September 2005
Neil Young Releases New Album, Prairie Wind
- #1 hit on Amazon.com's music CD sales on the first day
Total Media Group shot the dramatic opening sequence, edited all of the video for all 10 songs, and authored the DVD for Neil Young’s new CD/DVD release entitled “Prairie Wind.” Prairie Wind was released by Warner Brothers/Reprise Records on September 27th, and the Audio CD quickly rose to #1 on Amazon.com’s music sales chart on the first day.
The DVD’s opening sequence of a sheet blowing off a clothesline was shot in the company’s parking lot against a large blue screen. The blowing sheet footage was then composited against a dramatic background of fast moving dark clouds and a foreground of tall grass at a nature park by San Francisco Bay.
All video of the recording sessions was shot by Shakey Pictures Producer L.A. Johnson with five cameras while each song was recorded live at Masterlink Studios in Nashville. The video camera tapes (over 100 hours of footage) were then brought back to Total Media Group.
Using an Avid
Adrenaline, Senior Editor Toshi Onuki was able to place up to five simultaneous streams of video on the screen of Neil Young with the other musicians and singers. All of the simultaneous streams of video were synched to the recorded music track which was provided by Neil Young’s Redwood Digital Studios. The audio track on the DVD is uncompressed and ultra clear 48 kHz / 24bit Linear PCM Stereo.
There is an even higher resolution 96 kHz / 24bit Linear PCM Stereo audio track on the DVD as well. Due to its high bandwidth, the audio track plays with a gently moving video background that is based on the opening sequence, instead of the recording session video.
The authoring for the DVD was complex because there are over 170 pages of biography and discography information for the accompanying musicians and singers. Rich Winter was in charge of DVD authoring.
There is also a hidden “Easter Egg” of an audio interview with Neil Young that is secretly stashed in an unmarked location on the DVD. Viewers will have to accidentally find it while navigating through the disc.
More information about the album is here.
