Westminster-StrikeUp

[ChevyFreak63]

What year was this?

[marksoave2007]

Lol look at Patrick at 2:44, he's feeling it! :D

[crglo7ver]

who cares about the camera ........thats a sharp sound and presentation!!!!

[baddiss74]

2007

[cometausti]

When will they tell the camera operator/video director to just put the camera dead center and leave it alone! Just like in drum corp when the camera goes in you can't see the big picture! That sucks! GREAT CHORUS!

[COMALiteJ]

They got the message this year. For the most part, the camera stays still and dead center on Chorus uptunes in the 2009 contest videos. On ballads, they do some close-ups and pans.

[signmypoodle]

does anyone hear overtone?

[Chr1sR0s3]

i hear several :)

[COMALiteJ]

When they did the Acceptance Set version, they shouldve added one comedic touch:

At about 5:30-34 into this song, when their choreography causes them to form That Shape that got such a big audio reaction (and that we can barely see here thanks to the incompetent camerawork and editing — should've cut to a full-on frontal Chorus shot then!), they should've paused, then, still in that position, sung a certain four-chord choral sting from a certain comedy movie from the 60s. ;-D

[COMALiteJ]

For an even better touch, after everyone age 40 or over in the audience is starting to simmer down from busting a gut, they should get this really confused look on all of their faces, and then say, in unison:

"What!? We dont GET it!?"

I'd bet those 40+-year-olds would've been rolling in the aisles for the next 5 minutes!

[JJayHawk9]

What are you blabbering on about? I'm 20 and have no idea what the heck you are talking about.

[COMALiteJ]

Of COURSE you don't. As I said, only those in their 40s or older would get it. Probably LATE 40s or older.

Well, some younger folks MIGHT get it, if they're old movie buffs.

It's a reference to one of the funniest movies ever made.

Hint: the title is seven words long (assuming you count a contraction as a single word instead of two), but only four UNIQUE words long. No word has more than one syllable, and only one is five letters long (all others are shorter than that).

[JJayHawk9]

Actually now that you spelled it out for me I do get it. "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world". But I saw it so long ago I don't remember the "four-chord choral sting" you are referring to.

[COMALiteJ]

I was hoping to find a clip of it on YouTube, or at least find the movie itself on Hulu, Joost, etc., but no go. Nor is it airing on any of the cable channels in my area at least within the next 14 days, according to TV Guide

It IS available on iTunes Movies and Amazon Movie Downloads (the latter at $2.99).

Key point: Dying gangster Jimmy "'Smiler' Grogan" Durante tells the travellers that the $350k is buried under "The ___ _." "Ya can't miss it! It's a ___ _, I tell ya! A ___ _!"

[COMALiteJ]

Once the travelers (after numerous hilarious escapades as they each try to be the first there) finally reach the park where it's buried, they look around for this "___ _." At first, they don't notice it, but as they split up, the camera remains on the scene to show what was clearly right behind them:

Four crossed palm trees in the shape of a ___ _.

At that point, the chorus sings the four-chord sting: "___ ___-___-_—" (where the last three syllables are the name of the single letter).

[COMALiteJ]

They sing it again a few more times, as various characters, chasing each other, run right under the ___ _, without recognizing it for what it is. And finally, one of the characters, after running under the palm trees forming the ___ _, stops, turns around, and notices it, and the chorus sings the sting again. Later, more of them recognize it, and the chorus sings it yet again.

[RapItUpProductions]

That sounds ridiculously complicated. But it might not be (it's hard to tell with all those blanks hiding the funny part).

[COMALiteJ]

Oh, its not. I was just telling where in the movie the four-chord (actually, two chords then repeated with different syllable lyrics — four syllables in all) is used.

This was THE comedy movie of its generation. Such a reference would be immediately obvious and just as funny to those in their late 40s or older as a similar reference to, say, a Monty Python movie (e.g. "and the Holy Grail) would be to someone in his late 30s through 40s or so.

[stringX90]

That was a great performance.

[vanish129]

THANK YOU AWESOMELY!!!

[Bighead6365]

For some reason the quality of the video is really choppy. And when in HD anytime Royce moves his hands or anyone moves it gets really grainy.

[BarbershopHarmony38]

you need more memory bud.

[Bighead6365]

I have 2 gigs of RAM and a 1GB NVIDIA 9500GT Video Card. Not sure how much more I need...

[BarbershopHarmony38]

Haha...touche!

[Bighead6365]

Now that I'm looking at it, it may have been just the camera's capturing it and only having so much of a frame rate to catch what is going on. It looks great in HD it was just that little thing.

[bordonthestreet]

just has to do with the original video being shot in 1080p and then being compressed to 700-whatever. Those lines are the effect.

[COMALiteJ]

bordonthestreet: "just has to do with the original video being shot in 1080p and then being compressed to 700-whatever."

In the immortal words of the Google Typo Error Message: "Did you mean, 1080i?"

I know of no prosumer-level camcorders that could shoot in full 1080p. Most prosumer camcorders do HDV2 at 1040×1080i (stretched horizontally to 1920), not even full 1920×1080i. Most newer AVCHD camcorders do true 1920×1080i, but at higher compression method thats tricky to edit.

[bordonthestreet]

haha, I dunno man. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, as I know near nothing about that stuff!

[OscillatingEthmoid]

There's no telling what kind of camera was used to film this. This is a massive competition and was filmed professionally.

Also, it may have been recorded on a quality film and converted to digital as 1080p. Even if the result wasn't really true 1080p resolution, it would have accounted for compression issues.

That said, I don't see any real issues with this video. It's clearer than the vast majority that I see on YouTube.

[COMALiteJ]

My post was in reply to someone else's, who had noticed interlacing "stripes" in fast-moving parts. Any "i" resolution can cause those, especially when the video is played back in a differently-sized window that isn't exactly ½ or ¼ the scanlines (e.g. the standard YouTube window in non-HD mode).