Wizards of Winter

[Working on Corky St. Clair's Christmas Pageant reahearsal at the college tonight. Two hours in and I've played one song, three times, so far. This could be a long night.]

One of the services that the company for which I work provides is concert lighting. And I guess it's for that reason that one of our vendors forwarded the following (5mb .wmv format) video to my boss.

http://www.lookatentertainment.com/v/v-1810.htm

Now I know that everyblogger else has already linked to this video but I don't care, because it's that freakin' cool. Debate online is over whether it's a real video of a real display (programmed by somebody with too much free time and a serious hard-on for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra) or a faked stop-motion sequence with the soundtrack added.

I have to admit, I have my doubts about it's veracity. The soundtrack was obviously added in post-production. Also, the lack of any actual movement apart from the lights flashing on and off does lend the video some qualities of a George Pal Puppetoon. Something as simple as a car driving by or a person walking down the street would have gone a long way to making things more believable.

But on the other hand, there's something about this DIY-meets-Vegas display that appeals to the geeky board-op inside me. This is the sort of thing that guys like me look at and, whether it's faked or not, we immediately begin compiling a bill of materials, writing linked cues, and debating if we need to use SMPTE to coordinate the music and lights.

I'm sure the Snopes-dogg will inevitably weigh in and settle things, but it doesn't really matter in the long run. As a friend of a friend of my sister once said, "if it ain't true, it oughta be."