EXPLORE THE WEST (With A Cup Of Coffee)

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'WESTERN LIGHT'
featuring music from Windham Hill artists
1984
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Remember when you were 5 years old and you were the toughest, fastest-shootin' lawman in the Old West? The large family dog was your faithful steed, and the Indian warrior hiding in them thar rocks was really just your kid brother ducking behind your dad's favorite TV chair. Face it, there is a cherished residue from those wonderful years tucked into a pocket of your heart, and you still carry it around and examine it from time to time. Hey, that's OK -- not OK Corral, but OK.
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Well, guess what! You can still explore The West from the comfort of your own living room! It is the first-class photography that makes Windham Hill's 'WESTERN LIGHT' a stellar video travelogue. Myriad magical Western places are explored by the sympathetic camera, including Monument Valley on the Utah / Airheadzona border (made famous in John Ford's Westerns) and Bodie, the California State Historic Park, which is probably the best preserved Nineteenth Century ghost town in America.
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The concept & cinematography style were obviously "borrowed" from the masterpiece film KOYAANISQATSI, which had been released just a year earlier in 1983.
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For those of you who are interested in the technical aspects of such things: Kodak 7291 and 7294 film stock was used and transferred to video tape for editing. The final 1" videotape edited master and the 1" 1610 PCM digital audio source were then transferred to VHS and Beta stereo Hi-fi videocassettes. Three basic 16mm cameras were used. The ground shots (at 30 frames per second) were done with a high speed Arriflex 16SR, the aerial footage was shot with an Eclair from a fixed wing mount and a Bolex was used for the time lapse photography. Three different lenses were used: a fixed 5.9, a 10-150 zoom and a 12-240 zoom. Various filters were used throughout including a coral-3, a fog filter and a polarizing filter. I don't know what most of that means, but it sounds as impressive as the results look!
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At a time when we have grown accustomed to sound-bites and jump-cuts, here the camera rebels by lovingly and leisurely caressing the Western landscape, giving the viewer ample time to experience its nuance. The slightly "new age" soundtrack is made up of instrumental pieces from a variety of Windham Hill artists. What on paper would seem to be a very odd marriage indeed, turns out to be a surprisingly perfect tandem. Many's the night I've come home from work and unwound by viewing this extraordinarily beautiful production. At 55 minutes running time, this is perhaps the one DVD in my collection which has been played more than any other. Highly recommended! This is the next best thing to being in the West... on horseback.
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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