Excellent Birds

[yugenro]

That is some TRIPPY dancing!

[NadrianATRS]

This looks like a film budget of $5 to make

[Ferdiphone]

beautiful, thanks.

[probrojeffro]

A rare, rare recording. Every note, inflection, sound, word, beat perfect. So. Excellent So. There's people listening. Listening now. Watch out!

[spaceboy537]

Best video and sound quality of the three or so I've found, many thanks!

[gabbaro]

Great upload, thanks for posting it!

[TheCosmicopus]

This is one of my favs!

[selfybeatz85]

great video :)

[bubo181]

nice... best regards.

[nickfatum1]

Nice!

[52diddi]

Beautiful music video *****

thumbs up

• '♥. •' ¨) MH

[JampyKeys]

Very very nice tune and visual !!!*****

[VientDeMee]

Excellent!!! Classic!!!

[pinkgirl123ish]

it does sound like he is saying pictures of bieber

[jaumecb2008]

excellent video

[SwaineMusic]

is it just me or at 3:44 it sounds like he's singing 'pictures of bieber' haha

[Mangina9000]

I watched this on PBS, "Live from Off Center," when I was only 7 years old. For whatever reason I loved that show even if I didn't get it.

[gelliedavid]

thanks for this one

[mjmjr2191]

What the hell is this song even about?

[LokiClock]

@mjmjr2191 Excellent. Birds.

[mjmjr2191]

@LokiClock Well then. there you have it, I suppose.

[Poemsapennyeach]

Fun !

[indiwise]

How did I not know of this?!? I love it.

[SergioKulpas]

Excellent video.

[SergioKulpas]

Excellent video.

[belgiumSteve]

awesome TOPquality video AND sound!  amazing!!!

[Kg277]

1:09 Creepy!!

[dwmitch]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Peter Gabriel. He's one of my biggest inspirations musically speaking, but I have to ask this.

Was this song just a drug fueled ramble? I've been trying to figure it out for years and can't even come close to putting any kind of meaning to it.

[TheLittleDevil]

@dwmitch Maybe It doesn't mean anything. Does all good music have to mean something? My answer...NO. A painting is best as a painting without explaination. Same goes for music in my opinion. 

[rossvideosprint]

@TheLittleDevil Of course music means something. Meaningless noise has no artistic value. We project meaning onto combinations of sounds to derive music. Of course, meaning can be ambiguous or even unknowable but it's still there. A painting is NOT best without explanation. Explanation gives context, context helps to understand meaning. Even if the concepts are broad, ambiguous or just downright odd, there is intention, expression and meaning there.

[TheLittleDevil]

@rossvideosprint I don't agree. But that's Ok. Everyone has an opinion.

[TheLittleDevil]

@rossvideosprint I don't agree. But that's Ok. Everyone has an opinion. So what does this song mean in your opinion? Also what does a painting of a bowl of fruit mean. What does the painting of the Mona Lisa mean. I'd like to know.

[rossvideosprint]

@TheLittleDevil Short answer: I don't know! I have no contextual background of the driving concepts behind this or the Mona Lisa. But think of it this way - without structure, meaning, and intention all we have is noise. Noise is transformed by our minds and language into music. Even if meaning is abstract, it is still there. The mere fact that someone created it gives it meaning as an expression and creation of the human mind. I'm happy to say I don't KNOW what this means.

[TheLittleDevil]

@rossvideosprint What i was saying in my first post is a painting or a piece of music is best without a piece of paper beside it explaining what it means. You figure out what it means to you. Then again i do like noise music as well. THE NIHIST SPASM BAND. Check them out.

[rossvideosprint]

@TheLittleDevil Oh well there I agree. If an artist tries to explain themselves too much it completely negates the point of expressing something abstractly in the first place. Meaning is to be derived from the way in which we and the artist interact with the work, and that can always be relative, ambiguous or vague. But I'm fine with that. Trying to understand music is what makes its appreciation so worthwhile, even if hope of outlining any kind of meaning is untenable.

[3salamanders]

Lovelovelove this song. Never saw the video. Excellent video. :)

[lordzhuge]

Laurie reminds me of the girl from minority report.

[BelindaKyle]

I didn't know there WAS a clip for this! Thank you!

[KuropinHasan]

que duo! a cual mejor!

:-D

[jellobefore]

hey!

[user7272]

top notch upload..ty

[dean358]

YVW

[jlmaka]

Awesome! Great to see a video for one of my all-time favorite songs!

[dean358]

YVW!  If you like this I recommend you take a look at some of the other work on my Dean358 channel. All created during the same era -- ah, the 80s :-) Cheers!

[Ultrasecond]

I think I've watched this about 50+ times in the past 2 days. Thanks so much for making/posting this.

[GURAKASCA]

great lipsynch! love both the song and the vid!! so 80's... :)

[dean358]

@GURAKASCA  Could you please send me the plug in that increases the YouTube frame rate to see lip sync? (Just kidding!) Hey, it was the 80s! Tnx for watching!

[GURAKASCA]

@dean358 :)) actually i was really impressed by their synch,especially hers.anyway,excellent duo...thnx for the reply!

[LeaveDenbyAlone]

is this a different mix?

[karenteacher2008]

so people spend a lot of time looking at pictures and they want to be looked at as well

[MuzikJunkyAES]

I noticed that the version of the song used here is neither the version on Laurie's album "Mister Heartbreak," nor on Peter's album "So." Did Geffen and Warner Bros. use this as the official clip for both of them? Peace.

[dean358]

I don't remember delivering a master to either Geffen or Warner -- just WNET for the broadcast. The again, it's been a lotta miles and much haze since then :-)

[MuzikJunkyAES]

Wow, thanks for the prompt answer, Dean! Peace.

[lexmarkblackink]

@dean358 I found out about this video because someone was talking about the different mixes of the song. That person remembered one mix for "So," one for "Mister Heartbreak," and a third for this video. So if your mind is hazy, at least another person seems to be caught in the same haze.

Thanks for uploading these videos. I always love it when I find people on here who were involved in creating music videos before YouTube existed.

[lexmarkblackink]

@dean358 I found out about this video because someone was talking about the different mixes of the song. That person remembered one mix for "So," one for "Mister Heartbreak," and a third for this video. So if your mind is hazy, at least another person seems to be caught in the same haze.

Thanks for uploading these videos. I always love it when I find people on here who were involved in creating music videos before YouTube existed.

[karenteacher2008]

Sorry ...Just read it was created for satellite "Good Morning Mr. Orwell"

[dean358]

Curious as to what you mean by "extreme dependence on images?" As in "images over content?" I wouldn't read all that much into this video -- it's what we were able to create given 48 hours for production and post. Oh, and I think your interpreting it is great :-)

[karenteacher2008]

@dean358 When I wrote the comment I thought about many people who believe looking good equals being good...those people who upload tons of pictures of themselves to social networks like facebook. Then, don't ask me why I was thinking about that LOL

[karenteacher2008]

I know some will hate me for trying to interpret this...I connect the video with the extreme dependence on images or what is seen that ppl is experiencing nowadays What do u think?

[mpawliger]

I remember waking up early to record this on WNET channel 13. My first exposure to both Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson, as well as Philip Glass and John Cage. Trippy times...

[standupstella]

Never seen this before. Cool.

[luxmovingimage]

Amazing video! For more works by Dean Winkler visit the LUX Collection.

[benovision]

Jeepers Tante. Cranky?

[tantemanfred]

good experimental music of the 80s, but partly very goofy visual realisation

[dean358]

only partly? :-) Hey, we made this in two days (production and post) for Nam June Paik. He loved goofy!

[tantemanfred]

Sorry? I meant it in the meaning of stiff, unfitting, pointless, not inspiring.

[GoodNewsFromStars]

Oki Dean thank's for explanations.

I had a look on Grass Valley's website to get more informations about analog switchers and i found a pdf introducing "Krystal™ system

architecture" wich seems to be an analog effects processor or somethin...

Well i understood you used an Ampex Digital Optics processor (ADO) instead to compute and simulate real time lighting and shading.

sorry for imprecisions (:>).

Regards.

[GoodNewsFromStars]

Hi Dean,

Thank's for quality - i have 2 questions please.

1- how did they simulate Laurie and Pete's mechanical motion like it appears at 2:57 ?.

2- which kind of professional software/OS could we use in 1984 to generate so nice Phong's (Gouraud's ??..) illumination ?.

Regards.

[dean358]

Laurie and Peter are lying on their backs on a blue screen floor. The camera is positioned above them. The motion isn't simulated - it's the two of them moving.

All lighting and shading were created in real time using Grass Valley 300 analog video switcher. The "spotlight" is a switcher wipe and the "shadow" is their matte signal repositioned and distorted with an ADO, then keyed behind them.

Ah, the good old days....:-)

[GoodNewsFromStars]

Oups..,

I was really thinking about "cast shadowing" in this example (Phong and Gourand are local illumination models applied in image synthesis) - maybe analog processors in mid 80's were computing real time Z-Buffering or ray tracing to get this amazing rendering.

Anyway that's awesome.

[trylonperisphere]

Anyone know where to get the whole Good Morning Mr. Orwell" show?

[dean358]

You can purchase a 38 minute edit of the broadcast from Electronic Arts Intermix in NYC. (eai-dot-org).  I've also posted ACT III as a video response above, as Nam June included ACT III in the broadcast. - Dean

[adamlake2007]

Yes thank you!

[dean358]

your both very welcome -- enjoy!

[SussudioPGFan]

Wow, this is a very good "excellent" quality - thanks for posting this ;-))