Total DVD magazine (UK), August 2003
issue (Cameron Diaz cover), page 84.
Chris Jenkins looks at the first DVD to set a world speed record - at
Butlins!
Cult UK prog rock band Marillion
has set a record for the fastest time for filming and releasing a music DVD -
63 hours and 29 minutes, as confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records. The band's show was recorded on the Friday
night of the Marillion Weekend
in Somerset in March, and the finished DVD was on sale to fanclub members on
the Sunday. So how was it done?
The weekend at the Butlins resort in Minehead was the second such event
organised for the band's fanclub.
Marillion was one of the first bands to recognise the potential of the
net for marketing its products directly to fans, so the concept of a DIY DVD
release wasn't revolutionary. The
difficult bit would be to do it all so quickly that fans could watch the gig on
Friday and spot themselves in the audience on the DVD before they left on
Sunday.
Engineer Roderick Brunton set up a recording facility in an offstage
dressing-room. Two 48-channel mixing
desks were used and the output was converted to digital audio for recording on
an Apple Macintosh G4 using Logic Platinum software. Marillion's producer Dave Meegan took care of the stereo sound
mix (a 5.1 surround mix having been proved to be impractical). Additionally, DAT and MiniDisc recorders
were used for backup.
Film crew The Boom Boom Boys
(Paul Rowlston and Jeremy Briers) used four locked-off cameras onstage, and
four with operators. The video mix was
converted live to MPEG2 format and encoded to hard disk. Apart from one failing microphone and a
problem with a bass guitar, the recording, of all the tracks from the 1995
album Afraid of
Sunlight, went without a hitch.
The data was then transferred to another Mac for authoring, using
pre-prepared menues and titles (with the names of every member of the
audience). The final master was
recorded to a digital tape and driven through the night to the manufacturing
plant in Cardiff, arriving at 7am on Saturday.
By Sunday, 3,000 DVDs were ready for collection, in time for them to go
on sale to the fans at Butlins by 4pm.
For some time, music companies have been discussing the feasibility of
shooting live gigs and delivering DVDs to the fans in a matter of days. Now that Marillion has shown it can be done,
others will follow, but it may be some time before this record is broken!
Before First
Light (Afraid of Sunlight Live 2003) is on sale from the online shop at www.marillion.com. Thanks to The Boom Boom Boys for their help.
Supplier: Racket Records
Price: 14.99
Next generation prog rockers Marillion recorded this 70-minute concert
at a fanclub event in Minehead earlier this year, and as explained in the
article above they amazingly turned around the DVD in time to sell it to fans
later that weekend. Given its
provenance, the disc quality is not at all bad; the 16:9 anamorphic picture is
sharp, if a little over-saturated, the PCM stereo sound is punchy and dynamic. The eight songs, taken from the Afraid of
Sunlight album, include Gazpacho, Beautiful, Beyond You, and King, plus there
are two bonus tracks and comprehensive credits. The Region 0 disc is in NTSC format. For true fans only, but hey - could this DIY approach be the
future of rock'n'roll? You can order a
copy for yourself from the website at www.marillion.com.
VERDICT: ˜ ˜
˜
(apparently, out of 5 stars)
Images: Full-page, H on stage, Marvelous Five in profile
