90% of it is mimed!

It looks SO fake, especially if you're a musician yourself and can tell than the effort exerted on film is a much inferior second to what it would have REALLY been like, live, at the original concert.

The music is great, if you burn the soundtrack to a CD...

But the film, except for some of Prince's lovely pirouettes, is a musical FRAUD.

mrdespues said:

Really? I always loved the preformance of "It's gonna be a beautiful night". One of the best performances ever imo.

Don't think is mimed just mixed and altered

Dewrede said:

It is definitely mimed. According to "The Vault" they wanted to film a live show, but when they watched the footage back it was too dark. Rather than re-light and re-record the whole thing, they took the audio recording and then re-played the concert at Paisley Park, miming to the audio track.

To be fair, until I read about this a couple of years ago, I'd never noticed. Now it stands out a mile, but I still enjoy the film as a good performance - albeit half a performance

I noticed that sometimes the vocals weren't synchronous with the sound
but i never knew it's because it was mimed
I feel cheated !
[Edited 2/9/05 1:55am]

All the concert movies are like that though. Look at Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" movie, that was done the same way and yet it got rave reviews for it too

They shouldn't pretend it's live , though , that's just cheating ,
no better than lipsynching at a concert , just the other way around
[Edited 2/9/05 2:47am]

Honestly,I don't even care if this movie is lip-synced or not,it's still a spectacular concert film.

it was sold as a movie

It's a concert movie. The marketing of the VHS labeled it "live".

Actually better this way.

Just enjoy the greatest show on earth.

Yup - should just be enjoyed. People should also take into account that virtually any movie that is released does not use the original soundtrack. Most film's dialogue is re-recorded due to noisy sets etc. Should we feel cheated about that?

I don't think you can say that one of the greatest concert movies ever made sucks because of the way the sound was recorded. It may be fairer if you knew that Prince couldn't pull off the music live, but we know he can, so its a moot point really.

Nasalhair said:

-----
That just it. You only noticed because you read about it. I did not notice this until I read about it either and when I watched the movie again I just realized what a good job he did on it. It made me enjoy the film that much more.

mrdespues said:

still won't vote for you pal!

Just be glad they released it in some form, it was a small tour that only went to mainland Europe - the folks that saw it were lucky as hell.

I enjoy it. It doesn't bother me, since its a movie.

I noticed it the first time I saw the movie in the theatre back in 1988 ...
Especially during Hot Thing and It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night it’s very obvious

And indeed ... I can’t watch this fake-concert ...
But I love to listen to Sabotage’s new cd release, because the speed is correct opposed to Moonraker’s Wonderboy which is 5% too fast.

So, my advice : buy Sabotage’s Sign O’ The Times Live and enjoy the audio ... you can make up the picture in your mind

The only thing that remains enoying is the incompleteness of the recording

Nothing w/ that rendition of Forever In My Life/It could possibly suck

some of you guys are too picky


Yes,parts of the show were obviously "re-created" on the Paisley Park soundstage,but this isn't a Milli Vanilli situation! You're still hearing REAL MUSIC created by Prince and his band.Most concert films always include alot of overdubbing anyway.

dnaplaya said:

Actually, that's not quite the case with "Stop Making Sense". For that movie, they filmed 3 or 4 concerts, and would sometimes either edit together performances, or they would dub the audio from a song from one concert onto the visuals of that song from another concert. But, as opposed to "Sign o' the Times", they did not film anything on a soundstage; all the footage was from the actual concerts .

But even with the fakery, I still love "Sign O the Times".. Just got my DVD from up North, and I've been cranking it up !

CalhounSq said:

exactly
and this guy wants to be a mod

I need to see this again!

jjhunsecker said:

mrdespues said:

I think your post was mimed. And you did a piss poor job at it too! This post is a FRAUD!

CalhounSq said:

i love that rendition, but it is mimed.

i used to love the movie, and always knew it was mimed, but over the years it's just more and more obvious to me and disappoints me.



.
[Edited 2/9/05 17:03pm]

muirdo said:

whatever...

i'm just more of a musical purist than you lot i guess. i'm the one who suffers from it, not you...

i have no problem any other prince movie, because they are MOVIES, but it says on the box that it is supposed to be LIVE for SOTT...so that shits me.

How could you be disappointed? If you've seen Prince's other movies and enjoyed them (while sober) it isn't like bad acting and horribly staged musical is foreign to you.

I admit I liked some of SOTT musical numbers albeit staged. I could have done without the little tit tat between Cat and that other guy and some of the other "acting" scenes that made me think I was watching Graffiti Bridge.

But I see your point. I think the best live concert I have of Prince is the one he shot in Europe, I forgot where he was, but it was during the LoveSexy period. Now that was the bomb.

LQ

LadyQ said:

yeah, i can enjoy the movie as a mimed piece a la one of his ACTUAL movies like GB, UTCM or PR which don't bear the tag "live" on them. that's all that pisses me off...the fact that he marketed it as LIVE concert footage when it is glaringly obvious that it's not.

the reason i started this thread is that i recently had a friend over and he at first thought it was impressive until he started to realise, without me telling him, that it was pretty much ALL mimed.

his opinion of Prince went downhill because of it, and his opinion was already that "Prince holds back too much". And I think the SOTT movie is the classic example of that by using miming. Miming is the ULTIMATE holding back. I mean, he has so much great footage of concerts where he is NOT miming. why not use that? just comes off as cheap, if you ask me.

no doubt i'll watch it again, but from now on i treat it like a music video rather than a live concert.


.
[Edited 2/9/05 17:51pm]

mrdespues said:

I think the "live" tag you got was a mistake of the distributor. The rights to put together and distribute the CD are down by outside companies and many boneheads there have no idea what they're doing and I think they saw a guitar on the front and just stuck a Live thing on it. I remember when SOTT came out in the 80s and it was always marketed as a concert movie, but this is when it was playing at the theaters.

Perhaps that'll make you feel better that it was somebody's mistake. If you really feel strongly about it, you can make a formal complaint and demand they take off the Live label.

As far as your friend, how can he feel Prince is holding back from a piece that was recorded in 1987? Prince was still developing as an artist back then. Despite him being in the industry some 10 years, most of all his albums had been experimentations and explorations. I thought the Purple Rain live concert was pretty good and if you can get ahold of that Live Lovesexy concert, you won't be disappointed. I've seen Prince in concert Live twice and I enjoyed his performance both times and that was the 1999 Tour and Purple Rain Tour and I can't say this boy was holding back in any way.

Anyway, there it is.

LQ

LadyQ said:[quote]

mrdespues said:

Yeah, it is no way MY opinion that Prince holds back, just my friends', you understand. Except for some times where I do think he's held back, like some of the ONA tour, the Rave DVD and on some other brief occasions, and admittedly, you can't be totally on point EVERY night anyway.

I have an original of the PR tour film on video in bad quality, but it kicks arse in comparison to the "live" footage of SOTT tour. If THAT could be transfered to DVD in pristine quality, I think many fans would feel the same, and SOTT would be considered inferior...almost GB-like.

I have been wanting Lovesexy Live 1 & 2 for years. I have never seen it and don't like to buy things off the net. I have heard it is his true BEST for a concert video...and to be honest I like the Lovesexy music a little mo' better than some of the SOTT stuff anyway. I do have a boot CD of the concert on CD, and I can tell it blows away the Rotterdam SOTT show.



.
[Edited 2/9/05 18:37pm]

Nasalhair said:

It's a rock movie. The Purple Rain film is the same thing. It's still Prince. If u want a real concert film, not a rock movie, get Prince And The Revolution Live, Lovesexy Live, The Undertaker, Rave Un2 The Year 2000 DVD and Prince Live At The Aladdin Las Vegas DVD!