Nice video Danny. The music felt a bit like an Irish funeral though!!
Is it one of Phil Clark's? I was riding with him a few weeks ago at an Indian rally near Dartford. Ron
email (option): ronpier@talk21.com
Thanks Ron and Ian. Yes, that is Phil Clarke's bike. "Good video but funereal/dire music?" I expected almost everyone to hate my choice. Lucky I didn't stick with my original selection which was Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante defunte".
I like that music a lot. But different strokes, etc. Thanks for the feedback, anyway.
email (option): dannydefazio@sumpmagazine.com
Ok, I've just found this video on you-tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=_mzDKNqWlF0&NR=1
Very similar to what you've done but in colour and the music is up beat. Yours could be better than this as you have a good setting
email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk
Hi Horror, thanks for the feedback - and I'm not in the least offended. I expected most people wouldn't like the treatment I gave the bike, but I'm very happy with it. The video is quite divisive. I was showing it this morning to a couple of people, including Phil Clarke whi owns the Triumph, and they love it.
Couple of points, however. Turning it black and white had nothing to do with trying to make the bike look old. It's well known that the world was filled with colour back in the Edwardian era.
I gave it the black and white treatment because colour can actually be very distracting. The eye tends to go to areas of high colour tone, and shape and form gets lost. I think black and white is just classier, like old film noir movies and Ansell Adams pictures.
And old war movies too, come to that. I hate it when old films are colourised, no matter how good the colourising is. They day they invent "black and white glasses", I'm buying a pair.
I don't agree that the lack of colour masks the metal finish. And remember, the video is a "teaser" which will link to the feature I'm working on regarding the Model H, and to Phil Clarke's site. Also, black and white was perfectly good for Triumph (et al) when these bikes were in the catalogues, albeit often with a colour cover - which was why I left the colour in the last shot. I just wanted minimal colour, but recognised that a little colour might work out okay.
The brief motion clip at the end with modern cars was put in simply to reveal the sound of the engine (and to show the bike in the modern world as a survivor), but I didn't have enough suitable footage to show more.
As for the music, I LOVE it. I think it's wonderful and classy, and I don't hear it as depressing or wailing. But it is a little melancholy and introspective, which isn't the same thing.
I did check out the video link you provided, and can obviously see the similarities. But I don't like the music there at all, and the camera is very jerky - and the video is poorly "timed". But it's a credible and "honest" attempt, and I'm sure most people will prefer that treatment. But I don't.
Composers such as Harold Budd (who wrote the piece on my video) are an acquired taste. You can, of course, turn the music down and play something of your choice. That works too.
I considered a lot of other music, but I didn't want something "obvious". I wanted something different. And I wanted something that didn't obviously belong to any specific era.
Anyway, thanks for taking the trouble to give me some feedback. Much appreciated.
email (option): dannydefazio@sumpmagazine.com
Personally I liked the visual presentation..with the black and white. I agree with Danny that colour can definitely distract you from the essentials of a design. Also, it isn't a technical documentary designed to impart lots of information..rather it is intended to give an overall impression of the machine.
I'm with Horror on the music though..I find it particularly harsh and grating...and that's not because I only like Rock music or such..it's that particular rendition.
They should burn that Harp and send her round the back of the cookhouse with a platoon of DRs for the afternoon..
...Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
I read the comments before I watched the film. I was expecting June Tabor singing 'Green Fields of France' or something with a WW1 theme.
I rather like melancholic and challenging but I was perhaps listening too hard trying to hear an obvious link between the music and the machine.
To be honest though, when it comes to motorcycles, I'd always rather hear the engine than background music.
I liked the font (but it's far too modern to have been written by the original rider... )
High definition b/w is fine by me and I remain in awe of the detail that can be brought up from hundred year old negatives. Unlike Horror, after years of staring at images of the BEF, I 'see' colours without even noticing it anymore.
Hi Danny, Yes some B&W picture can look stylish, of light and shade in a passage of trees or something, but although I have an "O" level in art, the subtleties of B&W escape me. I think I'm mentally scarred from watching B&W TV as a kid..! Since our first colour TV I've never thought "I'd love to see that in B&W"
If you can tell the difference between copper and brass, nickel and chrome, and any other type of plating from a B&W picture, you're a better man than me
But as you say, this video is a teaser for a link to the bike, so I'm sure people can see it in it's full glory there
email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk
Hi Horror, I must be a better man than you, then, because when I see a picture of an exhaust system on Ian Wright's bike, even in B&W I can tell instantly that it's stainless steel and not mild steel, nickel plate, silver or chrome - or any other metal.
More seriously, as I said, colour can be a distraction. Grass often looks garish and needs to be toned down. Reds and orange and yellow "comes forward". Other colours recede. B&W tends to "calm" the eye and allows us to see (or at least notice) detail that we might otherwise miss.
Ultimately, it's just subjective. But it's interesting to hear an argument in favour of colour on a website where the predominant hue is olive drab.
As a footnote, I turned colour images into B&W, which isn't as effective as actually taking the photo in black and white. Converting colour to B&W loses detail.
You might try Googling O Winston Link and looking at his railway pictures. I've got a book on those. You'll see immediately how colour is overrated.
email (option): dannydefazio@sumpmagazine.com
Slightly off topic, but I couldn't help responding to the O. Winston Link comment. He was indeed the creator of some fantastic photographs, and if you read about the work involved in setting up these shoots, using the equipment of the day, they are even more fantastic. The photo at the "drive-in" is a great example. The connection here is that his son, W. Conway Link, is a professor, a motorcyclist, and for many years ran a club devoted to old German bikes called "DMR". He facilitated his father inscribing one his books to me.
email (option): siradrad@verizon.net
Damon, thanks for that. That's new and interesting information.
Link, I think, worked mostly (or always) at night so that he could control the light. I saw a documentary on him about 10 years ago.
That petrol pump image is certainly one of the most memorable. But there are so many. The one I like best is always the next one I see (same with women, incidentally).
email (option): dannydefazio@sumpmagazine.com