Street Light People

So glad that Laguna Beach is back in full swing. All in all a good episode this week, what it lacked in drama it more than made up for in technique. I have been raving over this show for what seems like a lifetime.

I thought it was so well made that it couldn't be reality. I then thought, it was too well acted and never contrived to be scripted. So I studied it deeper, and honestly there is a lot going on for this show. It looks like film most of the time, and that's unusual for reality, which is really cool. I'm sure its not film but its some damn good DV.

Anyway the technique may have been one happy accident and certainly some skillful production and editing. Watch the party sequence again with this in mind: there is no discernable dialogue, and really we feel like there are. Sure there are people talking and we get answers to those questions. But there are no situations where we see a one on one interaction for more than 12 seconds.

The second is my favorite moment of the show in its two years. Its so simple its ridiculous. See the scene where Stephen (pronounced stEE-Ven) and Lauren are jamming Journey on the ride home from eating din-din. The pure genius of Steve Perry should be enough...but the accident or accidentally on purpose moment is the shaky "poor" quality video. The image goes grainy and might not be at its standard 30 frames per second. It is the most beautiful two seconds of television MTV's had in awhile. Its hard to describe, maybe I lust LC too much, maybe I love Journey too much ( they are vastly underappreciated, so f'in what his voice is good the band rocks). Give it a second look, its pretty obvious, but quick. It gives me a warm feeling.

Journey if available might be my Wedding Band, if not the Dan Band wouldn't be bad.....

www.thedanband.com