ahoyhoy
Baron/Baroness of EvThreads
Posts: 62
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Post by ahoyhoy on Oct 16, 2018 14:37:42 GMT -5
I really think the fault lies with a) management and b) PR Brown, who cuts corners on everything to make an extra buck (like he needs the money, good grief). I'm just curious: why does everyone have such a beef with PR Brown? I've personally always loved the stuff he's done for Evanescence, but I can get that others don't. But this dislike for PR Brown seems to be beyond just his work.
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Post by turdyturderson on Oct 16, 2018 17:28:54 GMT -5
I really think the fault lies with a) management and b) PR Brown, who cuts corners on everything to make an extra buck (like he needs the money, good grief). I'm just curious: why does everyone have such a beef with PR Brown? I've personally always loved the stuff he's done for Evanescence, but I can get that others don't. But this dislike for PR Brown seems to be beyond just his work. To summarize: 1. He resold the ev photoshoot prints for exorbitant amounts (like $300 for tiny prints - more expensive as the prints got bigger). We get that ohotographers need to be paid. But he already made money from the band paying him for the shoot and charging those amounts are ridiculous and tacky. 2. He held a contest (that basically gets him public visibility) for which the price were said prints, and never sent the prints to the winners. They followed up on it and he claimed he already sent it and that he would resend. And once again, he never did. And the subsequent follow ups from fans got ignored. 3. We’re pretty sure he made bucks for the imperfection and hi-lo vids. Both mediocre, comsidering the caliber of vids Evanescence has released. Even SS, which was his effort, was a lot better. These newer vids were phoned in. As other people have said, we’ve seen better vids made by high schoolers. 4. The footage for the Synthesis DVD looks crappy. Some of the angles make no sense. Too few closeups of Amy, or even features of the band (same critique goes for the music vids). The band has been pushed way aside in this era anyway, but add insult to injury. The cuts, zooms, etc. look highly unprofessional. 5. The DVD cover, lol. Willing to overlook the other reasons, but #2 is especially smarmy of him. Anyway, that’s from all the info on twitter and people who have dealt with the guy.
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Post by AeternusAmatorius on Oct 16, 2018 17:50:36 GMT -5
I really think the fault lies with a) management and b) PR Brown, who cuts corners on everything to make an extra buck (like he needs the money, good grief). I'm just curious: why does everyone have such a beef with PR Brown? I've personally always loved the stuff he's done for Evanescence, but I can get that others don't. But this dislike for PR Brown seems to be beyond just his work. Not to mention PR Brown's work with Coheed and Cambria. To summarize: 3. We’re pretty sure he made bucks for the imperfection and hi-lo vids. Both mediocre, comsidering the caliber of vids Evanescence has released. Even SS, which was his effort, was a lot better. These newer vids were phoned in. As other people have said, we’ve seen better vids made by high schoolers. 4. The footage for the Synthesis DVD looks crappy. Some of the angles make no sense. Too few closeups of Amy, or even features of the band (same critique goes for the music vids). The band has been pushed way aside in this era anyway, but add insult to injury. The cuts, zooms, etc. look highly unprofessional. 5. The DVD cover, lol. The band/Amy had to confirm that this is what they liked/wanted for the videos and artwork of Synthesis Live - so part of that blame needs to go on Amy/the band for giving the "ok".
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Post by mydnyghtamethyst on Oct 16, 2018 19:25:40 GMT -5
Sorry, I agree with Double A on this. The guy maybe kind of a sleazeball, but Amy/the band are the ones whom hired him and continued to work with him.
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Post by imnotbroken118 on Oct 16, 2018 20:34:14 GMT -5
Sorry, I agree with Double A on this. The guy maybe kind of a sleazeball, but Amy/the band are the ones whom hired him and continued to work with him. Although it's all speculation, my guess is that he was chosen based off the experience with the Sweet Sacrifice video and was contracted in for the entire Synthesis era. Aside from the actual album photoshoot, everything he's done has been fairly lackluster compared to what we're used to from the band, and if he was contracted for the era, the band would be at his mercy or risk backlash if he was made to redo things.
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ns
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Posts: 23
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Post by ns on Oct 16, 2018 22:15:43 GMT -5
First things first - Amy, the band, and the orchestra nailed this performance. The audio mix is also incredible considering the massive soundstage in a live setting.
But in terms of the video production, I agree with the disappointment. It seems to me that many of the strange cuts and shots were cover-ups necessitated by a lack of useable coverage from any of the other cameras. Many of the roaming shoulder cameras had a hard time focusing, or keeping focus, and the main crane camera seems to have suffered from some bad horizontal banding, probably due to an improper setup with the capture device that particular camera was fed into. You can see the stripes anytime shots from this camera are used. I also don't think the crew was as knowledgeable as they could have been with where and when they should be framing their coverage based on the score.
I also think they filmed some of the performances twice, once during rehearsal and once during the show. Hi-Lo was during rehearsal for sure as it's the same performance as the 360 video which shows an empty venue in the background. You can tell by Amy's quirky facial expressions during this performance. Imperfection was also mostly a rehearsal recording I think, as it is actually quite polished and in-focus compared to the rest. Not a bad idea, of course. Two run throughs will yield better results than one.
Speaking of Hi-Lo, the production team must have known Dave would be doing the solo, they should have covered him with at least two cameras and found some good angles of this important part of the song. As it is, they cropped in on him awkwardly from afar, and one of the shots isn't even in sync as his hand movements don't match the pauses in the solo.
Wide shot at 42:16 is completely out of focus, like not even close.
And whatever is going on in the edit at 48:45 is just weird.
There are also some filming / editing gems in here though too:
+ Any time the drum cam is on Will
+ The last twenty seconds of Lacrymosa
+ The quick bow slide at 14:16 "sliding" the edit into the climax of End of the Dream
+ The slight camera push and lighting increase on Amy at 18:02 in MHIB reinforcing the crescendo into the bridge
+ The crowd cheering behind Amy at the end of BMTL
+ Amy's hair toss and step forward at 40:50 in Hi-Lo
+ The dutch angle and cut to the two Wills at 43:13 in Hi-Lo
+ Susie's smile at 46:53 while "throwing" the cue in Lost in Paradise Overall, beyond grateful to have a professional recording of a concert in this era.
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Post by arlieimperfection on Oct 17, 2018 0:36:05 GMT -5
Sorry, I agree with Double A on this. The guy maybe kind of a sleazeball, but Amy/the band are the ones whom hired him and continued to work with him. Although it's all speculation, my guess is that he was chosen based off the experience with the Sweet Sacrifice video and was contracted in for the entire Synthesis era. Aside from the actual album photoshoot, everything he's done has been fairly lackluster compared to what we're used to from the band, and if he was contracted for the era, the band would be at his mercy or risk backlash if he was made to redo things. If he was contracted, it would make sense that he continued to stick around.
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ahoyhoy
Baron/Baroness of EvThreads
Posts: 62
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Post by ahoyhoy on Oct 17, 2018 3:15:46 GMT -5
I'm just curious: why does everyone have such a beef with PR Brown? I've personally always loved the stuff he's done for Evanescence, but I can get that others don't. But this dislike for PR Brown seems to be beyond just his work. Not to mention PR Brown's work with Coheed and Cambria. To summarize: 3. We’re pretty sure he made bucks for the imperfection and hi-lo vids. Both mediocre, comsidering the caliber of vids Evanescence has released. Even SS, which was his effort, was a lot better. These newer vids were phoned in. As other people have said, we’ve seen better vids made by high schoolers. 4. The footage for the Synthesis DVD looks crappy. Some of the angles make no sense. Too few closeups of Amy, or even features of the band (same critique goes for the music vids). The band has been pushed way aside in this era anyway, but add insult to injury. The cuts, zooms, etc. look highly unprofessional. 5. The DVD cover, lol. The band/Amy had to confirm that this is what they liked/wanted for the videos and artwork of Synthesis Live - so part of that blame needs to go on Amy/the band for giving the "ok". Yeah, I remember Amy's excitement over the Imperfection video, so that was definitely her vision. Don't know about Hi-Lo, but maybe it was just intended as a tour video for the London tour and they didn't have time/budget to do anything more substantial. They would have also signed off on Synthesis Live - final edit and artwork, too - so they were happy with that, it seems. I personally haven't found an issue with the Synthesis Live recording, beyond the fact that it's not been made available on Australian iTunes. Wow, that is a lot of stuff. That #2 point that turdyturderson mentions is indeed beyond scummy. Very disappointing. I don't suppose there's any hope for those affected fans to get their photos? You'd think if he legitimately sent them the second time, he'd have been smart enough to include tracking on them, given how expensive they are.
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TDS
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Posts: 319
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Post by TDS on Oct 17, 2018 17:06:50 GMT -5
Maybe PR Brown is the cheapest they could afford and they decided to roll with someone they already knew. I didn't buy the DVD but it's sad that you guys are disappointed. Anyway, even ABH was kind of crappy...and that was made with the Wind-Up money.
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Psypher
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Gender: Male
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Post by Psypher on Oct 17, 2018 17:21:04 GMT -5
I wasn't a huge fan of the ABH editing, but I'll always love that DVD because of all the behind the scenes content/bloopers. I'm a little sad there was hardly any for this release...we saw they filmed a bunch of clips for the summer tour, so it could have easily been done I'm super grateful for all the short social media videos, but it's not the same.
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nz
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Posts: 202
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Post by nz on Oct 18, 2018 17:08:33 GMT -5
Does anyone know how you could have gotten a signed booklet with the synthesis DVD?
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Post by turdyturderson on Oct 18, 2018 20:55:47 GMT -5
Does anyone know how you could have gotten a signed booklet with the synthesis DVD? Amy signed a limited few for an online retailer. Her amazing PR team announced it nowhere. Strangely, she also kept silent about it. But the retailer is legit so the siggies are legit. Some rabid (in a good way) fans got wind of it and I’m happy they all got a copy. But some of it got into the hands of resellers who are either also rabid fans or just rabid resellers, which is a damn shame. They’ve turned around and sold an originally $17 dvd for upto $130 or something ridiculous. And there you go.
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Post by The_Sacrificed on Oct 18, 2018 21:10:16 GMT -5
Does anyone know how you could have gotten a signed booklet with the synthesis DVD? Amy signed a limited few for an online retailer. Her amazing PR team announced it nowhere. Strangely, she also kept silent about it. But the retailer is legit so the siggies are legit. Some rabid (in a good way) fans got wind of it and I’m happy they all got a copy. But some of it got into the hands of resellers who are either also rabid fans or just rabid resellers, which is a damn shame. They’ve turned around and sold an originally $17 dvd for upto $130 or something ridiculous. And there you go. Yep, I bought one for 44 bucks on Ebay. It sucks but I really wanted one and wish people would have shared the link on other social media when they had found it. So weird it wasn't announced anywhere.
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nz
Baron/Baroness of EvThreads
Posts: 202
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Post by nz on Oct 19, 2018 16:31:26 GMT -5
Amy signed a limited few for an online retailer. Her amazing PR team announced it nowhere. Strangely, she also kept silent about it. But the retailer is legit so the siggies are legit. Some rabid (in a good way) fans got wind of it and I’m happy they all got a copy. But some of it got into the hands of resellers who are either also rabid fans or just rabid resellers, which is a damn shame. They’ve turned around and sold an originally $17 dvd for upto $130 or something ridiculous. And there you go. Yep, I bought one for 44 bucks on Ebay. It sucks but I really wanted one and wish people would have shared the link on other social media when they had found it. So weird it wasn't announced anywhere. Thank you guys for the information. It's very sad to know. I ordered mine on amazon. Speaking of which, the more expensive set on amazon is a Blu-Ray, even though it doesn't state that clearly anywhere. I love the band and Amy, but I have to be honest and say the editing did not meet my expectations. I want to see my favourite band really use their potential to its fullest, but some better decisions have to be made.
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shaun
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Post by shaun on Oct 24, 2018 8:32:49 GMT -5
Just to share my thoughts on the DVD: First off - I got the the DVD/CD edition from HMV in the UK - was very surprised it came in the old style CD plastic jewel case rather than the cardboard digi pack things (see photograph). The strongest point of the DVD/blu ray itself is the sound mixing, it really is phenomenal, its crystal clear and very dynamic. The band and the orchestra were on point, and Amy was having a good vocal day, she blew me away. I think myself (and im sure most of you on here) are so used to watching amateur youtube footage of Amy live that we forget how incredible her voice really is. She really blew me away at points. As for the footage itself and the editing - yeah, its a bit amateurish at times, you can even see other camermen in some shots which is a big no no. But, Amy and the band dont have a record label anymore so they really are working on a budget these days so i can forgive some of the creative choices being made in terms of music videos and artwork. 20181024_140446
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