Der SPIEGEL article about upcoming Python show

[TlatoSMD]

Today's Der SPIEGEL is running a story on the upcoming Python show. Felt like translating it for this forum (while listening to ELO, Here is the news in a loop), including scanning the pictures, and sent the whole thing from OpenOffice through Acrobat to make it look genuine.

[bruttenholm]

Thanks. Great Read.
I wonder in what capacity Terry Gilliam's daughter is involved in this.

[TlatoSMD]

Seems like Holly starred as John's hostage at the beginning of today's (yesterday's?) press conference for the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl...D7RnwdbaPc

[TlatoSMD]

Hm. Comparing the official, 9-minutes highlights video from the conference ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl...xhTaaIDDPI ) to that complete version uploaded by one radio station and linked in my last post.

The camera operator for the short official video is obviously better, but the sound on both versions is not that good. Both are noisy, and the short official video obviously takes its sound from a regular camera mic recording what the PAs are putting into the theater which adds a lot of ambient reverb drowning out the original signal.

But the advantage that sound from the short official video has over the sound for the complete version is that it's more even, as the latter, while sounding clearer without the ambient reverb, obviously takes its sound from a terribly balanced front-of-house output line, which seems like it combines both disadvantages of highly directed mics (so whenever a mouth moves only an inch left and right from its mic, it's nearly inaudible) with a truly asinine compression setup where every sound being only slightly louder than a stupidly low set threshold, immediately results in the particular mic sound becoming nearly inaudible for what seems like 10 seconds at a time before slowly fading back in.

Guess I'll spend the next few hours cleaning up the sound of both. The short official version will be easier because all that can be done with it is de-noising it, whereas the complete version will require much more work after de-noising (that is by trying to raise all the gaps from the asinine compression setup to a normal level), but will hopefully result in a better version because it lacks the drowning ambient reverb the short official video has. And tomorrow, I'll try to mix both videos into one by taking the best of each.

[phildreams]

I'm going to the show tomorrow night!
Anyone else going?
Phil

[TlatoSMD]

Both a bit far and steep for me. But at least I've found out now that the last show's gonna be livecast to German UCI and Cinemaxx multiplexes on the 20th, with a simultaneous webcast by Franco-German TV channel arte. Plus, arte will also air the recording on their regular TV channel on the 30th. I've put all the info out on Facebook.

[TlatoSMD]

Phil, as you're only a few hours away from seeing the greatest show on earth which is obviously a tribute to and a compendium of all the greatest material the Pythons have done back in the 70s and early 80s that has held up the best since then, after you've seen it I'd be delighted to hear whether there's also any references to The Rutles in it, just like there was in the recent Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan 50th anniversary show. No more spoilers than that, please, because by now I know how to catch up on the event by late July, but that's the one thing I'd like to know before I'll get to see it.

I'm also wondering this because this supposed "Mister DuPont" (who's responsible for some of the music along with Eric) from one of the sneak peeks in his body language seemed and especially in his voice sounded a lot like Neil Innes to me who's now trying to hide behind a false name simply for having become all bald and fat, and because white-haired Neil as he appeared in those one or two music videos to the songs from the new Rutles album Archaeology in the 90s could well pass for the missing link between a late-70s Ron Nasty and this supposed "Mister DuPont".

[MercuryZap]

Went to a cinema screening last night.
It was an unexpected treat to see some of Terry's vintage telly animations on
the BIG screen. Enjoyed gumby flower arranging and the ever fiendish Cardinal Fang too.