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- emcitymisfit
- Rep: 28
Re: "Better" Video Discussion
i doubt it's the final cut.
a lot of people, including me, feel like the majority of leaks over the years have been by the gnr camp, before tours.
now, look at the steady decline of what we have gotten.
cd tracks
then
cd artwork
then
30 secs of blood in the water
then
what appears to be a rough draft of a mediocre video for a 4 year old singleeither they are getting more stingy with their material or there isn't anything left to leak
Wait, we got blood in the water? Link?
- emcitymisfit
- Rep: 28
Re: "Better" Video Discussion
That said, I think the Dead Horse video is alot better than this collective mess. From the cheesy title cards to the terribly rendered CGI demon baby to the lazy, out of sync audio and video, this video was as horrific as it was confusing. Why introduce players who are not in the band? Why not do a better job syncing the music with the video? Why are portions completely out of focus? I don't mind the video being fun, but at least put it together well.
Well, to be fair, this wasn't a release, so it was never intended to be out. This was made before they had confirmation that Robin had even left (clips of this video were on the myspace page before Axl's Mygnr chat session where his status was still ambiguous).
This plays like a fan who was privy to very good back stage and DVD quality footage but lacking the ability to put it together in a lucid manner.
Yeah, his name is Fernando.
Re: "Better" Video Discussion
I can see why the video was snarled up by rights issues – not just Lars. I assume Buckethead had some issues about signing off on it, given that it was implying he was a current member of the band.
The video's doing exactly what it should do – introducing the new band – but they've opted to include Buckethead and Brain as current members. And, indeed, Finck – wasn't this made around the same time that he left? So they were faced with the absurd situation of either adding in Ashba and retaining Finck in the video (which they'd have to do, given that Bucket n' Brain were in there) or axing Finck and then having to chop out Bucket and Brain too. Meaning that neither of the players who contributed lead solos would be in the video.
It's so easy, isn't it. We can talk about conspiracy theories and how lame it was GNR didn't release this video and how easy it would have been to just drop it, but the fact is, this video was made for a band that didn't exist anymore.
Pretty simple if you ask me. It's not that great anyhow.
Re: "Better" Video Discussion
elevendayempire wrote:I can see why the video was snarled up by rights issues – not just Lars. I assume Buckethead had some issues about signing off on it, given that it was implying he was a current member of the band.
The video's doing exactly what it should do – introducing the new band – but they've opted to include Buckethead and Brain as current members. And, indeed, Finck – wasn't this made around the same time that he left? So they were faced with the absurd situation of either adding in Ashba and retaining Finck in the video (which they'd have to do, given that Bucket n' Brain were in there) or axing Finck and then having to chop out Bucket and Brain too. Meaning that neither of the players who contributed lead solos would be in the video.
It's so easy, isn't it. We can talk about conspiracy theories and how lame it was GNR didn't release this video and how easy it would have been to just drop it, but the fact is, this video was made for a band that didn't exist anymore.
Pretty simple if you ask me. It's not that great anyhow.
Nobody on the planet even knew who the guys in the band were anyways. Reedit it, throw Richard in a few more scenes, Fill some spots with Tommy get rid of Brain, BH & Robin and there ya have it done. Big fucking deal. But no that band didn't exist anymore so instead of promoting what they had they promote nothing. The genius minds of the Gn'R camp triumph again 
The video isn't that great but it's not bad either. It likely wouldn't have made a difference and yet it's just par for the course for a band that can't do anything that normal bands do consistently.
- jimmythegent
- Rep: 30
Re: "Better" Video Discussion
wow that sure is an amateurish joke of a video... goes to show how far Axl has run things into the ground - GN'R were once seen as pioneers of the format. Not saying I want production values of November Rain, but this is just a really poor effort..
Re: "Better" Video Discussion
The poor effort never reached publication, meaning the poor effort is as poor as any other videos we never saw in the first place, and God knows how many poor efforts other bands did which we never saw.
The final product could have been something else as far as we know. They decided not to publish it, perhaps because it was just that; a poor effort edited by Fernando.
What is more interesting than the quality of a video that was never published, is the circumstances behind it.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: "Better" Video Discussion
To be fair videos cost insane amounts of money to make at high standard and have long lost their relevance in terms of the MTV era. These days a video only needs to be youtube enjoyable for it to have as much function as it was going to get.
Conceptually I don't have a problem with this video, it could use a tighter edit, but considering it was never released, I'd guess maybe it was going to get a tighter edit before the project was abandoned.
Obviously the real problem with Chinese Democracy and this video as a subset of it - was that the album is made with a host of guest musicians who ended up not staying in the band.
The video features 3 players who played in the 06 shows and who feature in the 08 album but who were long gone from the band by the time the album actually was released....
Watching bucket and robin trade album solos doesn't really establish a new GNR when you go see Bumble and DJ in 2010 does it?
- elevendayempire
- Rep: 96
Re: "Better" Video Discussion
Watching bucket and robin trade album solos doesn't really establish a new GNR when you go see Bumble and DJ in 2010 does it?
And therein lies the problem. I get the feeling Axl (entirely laudably) wanted to pay tribute to Buckethead and Brain's contribution to the album, hence their appearance in the Chinese Democracy liner notes and so forth. But that immediately causes a problem with the promotion of the current line-up. To a casual viewer, that video clearly implies that Bucket and Brain are current members*, and makes the band look absurdly large (4 guitarists, 2 drummers).
People saying, "oh, they could just re-edit it" are missing the point. It's easy for a fan cutting together a video to do that, but bands need to get sign-off on the cut from the participants, from the record company, etc etc. Layers of bureaucracy. And when they're re-editing that close to release (witness the version without Lars) and suddenly realise that they either have to cut Robin (and therefore Buckethead and Brain too), or add DJ Ashba (and they don't have any footage of him on tour), you can see why the whole thing turned into an epic clusterfuck.
*And to be fair, there's some clever editing to that effect – the shots of the current band playing under the "waterfall of sparks" helps to sell the illusion that Buckethead's playing under the same waterfall of sparks.
