Devil With a Blue Dress was probably filmed in 1986. I was about 20 years old at the time.
It was originally conceived as a response to "dance" music videos--by the likes of Madonna and Paula Abdul--that were popular at the time.
In the old MGM musicals, dancers like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly were filmed from head-to-toe, in full-length shots, with as few cut-aways as possible.
The audiences were given the visual evidence that the stars could, in fact, dance, and that they had mastered the routines from beginning to end.
The '80s music videos had random shots of pop stars doing spin kicks, thrusts, and other Bob Fosse-inspired moves, with close ups and other images inserted after just about every step (see Paula Abdul's video for Straight Up to see what I mean).
Paula Abdul, Madonna, and some of the others may have been fine dancers, but the proof wasn't in their music videos: with enough editing, almost ANYONE can be made to look like a competent dancer.
And that's where *I* come in
As you may have guessed from the video, I am not a trained dancer (but I DID watch a LOT of Adam Ant videos).
My brother David and I shot my part in an alley near our house, with no permit or permission. It was all done in one take, no rehearsal. I think a roll of Super 8 film was good for about three and a half minutes, so it was pretty much "One roll, gotta go."
I chopped out the parts where I stumbled, forgot the words, or did something that looked especially stupid. (The keyword here is "especially.")
I then inserted shots that I had filmed of a couple of female co-workers go-go dancing behind my work. One may notice that no-one bothered to wear a blue dress. This is an example of "Beggars can't be choosers" filmmaking.
Syncing Super 8 sound is tricky, even under the best circumstances. Super 8 movies play back faster than "real life" (or 16mm film, or digital video), and there's a space of a few frames between the frame projected and the part on the audio stripe where the sound is picked up.
I recorded the "faster" version of the song from the film to a tape, made my splices, then put the song back onto the film's magnetic tape stripe. It was all done with analog equipment (a projector, a home tape deck, a VCR), and excruciating trial-and-error. Dancing around was the EASY part. The lipsync slips a little near the end, but that might have just been me.
I later did a similar performance of the song for the New Gong Show (the clip of that is also on my YouTube channel), only I actually SANG it--live--on TV. I didn't win, but I wasn't "gonged."
Conceived, produced, filmed, directed, and edited by Steven A. Ross
Additional camera work by David Ross
The titles were created with black rub-on letters on white paper. A negative was made at a local print shop, then placed on a light table and filmed with a Super 8 movie camera. It took bit of experimenting, but I eventually got the exposure right. With iMovie, I could whip up flashier, more readable titles in seconds, but I wanted to show off what I achieved back in my misspent youth.
(Originally filmed and edited on Super 8, transferred to VHS, then transferred to Quicktime and remastered on iMovie. My apologies for the picture quality, but there's only so much that could be done, on my current budget.)
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devil with the blue dressby bossermaniakus16,800 views
que loca la cancion,como el cantante
lapica1 1 year ago
You and your fabulous dancing! Loved watching this.... Thanks Handsome! XOXOXOXO
malyssad1 2 years ago