[Olpc-open] G1G1 updates, Lennon video and other vids

[david at lang.hm]

On Sat, 27 Dec 2008, Samuel Klein wrote:

> David,
>
> I believe it's his real speech, with a few composite moments.  It
> sounds like other interviews I've heard -- and different from most
> singing voice examples in my head.  You're not alone in making that
> comment about the voice.     Feel free to suggest post topics or
> additional videos to review for the blog in the comments.

the problem is that it sounds fake.

it sounds as if someone sampled various interviews and cut individual 
words togeather to make the speach. and given that he is dead, anyone who 
would care about his opinion is going to know that this isn't his opinion.

adding the vidio of him while the fake voice is going also is jarring as 
the audio doesn't sync to the face.

so as a meaningful message it has red flags haning out everywhere just for 
technical (or apparent technical) reasons. And even if you ignore those it 
just isn't that good a spot (unless you have a far higher opinion of 
Lennon than I do)



Fred Astaire dancing with a Dirt Devil vaccum was one thing (they pasted 
in the vaccum to replace a hatstand), but faking endorcements from people 
is far worse.

in part it teaches people to expect that video is faked, and while I agree 
that this is technicaly possible to do, it's not something that ethical 
people and orginizations should be doing (except as I said before, in 
things clearly labeled as entertainment, not fact)

it's like spam, technicaly possible, sometimes effective, but something no 
ethical orginization should be involved with.

David Lang

> SJ
>
> On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 5:28 PM,  <david at lang.hm> wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Dec 2008, Samuel Klein wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> The Lennon video that's been murmured about for weeks has been
>>> released.  I'm curious to see reactions from the list.  If anyone
>>> makes a screensaver version of the opening sequence, which I love,
>>> I'll send you my first attempt at a memory-doubled XO.  I'm hoping to
>>> get more details about how it was made to post as well...  It's had
>>> 50,000 views (wow, make that 65k since I wrote this draft at lunch) in
>>> the past day.  Details and a couple other awesome video links are up
>>> on the blog.
>>>  http://blog.laptop.org
>>
>> personal opinion here, I don't like using digital fakery to make dead
>> celebreties say things that they never said (movies that are clearly fiction
>> are an exception to this)
>>
>> In this case I think the quality of the audio splicing also leave a lot to
>> be desired (but then again, I've never listened to recordings of Lennon
>> talking, so it could be his real speech pattern)
>>
>> the other videos on the blog are very interesting. I hadn't heard of this
>> blog before, thanks for the pointer.
>>
>> David Lang
>>
>