In a lot of video dance clubs today, what you`ll see on the big screens may not be music videos.
Instead, it may be a black-and-white newsreel of couples doing the Charleston, tinted with computer colors and dotted with floating triangles. Or a ride through computer space. Or footage of the ill-fated Skylab. Or Fred and Barney pushing Winston cigarettes and Andy and Barney pushing Grape Nuts. Or a movie trailer for the 1958 classic ”Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.”
Meet ambient video, one of the latest trends emerging on the video club scene.
Ambient video consists of visual images played on television screens and monitors and synchronized to music. The images can range from snazzy computer graphics to old television commercials to black-and-white film clips enhanced electronically.
More often than not, the images have little to do with the music. Hence, ambient video has been called everything from wallpaper to eye candy.
”I don`t know who actually coined the phrase `ambient video,` but it`s been something that`s been around for some time,” said Gary L. Ziebold, president of Visions Technologies, a Chicago producer of ambient video.
Ambient video grew out of-and has since become a peripheral to-the music video scene of the early 1980s.
”When music videos started out, there weren`t a lot of them initially,” said Ziebold. ”Even today, a lot of dance clubs are playing records there`s still not video for. But the clubs had this investment in video gear, and they wanted something up on those screens to make it fun while they`re playing these records. Hence, ambient video.”
Some clubs created their own ambient video, using edited clips from rented films (picked up from the local video store) or tapes of television programs. Although the process was illegal (it infringed on copyrights), it filled the screens.
”It also opened a lot of people to an awareness of ambient video,”
added Ziebold.
Since then, many clubs in the Chicago area have dabbled in ambient video, some still using an edited mix of rented and television tapes, others turning to material produced by companies like Vision Technologies.
”In Chicago, definitely ClubLand has given ambient video a lot of exposure,” said Ziebold. ”To me, they`re probably the premier video nightclub environment.”
Besides ClubLand, some of the clubs using Vision Technologies tapes include the Snuggery outlets, F/X, Park West, Berlin, Esoteria, Exit and Neo. All the clubs use ambient video on a regular basis, mixing it in with their music videos.
”Of the 20 or 25 songs that come out each week, many don`t have video because (the groups) don`t have the budget to produce them,” said Josh Cardin, music director and veejay/deejay at F/X, 1100 N. State St. ”So we use ambient video as filler. It makes up about 30 percent of our playlist.”
Cardin will also use ambient as a video background to older music played at the club. ”I`ll use the 1950s and 1960s commercials when I go into a Motown or 1960s set,” he said. ”The people that were born in the early 1960s are kind of amazed about those because they`ve never seen black-and-white commercials before.”
Ziebold and his company are also reaching out to other potential ambient- video markets. For example, the rock-`n`-roll-flavored McDonald`s at 600 N. Clark St. uses Vision Technologies tapes to fill its video screens with 1950s and 1960s images.
Creating ambient video is a process combining film, video and computer-animation technology.
The filmed material, which for legal reasons is all in the public domain, comes from a variety of sources: The Chicago Public Library, firms that sell films and other videos using public domain films.
”I definitely look for films with dance footage,” said Ziebold, ”like some of the stuff they made during the war years. These are films that are in 16 mm. and in black and white. Or I look for holiday material for Christmas, or horror films for Halloween.”
Ziebold said he has found some interesting pieces of celluloid in the old public domain films. ”The old government films are pretty campy,” he commented.
After bits and pieces are selected from the films, these clips are mixed with computer graphics. Ziebold uses an Apple Macintosh II computer and software called Videoworks to produce the various special effects. He also rents out studio time at high-end production houses for more elaborate effects.
A tape of straight film clips may take about a week to produce, while a tape of detailed computer graphics may take several months.
”On almost all of our projects now, we try to incorporate (computer)
graphics with the public domain film,” said Ziebold. ”Because if we incorporate graphics, it`s no longer public domain. It becomes ours.”
The computer images and film clips are married on videotape. The tape is edited to a specific BPM (beats per minute) level, which allows club deejays to sync the tape to the tempo of the music.
”We use all sorts of cuts in production,” said Ziebold. ”Slow edits, dissolves or even machine-gun edits for a quick, high-energy look. We look for things that change. That`s an important factor. You don`t want anything on the screen for too long, because it will be boring.
”A lot of what you end up seeing maybe wasn`t thought out to the detail you see,” Ziebold added. ”We just went with it and it came together. What doesn`t work, we re-edit over again until it does work.”
The tapes are also given detailed directories so that the club deejays can sync a song to a very specific image.
Because of the technology involved, Ziebold considers himself more of a technician than an artist. ”You basically learn this from doing it,” he said. ”Sometimes I`ll sit down and create something that other people consider art. But I don`t look at it from that point of view. It`s just sort of a technology.”
Ziebold fell into ambient video when he worked for a firm that created tapes of music-video compilations that it sold to clubs. The firm also sold a small amount of ambient video purchased from freelancers. When the distribution firm closed its Chicago office, Ziebold decided there was a market for ambient video. He then created Vision Technologies, which currently works out of a spacious second-floor office above an antiques store on North Wells Street.
”I thought ambient would be something to do,” said Ziebold. ”It seemed a little more creative than churning out the same old music-video reels. I`ve always had an interest in art. And I love to use computers. I`m surprised at the ease in which I was able to create graphics on computers.”
Ziebold and company have so far created a library of a couple of dozen hours of ambient video.
For example, ”Chills & Thrills,” a Halloween favorite, combines classic horror film clips with computer animation. ”Holiday Images Potpourri” does the same with clips of holiday-themed movies.
”D.V.E. Potpourri 1 and 2” offers digital video effects and computer-generated graphics. ”Spaced Out!!!” includes edited footage from early Apollo missions and recent space shuttle trips.
”Vision Collage Montage 1 and 2” is a medley of images, ranging from early film stars to advanced computer graphics.
There is also a whole range of nostalgia-oriented tapes, employing everything from silent movie clips and cartoons from the 1920s to those television commercials from the 1950s and 1960s.
Vision Technologies now produces about two hours a month of new ambient video and also distributes a handful of tapes made by other firms.
With an eye on the future, the firm is looking into the home market for ambient video. ”I`ve heard that ambient is real big with the home market in Japan,” Ziebold said. ”And in the same vein, Windham Hill is putting out videotapes of music from their new age artists edited to images of mountains and streams.”
”Tapes of video fish tanks and fireplaces are also popular,” added John Michael Best, vice president of Vision Technologies. ”So I think eventually ambient will catch on with the home market. The problem is, how do you advertise it?”
