Finale?

Watch this space.

Copyright Part II

Yep, the Backwards video has been flagged as predicted. Hurrah.

Copyright Catches Up with ApoXoqA

It seems that the video known as ApoXoqA has been “blocked” on Google Video. At first I assumed it was for use of copyright music with no permission, which seemed fair enough, but according to Google, apparently it was Content IDed, which apparently means it’s the same length as or has similar parameters to existing content or something like that, and thus apparently was flagged automatically. Apparently.

That makes no sense because the soundtrack is three songs long, one of which was edited out of a 20 minute track, another of which was only the second half of a song, making the video next to impossible to flag on automatic grounds, so I can only assume that doesn’t actually apply in this case and indeed one of the copyright holders in this instance (Sony BMG, Robert Fripp, Virgin, or whoever else) sent a letter to Google. I know Fripp is very dogged in his protection of Copyright, but as this was not a commerical venture, I suspect it to be some low-level corporate copyright hound. Of course, there was no commercial aspect to ApoXoqA, indeed the very reason I left it sitting on my hard drive for so long was that it does contain copyright music, and I figured sooner or later, they’d catch up to it in their rounds. I’m not going to dispute its removal, so that video is now gone.

It’s only so long until the Backwards video catches in somebody’s trawler net too. Hell, the only reason the actual PMT episodes can exist is under fair use for parody or derivative works or whatever they call it.

In order to make ApoXoqA conform to Copyright law, I’d have to remove the soundtrack, and it would make even less sense, so then I’d have to insert captions telling people to play the soundtrack manually themselves, which they would first have to acquire, and in the case of the latter two tracks, … And frankly, nobody cares. If you do, contact us in some fashion and we’ll fix you up (with our fists?).

No PMT news.

ApoXoqA

So here’s this thing, what myself, Murray, and several other folks filmed in sixth year of high school with a webcam. This strictly speaking isn’t PMT, since neither of us had yet met Tom. But it features the P and the M, and is somewhat related to PMT Jazzattack insomuchas without this, there never would have been a PMT Jazzattack (and the world would have been a much better place for it).

It is called ApoXoqA, and is a short silent film about a pirate, an alternative incarnation of Adolf Hitler, a robot, and Coca-Cola sock puppet, bookended by dancing/mucking about.

Basically, I wrote a rough story outline, and then over the course of a number of lunchtimes, I sort of prodded and poked people into doing my bidding on camera, and then I spent a whole lunchtime editing it together as hastily and sloppily as I could so that we could get back to playing TFC on the school LAN (oh yes). Enjoy (or die?).

Bonus: “Backwards”

Well seeing as no final episode has yet materialised, I dug up a little treat for everyone.

This is a thing we were working on for A Hat Made of Mexico. I came up with a basic idea to film a kind of a dance sequence that would be played in reverse. We tried to come up with as many ideas as we could that would either be actions performed backwards that would therefore play forwards during playback or simply actions that are impossible to perform forwards and are therefore amusing.

An example of the former is Murray’s entrance to the house portion of the sequence, where he runs up to the door backwards, rings the doorbell, waits for Tom to answer, shakes Tom’s hand, and then enters. The way it was filmed, Murray leaves the house, followed by Tom who shakes his hand and then closes the door. Murray then checks his watch, pauses, rings the doorbell, and runs off towards the park. You would not believe the level of planning that went into this. During the dancing sequence in the living room, I was actually playing that Talking Heads song in reverse from my laptop.

Anyway, we did multiple takes, and I compiled the best of the other takes into a bit at the end, synced up to a Melt-Banana song - a song that hadn’t been released when we filmed the sequence, so they fact they sync so well is a combination of editing and supreme luck. The bit with the cardboard tube and the sound effects blew my mind because I didn’t actually sync that in the edit, and I didn’t even remember the effects being in the song.

And yes, I know this is breaking copyright law somewhat, but hey, we’re a non-profit outfit here at PMT Industrial Demolition and Salvage. Hell, we don’t even have Google Ads… Wait a minute… Why don’t we have Google ads?

Noose

Well folks, sooner or later the truth catches up with you. PMT has been something of a low priority recently, and despite plenty of opportunities, we simply haven’t bothered. Simply not bothering turns to several months of not bothering, and then you start to question what you’re doing. I mean, what is PMT? And why should it be sad that there is no PMT? If we don’t care then why should anybody right? And I’m pretty sure nobody else cares what we do.

So the point is, well, from the end of May it is unlikely PMT will reconvene. Considering how often we’ve been able to do it while living together, imagine how often we’ll be able to do it while not. I’d like to think we could at least pull off Tom’s episode and maybe a farewell episode of some sort, but you know, I wouldn’t hold my breath.





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