Animusic - A Computer Animation Video Album (Special Edition)
by Wayne Lytle
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DVD Cover Information
Director: Wayne LytleDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Published), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 75 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-04-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Animusic
Movie Reviews of Animusic - A Computer Animation Video Album (Special Edition)
Movie Review: ...a ying-yang of music and animation
Summary: 5 Stars
Having been a huge fan of instrumental music for quite some time, I found myself quite stirred by a short piece of music heard on my local PBS station very recently. Together with the eerily beautiful dream-like synthesized melody, (a tune I later established was called `Harmonic Voltage') I was captivated by the accompanying high tech computer-generated images. The way in which the catchy, electronic music was intricately and perfectly synchronized with the animated musical devices was breathtaking. Overwhelmed by the design of the very imaginative, abstract looking instruments, how they operated, moved with the music, and the intriguing brilliance of it all, I rushed to my computer to learn something of this strange new art form called `Animusic'.
I have viewed the DVD countless times in just a few days since its arrival from amazon.com. I now proudly confess to being a new Animusic addict and convert! I adore how composer/programmer/genius Wayne Lytle marries the rather nostalgic sounding MIDI music to cutting edge animation technology. I say `nostalgic' because many of the tracks on the album remind me completely of my days as a video-gamer back in the early to mid-nineties, when many of the games would be accompanied by music of a very similar sound to Lytle's compositions on this DVD. Indeed many of tunes could have been lifted straight from any number of later Super Nintendo games. I'm heartened that there is still a place for this kind of sound in the 21st Century. Lytle seems to magically breathe a totally new kind of life into it, thanks to the crisp, sharp graphics system that visualizes the music so fittingly. If like me, (a little ashamedly) you used to occasionally switch on your video games just to listen to the music tracks - this DVD will be like going to heaven.
It is also the painstaking and intelligently focused commitment to visual perfection and precision that makes this DVD album so great. Every sound, from the full on pounding synths, to the quietist high-hat is visualized in some way - nothing whatsoever is omitted. Lytle and his team go one step further, inventing instruments that despite their sometimes other-world appearance and design could almost be considered organic in light of how they seem to literally play themselves, with no human intervention. Like an optical illusion, your disbelief is suspended, and you find that your brain begins to accept the notion that these robotized contraptions ARE playing themselves and producing wonderfully beautiful electronica as a result. Jaw dropping moments abound as you delight in how even the tiniest nuances of the music are highlighted - the slap-bass notes in `Acoustic Curves' and the enchanting way in which the tiniest pipe on the organ in `Stick Figures' raises itself to reach just one more note, come to mind especially. It is exactly this kind of level of attention to detail that lies at the heart of this successful new formula.
Just to prove how broadly appealing Animusic really is, my cat loves it too and will paw the screen in an effort to play the instruments!
Finally, I just HAVE to comment that the `bass tower' on Harmonic Voltage is my absolute favorite animation of all. Lytle has brilliantly interpreted and visualized an abstract bass synth sound, cunningly using a pedal system that releases light and sound emitting radioactive grape juice. Surely the DVD is worth getting, just to find out what that's all about?!
Summary of Animusic - A Computer Animation Video Album (Special Edition)
Watching Animusic is like being mesmerized by the world's most elaborate Rube Goldberg devices: You're so astonished by their ingenuity that you can't look away. This "computer animation video album" is the brainchild of Wayne Lytle, a progressive-rock keyboardist and 1988 graduate of Cornell University's Program of Computer Graphics. Modifying techniques originally applied to the visualization of scientific data, Lytle partnered with graphic artist and 3D modeler Dave Crognale to create elaborate virtual stage sets and imaginary musical instruments that are driven via MIDI interface to virtually "play" the music that Lytle has composed for them. "The music drives the instruments," explains Lytle in his engaging DVD commentary, "and not the other way around." Using proprietary software called MIDImotion?, Lytle and Crognale have invented self-playing musical instruments that exist in a magical realm of musical and mathematical precision, perfectly synchronized to the kind of fully-synthesized prog-rock that Lytle obviously enjoys (and if you're a fan of Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman, you will, too). It's the kind of audiovisual bombast that appeals to some more than others (and there's something oddly impersonal about removing humans from the performance of music), but Animusic is so intricately clever that anyone can be captivated by the meticulous novelty of these beautifully engineered musical marvels.Take, for example, the most popular track, "Pipe Dream," in which thousands of animated balls take on a life of their own, popping out of an intricate system of pipes and barrels and bouncing, with percussive precision, onto all varieties of strings, drums, xylophones, timbales, cowbells... it's just hypnotically amazing. The same holds true for all of these videos, and while the colorful 3D rendering of Animusic (first released in 2001) is no longer state-of-the-art, the underlying mechanics remain timelessly appealing. For this special edition DVD released in 2004, Lytle opens his toy-box to reveal the creative process of Animusic from conceptual drawings to final 3D rendering. There's also a "solo-cam" function allowing viewers to switch angular focus from one instrument to another, along with animated set-construction demonstrations to show how everything fits together in the realm of Animusic. The 5.1-channel surround mix makes Animusic a perfect demonstration disc for high-end video systems (this is nothing if not a geek's delight), and Lytle's first animation (from 1996) is included along with a sneak-peek at Animusic 2, the follow-up DVD released in 2005. --Jeff Shannon
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