CageMatch 9-2-06

This week's CageMatch featured Cranpa Hester defending their title against a very interesting quartet of hairless men who went by the name of BALD. I was pretty proud of this week's video. My song choices were appropriate, my audio edits were fairly seamless, and the team graphic for Bald was awesome. Based on comments I received, most people loved the clock bit the best, which is odd, since I didn't put nearly the effort I had originally planned into that segment. I'm a big fan of the menacing "sunrise of Tommy's head" sequence, which took about two hours to do in Photoshop and Flash.

The audio used for the CageMatch is usually picked to be a hidden joke or reference. Maybe next week I'll do a quiz to see if anybody can recognize what I used. This week, I'll just list the songs.

1. The first sound, which occurs during the initial flash of the DSI logo, usually has some obscure reference to the rest of the video. For instance, last week had the sound of a kiss, referencing the fact that NY152 was a romance-based improv style. This week, it's the sound of a squeaky balloon, a vague reference to baldness.
2. The spooky music that comes during the announcement of bad news in CageMatch is my old failsafe, Bela Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra. I'm not a huge classical fan, but I love me some somber Bartok.
3. As we move into the review of Cranpa Hester's victory, the music needed to change to something upbeat to get the taste of Biff out of our mouths, so I chose The Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime, since Cranpa Hester uses time as one of their elements in the Close Quarters form.
4. As Tommy's evil gaze overshadows the crew from Cranpa, the music switches to Night On Bald Mountain. Heh. That amused me. It's actually a remixed version of the piece that I put together myself, and was pretty proud of. It jumps over the quiet parts of the piece to get to the dramatic parts and keep the energy of the video going. I was particularly pleased with the way it ends, leaping right into the quick string hits as the informational screens pop up. Worked perfectly!

Tune in next week for the CageMatch music identification quiz!