(no subject)

9:46pInane Drivel:And so...




This is a rather good reveiw for Across the night, from silverchair.nu
the parts I like best or agree with most are in bold.
(The really Really spiff bits are in bold Italic)



Across the Night : The Creation of Diorama
In
a surprising marketing twist, Robert Hambling's film chronicling the
creation of Silverchair's groundbreaking new album Diorama has arrived
on DVD in the United States before the band's native Australia.
Silverchair.nu presents a full review.

written by Michael Burns

Across
the Night : The Creation of Diorama opens up to an animated menu based
on the artwork for Silverchair's newest album. The menu offers up four
simple choices : Play, Scene Selection, Extra Features, and Audio
Set-Up (which offers five-channel surround sound...but does a
documentary really need it?). The extra features are sparse, but more
on those later. Let's get to the film.

The opening scene is
accompanied by a segment of "Tuna in the Brine", and afterwards the
title scrolls across the screen in large, vibrant colors as Daniel
Johns describes his vision for Diorama : "I really want this record to
be the type of record you can get home, put headphones on or whatever,
and just forget about reality, forget about whatever's going on...and
you're just taken to this magical, musical place." The music quickly
picks up and after a bit more reflection from Daniel, we are introduced
to Part 1 of the film : Demos.

In Part 1, we immediately receive
a nice surprise: a bit of rough tracking for "One Way Mule" mixed in
with parts of the final track. It really is an awesome experience,
and this technique of mixing rough and final cuts of songs together is
repeated throughout the film. Interspersed with segments of Daniel,
Ben, and Chris talking about the new material, more clips of the songs
which were demoed are played in the background, the most entertaining of which is a very bad vocal take of "The Greatest View" - trust me, it's funny.
Also mixed in with these segments are some of the video clips that were
aired on Chairpage.com during the album's production, presented in an
intentionally blocky, washed out manner to simulate the experience of
watching the videos on a computer. This simulated computer look is a
bit overdone, but effective nonetheless.

Next comes Part 2 :
Pre-Production. This segment details the process of finding not only an
appropriate producer, but also shows meetings with Kevin Williamson, or
"The Record Company Guy" as he is called in the film. From the moment he is introduced you can almost feel the evil bursting from within him as he glares at something offscreen.
Ok, so maybe it's not that intense, but it's obvious this guy is going
to be an antagonist of some sort. Moving on, all three members of the
band look equally bored as John Watson and David Botrill discuss the
pre-production process with them, and then we are treated to more rough
music as the band begins to fine tune the songs. There is also a funny segment involving Daniel and a parking ticket,
but I won't spoil it. After the band discusses the progression of "The
Greatest View" with the record company guy, Daniel is off to visit the
doctor, and then we are back with Daniel and Dave, but now it is inside
of Daniel's living room where he is working on "After All These Years".

An
interview clip of Daniel introduces us to Part 301 : Recording. This
section introduces us to a few more key players on this album,
including Van Dyke Parks and Larry Muhoberac. There are more clips of
the band and arrangers hard at work, Daniel and David discussing just
how cool the album is going to be, and a glimpse of the things that
Ben, Chris, and their friend Matt Lovel ("Gizmo" to those of you in the
know) do on their spare time. The section is rounded off by a very touching reflection on Daniel Johns by Van Dyke Parks.

Part
4 : Recording Some Overdubs, introduces the guest players who will be
performing on the album, including Paul Mac, Jim Moginie from Midnight
Oil, Rob Woolf, and one other very special guest star. The process of
adding more instrumentation onto the top of the not-quite-finished
tracks is shown in this section, along with yet more interview footage
of Daniel. A beautiful piano solo by Daniel ends this section.

Part 5 is called "LA
is ALL MIXED UP", and it is aptly titled. One of the most interesting
and dramatic segments in the film, this chapter introduces the problems
that the band runs into with the record company as they deal with a
"hiccup" in the production process. To balance out the generally dark
feeling of this section, there are glimpses of the crew doing things
other than work, including a very odd scene with Daniel and a turban.*
The purpose of this chapter is to show that, with one notable
exception, the creation of Diorama was incredibly smoothe, and this
point is illustrated perfectly.

The final chapter of the DVD is
Part 6 : Going Live. After a short glimpse of Silverchair rehearsing
for the Big Day Out festivals, we are treated to live footage of the
band playing "World Upon Your Shoulders" at BDO. Other than some more
footage during the credits, that's pretty much it.

The Extra
Features are the only downside to this package. It's not that the
features are necessarily bad, it's just that there really isn't much
there. The extras on this, the U.S. version of the DVD, are limited to
a discography, which lists only the bands four albums, and the video
for "The Greatest View". Collectors will want to know that this is the
U.S. version of the video, which contains a lot more shots of the band
(the Australian version focused heavily on Daniel) and more use of the
x-ray effect. The Australian version of the DVD will include the videos
for "The Greatest View" (the Aussie version, of course), "Without You",
and "Luv Your Life". Because of this, fans in Australia will definitely
want to wait for their version of the film. Of course, most "hardcore"
fans will pick up both versions so they can watch both versions of "The
Greatest View".

This film is a necessity for the dedicated
Silverchair fan. Trust me, after seeing this film you will only
appreciate Diorama that much more. For casual viewers, there's always
the chance that seeing this film will interest you in the band's music,
but more likely than not, non-fans will not have even heard of this
release, and therefore will pass up a great glimpse into the creation
of a masterpiece.


----
*falls off chair laughing at memory



current mood: happy

9:51pInane Drivel:SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE




I have just been informed...
I will have
THE TICKETS
by monday!!
SQUEEEEEEE



current mood: jubilant

10:15pInane Drivel:Confide in the knowledge that Sunday will be worse




Ugh. Work today, air-con go bye-bye,
not fun!
Cleaned room - not fun!
Ah, at least I can confide in the knowledge that Sunday will be worse...
*cries*
*forlorn look and thought so secret I will never tell anyone...*
*sad now*



current mood: sad
current music: "The Closing" - Silverchair