Bellagio Fountains - 'Luck be a lady tonight?': A Different Perspective.

Frank Sinatra seems to have spent lots of time in Las Vegas. I spent 24 hours. Walking from 7am on 30th May to 7am 31st May - Memorial Day. On that day any luck I had ran out! My Greyhound Bus was hijacked by a Mexican who attached the driver with a knife. The 58 passengers ended up stuck in the middle of nowhere for two hours. The police were ready to shot up the bus to take control as they thought this a big event. It was covered on TV and seems to have been shown coast to coast in America and reported in all the national newspapers. Even, here in Dundee, an American whom i just happened to speak to commented - "were you on that bus!!". The police thought the risk of an attack my hijacked bus To Las Vegas on Memorial Day was high. This was Memorial Day!!!

The first video response (below)provides an adaptation of this video and relates my research with Las Vegas in which my relative influenced the man that made Las Vegas possible.

See the second video response (below)to understand why I was in America and tracing the footsteps of my relative.

See video "Graham Duncan's Greyhound bus hijacking" (third video response below)for more infromation.


25/1/09 ****** NEWS UPDATE ********

It appears that the spirit of Sinatra has told me through Warner Music Group (WMG) that Mr Sinatra no longer wishes to be part of this video! The Mafia still rules it seems. This was a video of the Bellagio Fountains with the real sound of 'Luck be a lady tonight' - it was how it was actually presented. No copy was made of CD, DVD or was not downloaded from Itunes.

It seems that we are now not allowed to film our holidays - without the Warners of this world stifling creativity of creative people!

So what the motivations of Warner? On the day that this film was blocked on You Tube - 67 exactly the same films of Bellagio Founatains in Las Vegas - remaimed - all with 'Luck be a lady tonight' as the music as filmed by the filmmakers when the changing presentation was performed.

So why me? - well I have one theory. My version was the top rated film of this type in the World.

Do Warner's see me as a threat? Such a big company has come down to this! I am a filmmaker with not formal qualifications and not a professional filmmaker.

Youtube nor Warner have provided any explanation for this action - nor are they likely to. Perhaps we as film makers should forget Sinatra ever existed - as this new version perhaps says more about Sinatra, Warner and Las Vegas - as well as the Sleeze of our society and how we are manipulated by big organisations.

Please leave comments if this has happened to you or if you feel - film makers should be allowed creative freedom. It seems Big Brother has even more power and even Orwellian thinkers might have thought?

This film now provides the sensation of emptiness and the sound of empty water in a silent city of glint and glitter - where all marketing and money is gone. A desert of creativity and blocked freedom.

The ghosts of crime are there in this film - the day after filming this I was hijacked on Memorial Day as I travelled through Utah - the bus was going to be shot by the army and police. It was filmed live on TV and no one asked if I agreed to be film - if i had indeed died - I would have had no way of saying no - just like Sinatra!

*********New Approach

In line with Youtube policy I have used 'other' music. I have stripped all the glamour and trappings of Las Vegas and leave it that way like a silent desert. A desert with no people, no music - only the sound of water falling and the sound of our own thoughts observing the nothingness. An escape from big organisations controlling us. Simple as that. Minimal and Minimalist. We expect Sinatra and glamour but we get the bare silent sound and stripped perspective.

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices.

The term has expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration.

The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Bellagio
• Las
• Vegas
• Water
• Sinatra
• Hijack
• 2004
• Luck
• be
• lady
• tonight
• Denver
• Moab
• Utah
• Dundee
• Scotland
• Copyright
• falling
• water
• Warner
• music
• group
• infringement
• freedom
• of
• expression
• silent
• glint
• glitter
• gold
• money
• marketing
• empty
• sleeze
• cover
• impression
• persepective
• rain
• gambling
• city
• porn
• Minimalism
• ethics
• business
• ego
• pomp

[ediethegreat]

I've been watchin this video for as long as it's been on...always puts me in an up-beat mood now matter how I feel. GREAT JOB!!!

[dolphin687]

I love how you edited your video ... really really nice out of almost every single one i've seen on here about the water show at the Bellagio...

[negba]

@justinhoman word of mouth and videos!

[justinhoman]

@negba Small dent of help or not, the casino doesn't need help by ads to make money. Word of mouth is the best advertising, not to mention that the city is sewed into everyday life like Disneyland is. It's a great video though, it's a shame they took the music away. Try uploading another when it plays Gene Kelly, its pre 1972 and the music is in Public Domain, you can use it freely. The water isn't a waste, its natural from a well that was used for a golf course, its not city greywater.

[negba]

@negba I earned nothing and my ancestors work and employment of Elwood Mead (as in Lake Mead) made Las Vegas possible. Some freedom.

[negba]

@justinhoman Indeed no one cares. The porn cards on the streets, the drunks in the morning and the waste of water. We would have no photography of any kind without freedom in the fresh air! Tourism organisations in the USA actually used my video in its original state to advertise the Bellagio! In some small way my work helped pay your wages.

[justinhoman]

@negba There is no such thing as a freedom to film events of a casino. I work in the Cage at The Bellagio. FYI... In Nevada state law, it's actually against to law to film any part of a casino's property, unless theres a sign that says that its okay to. A writ from the Operations President can allow you also, if you have a permit. Theres a sign by the Fountains on the right, bolted to a post... says NO VIDEO RECORDING ALLOWED. Go preach about your 'injustice' some more, no one cares.

[bandambu]

Ugh yeah, your heart was in the right place but don't put up the background music it really takes away from the great las Vegas atmosphere

[Drumsolomashup]

I'm sorry your original sound got blocked man.

[SpacebalI1]

You, sir, are full of shit

[negba]

yes! see my video response above. I have the original sound - this video was the highest rated in the world before it was blocked. I added the new music to show how Vegas would sound without all the music, glizt and glamour we cannot switch off as we walk in that place. The video was even used to advertise Bellagio

[64kalcon]

So your saying they blocked the music out of this video?