Herbie Hancock: Possibilities

[bennychico11]

Anyone have HDNet and happen to catch this last night on TV? I wasn't aware of the DVD that was out following the making of his "Possibilities" CD.
I've always been a big fan of Herbie and even had the pleasure of meeting him once. This documentary was just amazing though. Especially considering the cast he had with him. John Mayer, Santana, Annie Lennox, Wayne Shorter, Sting, Damien Rice, Trey Anastasio, Brian Eno, etc.

It was cool seeing the different studios they were in and I caught myself watching the choices of gear they used more than anything
I wanted to smack Christina Aguilera though. I just got the impression from her that she'd rather not be there and was more concerned about what her hair looked like than what a jazz legend was telling her. Do you realize this guy has more talent and more experience than you have or will ever have in your little pinky!? Pay attention!

The whole thing was shot really nice too. I liked a lot of the cut scenes interspersed with jazz under them...and the whole scene with Trey Anastasio explaining how he'd like the jam recording to go down and they used four panels on screen to explain all the different elements he'd like to incorporate. The post production audio needed work though. I kept getting annoyed when they would jump back and forth from finished CD audio to in studio audio...even during the same verse. And all the interview bites seemed to come through the right channel only, which got really annoying. Either someone carted the split audio broadcast tapes wrong or they forgot to pan the camera/shotgun mic down the middle.

All in all, great documentary though. And now I go off to buy both the CD and DVD.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The post production audio needed work though.

Heh heh; spoken like a true post engineer.

I kept getting annoyed when they would jump back and forth from finished CD audio to in studio audio...even during the same verse.

That sounds either a)sloppy, b)a poor attempt at "artistic license", or c)an atempt to cover problems with or missing sections in the in-studio audio. Personally I'd think that "c" is just a type of "a". Not having seen the video myself, I can't do any more than speculate and querey; was there at least any rhyme or reason to the audio changes? Did they correspond to to some change in the visuals or something?

And all the interview bites seemed to come through the right channel only, which got really annoying. Either someone carted the split audio broadcast tapes wrong or they forgot to pan the camera/shotgun mic down the middle.

Were the interviewees at least on the right side of the screen (in one of those standard oblique view setups with the supposed "interviewer" off camera to the left-rear? That may have been a (perhaps misguided) attempt at "natural stereo". If not, then that all just sounds just plain amazingly sloppy.

G.

 

[bennychico11]

Heh heh; spoken like a true post engineer.

was there at least any rhyme or reason to the audio changes? Did they correspond to to some change in the visuals or something?

some of the times I think they did it because the people singing would stop and say something like "sorry, I messed up. let's do that section again." I can kind of understand that. But it still seemed weird because it wasn't right at that moment they switched to the camera audio. It was like they pulled from CD for the first 16 bars, then on the bridge they switched to camera audio for 5 bars until they stopped. I don't know, it was just something that really stood out. I would have preferred rough audio throughout though. Would have made it much more behind-the-scenes-ish.

Were the interviewees at least on the right side of the screen (in one of those standard oblique view setups with the supposed "interviewer" off camera to the left-rear? That may have been a (perhaps misguided) attempt at "natural stereo". If not, then that all just sounds just plain amazingly sloppy.

actually now that I think about it, I think most of the actual interviews were coming out of both speakers (although I'm not 100% on that). It was mainly the sections where they were in the control room talking about a piece or in the studio rehearsing something that all the audio was coming out of the right channel. It wasn't until they dubbed over the CD audio that it kicked in both channels. I first thought it was something up with my cable company and then I kept running back and forth between my speaker towers to see if maybe it was a problem with my receiver's connections.
I guess I'll check to see if it's on the DVD when I get it. That'll solve it

 

[Robert D]

I've always been a big fan of Herbie and even had the pleasure of meeting him once.

You probably found him, as I did, to be a real nice, down to earth guy, devoid of that ego trip aura that surrounds many stars of his calibre.

 

[bennychico11]

You probably found him, as I did, to be a real nice, down to earth guy, devoid of that ego trip aura that surrounds many stars of his calibre.

exactly!
The guy was so cool. It was during at his Directions in Music concert with Michael Brecker. I'm also a huge fan of Brecker...probably more so than Herbie just because I play saxophone as well (although Herbie's Maiden Voyage CD is what got me into jazz). When I went down to meet Brecker after the concert he acted like it was too much effort to take a picture with me and didn't even smile in the pic. Then when me and my friend went over to Herbie he was so laid back and said "You guys need a pic?" and threw this arms around our shoulders and started joking around with us.
And he seemed exactly that way in the documentary too.

 

[Bulls Hit]

Yeah we saw Herbie live the other night. Seemed like a real nice laid back kind of guy, very relaxed, joked around. Big plus for me was seeing Vinnie Coliuta on drums. Now that guy can play. Even the two flubs I noticed sounded cool