are high shutter speed and I think high (smaller) aperture which gives them a crisper, less filmy look. Also the gain may be set high? (usually happens on DV cameras when you try to make the aperture higher than it can go the camera will automatically turn up the gain to compensate). Seems like the camera is set on autofocus and sometimes autoexposure too. I would like to know what it's shot with. Wide lens makes everything look nice.

I had to look it up because I wasn't familiar with the term, but "Bleach Bypass" is a film processing technique which relies on the actual chemistry of the film. Blogotheque is all digital video. Digital postproduction can imitate chemical and physical (like scratches) film processes (eg GRINDHOUSE) but cannot actually utilize the techniques.

Here is an article about getting the bleach bypass look chemically and digitally.

Reading a few articles, I would say this is NOT bleach bypass, although it is somewhat similar. The main differences are the lower color saturation and sharpness of the bleach bypass image.
posted by headless at 4:01 AM on April 17, 2007

Thanks for your insights, headless. I appreciate it.
posted by planetkyoto at 6:12 PM on April 18, 2007

That site is incredible. This post really didn't do it justice - there are so many amazing bands on there, and the videos are so full of life. Wow.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:50 PM on April 26, 2007