Annoyed by the lack of Techno (as in the genre of dance, not the whole genre) in movies, Jeff decided to choose a movie to redo the soundtrack to. Passing over an episode of the Twilight Zone (about the man at the bank who likes to read), War Of The Worlds and 2001 he chose Metropolis for the basic reason that is was easier.
He also edited down the '2 and a half hour long' film to an hour. It was obvious while watching that Jeff sourced footage from the annoyingly lengthened version where many sections of the film are slowed down. Watching these parts were extreamly frustrating.
Without saying much more, I can say it's the least bored I've been while watching Metropolis. Although amazing for it's time, and still very telling today, it is still a black and white, terrible quality, silent film. Jeff has made a very good attempt at writing music to suit the action on the screen and most of the time is fit very well, something impossible to even pretend to say about the 80's soundtrack.
The original idea of the film according to Jeff was that it was to be played at a dance party, and the re-editing certainly indicated this feel, with the usual dance-party-video random scenes, double images. In fact, many people have used video 'samples' from Metropolis in video mixing at dance parties so it was already a good blend.
I enjoyed the film and music over all, although it had definitely been buchered, with scenes I remembered having been cut out, but the basic story remained intact. I'm not sure if people who wern't fans of Jeff's music would have enjoyed it...
Most interesting of all was the Question and Answer with Mr Jeff Mills after the showing. Many questions were thrown around about the film itself: why he did it, other choices.
He originally broke the film into 8 sections, wrote music for those 8 sections, wrote inbetween parts and then mixed the film to the music.
His new project, 'Time Machine' is out in 3 weeks and is his musical interpretation of HG Wells' 'Time Machine'. He wrote a short story around the time in the book when the 'hero' steps from the Time Machine. The listener is meant to imagine the time periods the hero is in.
The question of Napster came up and after much umming and blahing Jeff eventually said that he and Axis Records were completely against it. He said they'd never thought people would be sharing their music and thought maybe they would put warnings on his records such as 'not to be lent or traded or shared'. He admitted that Napster and other sharing systems would be an excellent way for new bands to get heard, but his record label depended on every sale in order to make a new record, and anything that potentially might take away from that he didn't like. I got the distinct feeling from the crowd that almost nobody agreed with him.
I wanted to ask about mixes. About how that there was no way anyone over here could hear his live mixes without Napster (or seeing him when he is over here obviously). Although he has released a live mix on CD that is still available, it's very old and his skills have improved greatly since then... but I didn't.
He said in his speech against Napster that his label only had limited release and limited reach. A fan asked why he wouldn't want Napster to improve this reach? Jeff said he and most other record labels have strategic plans about releasing music, about proving his fans with samples of his albums. When someone else starts 'promoting' him against those plans it throws everything out.
The last question was 'What do you think of Melbourne?'. JM indicted that it was 'very nice'.
The movie goes to Germany for a showing in Berlin next month.