⭐ Official Review [Video]: "INTERPRETATIONS"

WHICH CARPENTERS MUSIC VIDEO IS YOUR FAVORITE?

  • 1.) Without A Song 1:01 (Youmans/Rose/Eliscu)

    Votes: 9 17.0%
  • 2.) Superstar 3:49 (Russell/Bramlett)

    Votes: 3 5.7%
  • 3.) Rainy Days and Mondays 3:36 (Williams/Nichols)

    Votes: 5 9.4%
  • 4.) Ticket to Ride 4:10 (Lennon/McCartney) *

    Votes: 1 1.9%
  • 5.) Reason to Believe 3:03 (Hardin)

    Votes: 3 5.7%
  • 6.) (They Long To Be) Close To You 4:33 (Bacharach/David)

    Votes: 5 9.4%
  • 7.) Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft 7:07 (Woloschuk/Draper)

    Votes: 4 7.5%
  • 8.) Little Girl Blue 3:24 (Rodgers/Hart)

    Votes: 3 5.7%
  • 9.) Bless The Beasts and Children 7:07 (De Vorzon/Botkin, Jr.)

    Votes: 1 1.9%
  • 10.) Please Mr. Postman 2:50 (Holland/Gorman/Dobbins/Bateman/Garrett) *

    Votes: 11 20.8%
  • 11.) We've Only Just Begun 3:04 (Williams/Nichols)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 12.) When I Fall In Love 3:08 (Heyman/Young)

    Votes: 2 3.8%
  • 13.) From This Moment On 2:39 (Porter)

    Votes: 6 11.3%

  • Total voters
    53
Watched this DVD today.
DVD Interpretations:
Where does the audio and video for this version of Close To You originate ?
For example, the audio on this DVD for that song is certainly NOT what you find on Yesterday Once More Video.
It is not the same audio of Close To You as you find on the Interpretations CD, either.
The video is partially edited (specifically: the Billboard Hot 100 chart that begins the video, the piano "quintuplets" at around the minute-mark, and the blurring of the video before fading out at the end), but the bulk of it comes from the début episode of the Don Knotts Show (produced by Tomka Productions, the same people who did Make Your Own Kind of Music, and a company owned by Don Knotts until a couple of years before he passed), aired September 15, 1970.

I think this video has one of the cutest "mistakes". If you watch the bottom-right corner during the trumpet (?) solo, you'll see Karen fixing her hair before returning to the drums (about 1:42 in the video I uploaded: ).
 
Watched this DVD today.
DVD Interpretations:
Where does the audio and video for this version of Close To You originate ?
For example, the audio on this DVD for that song is certainly NOT what you find on Yesterday Once More Video.
It is not the same audio of Close To You as you find on the Interpretations CD, either.
The audio, like all of the audio on both Gold: Greatest Hits and Interpretations, was sourced likely from a tape (Gold) or maybe CD (Interpretations), then sped up or down to match the timing of the lipsync. To me, the audio on this Interpretations version is one of the remixes with the harder bass and fade-out.
 


The opening close up of Karen and the piano on this clip is what was used for the “Close To You” segment of the 1969-1973 Singles Overture on the 1985 Video collection (later DVD collection). Although her diction on the overture is slightly different to the original recording of the song, the overdubbed audio from it matches this video footage perfectly.
 
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The opening close up of Karen and the piano on this clip is what was used for the “Close To You” segment of the 1969-1973 Singles Overture on the 1985 Video collection (later DVD collection). Although her diction on the overture is slightly different to the original recording of the song, the overdubbed audio from it matches this video footage perfectly.
Yes! I remember seeing "Gold" for the first time and wondering if the full performance existed. Lo and behold, I found "Interpretations" and everything is wonderful.

I am 99% certain that the piano quintuplets in the middle of the video was shot in the 1990s. If you look at the left & right sides of most of the video, you can distinctly see the tape "fuzz"; this disappears in the piano "quintuplet" bridge. But I can't figure out for the life of me what else would have been in that section, but they edited it perfectly for Interpretations. The curiosity in me wants to see the original video as it aired on The Don Knotts Show, though...
 
The video is partially edited (specifically: the Billboard Hot 100 chart that begins the video, the piano "quintuplets" at around the minute-mark, and the blurring of the video before fading out at the end), but the bulk of it comes from the début episode of the Don Knotts Show (produced by Tomka Productions, the same people who did Make Your Own Kind of Music, and a company owned by Don Knotts until a couple of years before he passed), aired September 15, 1970.

I think this video has one of the cutest "mistakes". If you watch the bottom-right corner during the trumpet (?) solo, you'll see Karen fixing her hair before returning to the drums (about 1:42 in the video I uploaded: ).

Nice catch with Karen’s hair fix! :)
 
I agree with the earlier comments that "From This Moment On" was a great addition, especially since it never aired during the original Music, Music, Music broadcast in 1980.

Two comments:

First, I wish that the "Carpenters - Interpretations" title screen didn't eat into "Superstar" for as long as it did. However, I'm happy to see that same performance on the 5th Dimension Travelling Sunshine Show DVD.

Second, the one addition that would have fit on this collection perfectly would have been "For All We Know" from the Andy Williams Show in February 1971.

Sorry, one more comment, that may or may not be controversial. It would have been so great to see even more of their TV performances on this DVD. From MYOKOM, it would have been awesome to see more of the "C is for Carpenters" performances, or even the "T is for Ticket to Ride" performance.

Now that we have heard the music on As Time Goes By, it would be amazing to see some of the original TV footage corresponding to those performances, including "Superstar/Rainy Days and Mondays," the Karen/Ella Medley, "And When He Smiles," the Hits Medley '76, etc.... all of those are amazing performances that could serve as an "Interpretations: Part II" collection for fans.
 
Sorry! One more comment.

DC Video did the video transfer (I'm assuming from 2" tape OR from a backup tape to either tape OR to digital -- @tomswift2002, maybe you have knowledge/a hunch about their process?) for Interpretations. IMHO, DC Video does a fantastic job with tape-to-digital transfers. I don't believe that DC Video did the transfer for the Yesterday Once More/Gold project. Personally, I would LOVE to see DC Video transfer some of the source films as well as 2" tapes of the videos on Yesterday Once More/Gold. I think DC Video would do a beautiful job, particularly with regard to some of the odd color issues on YOM/Gold (more so with Gold; most videos seem to have too much green, in my opinion).

Side note: I can also confirm that DC Video did the video transfers for TJ Lubinsky's "Christmas Memories" video. Again, the colors are balanced, a lot of the analog noise is preserved (not digitally tweaked), the contrast isn't artificially dramatized (i.e. washed out whites/pitch black blacks)... a really great viewing experience.

Here's to hoping that DC Video takes the lead on whatever other projects RC may have in store for us fans in the future!
 
Sorry! One more comment.

DC Video did the video transfer (I'm assuming from 2" tape OR from a backup tape to either tape OR to digital -- @tomswift2002, maybe you have knowledge/a hunch about their process?) for Interpretations. IMHO, DC Video does a fantastic job with tape-to-digital transfers. I don't believe that DC Video did the transfer for the Yesterday Once More/Gold project. Personally, I would LOVE to see DC Video transfer some of the source films as well as 2" tapes of the videos on Yesterday Once More/Gold. I think DC Video would do a beautiful job, particularly with regard to some of the odd color issues on YOM/Gold (more so with Gold; most videos seem to have too much green, in my opinion).

Side note: I can also confirm that DC Video did the video transfers for TJ Lubinsky's "Christmas Memories" video. Again, the colors are balanced, a lot of the analog noise is preserved (not digitally tweaked), the contrast isn't artificially dramatized (i.e. washed out whites/pitch black blacks)... a really great viewing experience.

Here's to hoping that DC Video takes the lead on whatever other projects RC may have in store for us fans in the future!
I think that back in the 90’s Richard probably had the analog tapes for MYOKM and the specials transferred to a digital format. Plus, with the “Without A Song” video, I think Richard still had the original analog raw footage tapes, and he was able to have the video re-edited so that it worked better on the ‘Interpretations’ video. When I pulled up on YouTube videos of MMM, I noticed that there were different shots in a few places. Plus the video seems really crisp and cleaner for something that was edited in analog in 1979-80. I also wonder if Richard still has the seperate elements for all the specials, as the older videos, especially on the DVD, seem to be a lot crisper than they should be, and I almost wonder if he did a “Grease” move (for the 2006 DVD, Paramount allowed the director to recomposite the split screen for the ending of “Summer Nights” where the had Sandy and Danny singing the final line together through split screen, since Sandy was in the cafeteria and Danny was on the bleachers and the 70’s version was rough, even though it was good for the time, and lost a generation in quality, while a digital recomposite cleaned it up tremendously and didn’t have it go down a generation) for most of the videos and had the videos digitally re-edited and digitally mastered to like Digital Betacam or D1/D2 tape, especially considering how poor the YOM/Gold videos look and would’ve been mastered in analog. Although in the case of “Calling Occupants” I think the CGI was probably composited live on set in the 70’s and there is no seperate green screen layer. And if he had the seperate parts for the films, he might’ve had those rescanned, cleaned up and re-edited digitally. That’s one major thing with “Interpretations”, the videos look much sharper than YOM/Gold, where the videos were of lower quality, very likely due to analog generational loss (not to mention but film elements are very dirty).

And then “Christmas Memories”, the worst looking is SCICTT & “Make me Laugh”, but that’s because Richard doesn’t own the video, and as he’s written, in 1999 it was found that all the Como trims and unused footage went to the garbage dump in the mid-70’s, so there’s no way to re-edit the video for a cleaner image (although the 2-inch master is most likely the original camera tape as well, but sections like the penguins no longer exist seperately).

But I wouldn’t be surprised if all the specials were transferred to digital tape in the 90’s in order to have them on a modern format that was easier to store and work with. Even in 2021, DV tape is the best method for archiving.
 
I think that back in the 90’s Richard probably had the analog tapes for MYOKM and the specials transferred to a digital format. Plus, with the “Without A Song” video, I think Richard still had the original analog raw footage tapes, and he was able to have the video re-edited so that it worked better on the ‘Interpretations’ video. When I pulled up on YouTube videos of MMM, I noticed that there were different shots in a few places. Plus the video seems really crisp and cleaner for something that was edited in analog in 1979-80. I also wonder if Richard still has the seperate elements for all the specials, as the older videos, especially on the DVD, seem to be a lot crisper than they should be, and I almost wonder if he did a “Grease” move (for the 2006 DVD, Paramount allowed the director to recomposite the split screen for the ending of “Summer Nights” where the had Sandy and Danny singing the final line together through split screen, since Sandy was in the cafeteria and Danny was on the bleachers and the 70’s version was rough, even though it was good for the time, and lost a generation in quality, while a digital recomposite cleaned it up tremendously and didn’t have it go down a generation) for most of the videos and had the videos digitally re-edited and digitally mastered to like Digital Betacam or D1/D2 tape, especially considering how poor the YOM/Gold videos look and would’ve been mastered in analog. Although in the case of “Calling Occupants” I think the CGI was probably composited live on set in the 70’s and there is no seperate green screen layer. And if he had the seperate parts for the films, he might’ve had those rescanned, cleaned up and re-edited digitally. That’s one major thing with “Interpretations”, the videos look much sharper than YOM/Gold, where the videos were of lower quality, very likely due to analog generational loss (not to mention but film elements are very dirty).

And then “Christmas Memories”, the worst looking is SCICTT & “Make me Laugh”, but that’s because Richard doesn’t own the video, and as he’s written, in 1999 it was found that all the Como trims and unused footage went to the garbage dump in the mid-70’s, so there’s no way to re-edit the video for a cleaner image (although the 2-inch master is most likely the original camera tape as well, but sections like the penguins no longer exist seperately).

But I wouldn’t be surprised if all the specials were transferred to digital tape in the 90’s in order to have them on a modern format that was easier to store and work with. Even in 2021, DV tape is the best method for archiving.
Yes! I noticed the same thing about "Music Music Music." There's also the little Easter egg on the Close to You DVD where Richard and Karen say that they're excited to be reaching their friends in Mexico this year, and they pose for a while, and the director says, "That's a wrap" or something. I think the source tapes still exist for MMM, which is great. Speaking of, it always kind of bummed me out that the video for "When I Fall in Love" (as seen on MMM and Interpretations) edited out that middle instrumental part... but there wouldn't have been anything to show in that middle area, since Karen was just sitting at the piano nodding her head the whole time.
 
“When I Fall In Love” was a very odd setup for Karen. Why the piano was there with no pianist is curious and the set, really didn’t do anything. And while I love Karen’s hairstyle and clothes, I don’t recall there being any other scene with how she’s dressed. Unless there are other trims that offer an explanation. But I think that video should’ve been recorded with something different, like maybe Karen as a bridesmaid seeing a girlfriend get married and the song was her own internal monologue.

But yeah another piece of evidence that Richard still has the original raw footage for MMM is the inclusion of “From This Moment On”. A lot of times the tapes would be reused and stuff like that recorded over.

But remember that with “Interpretations” the audio was also remastered, as the VHS & Laserdisc both say “Digitally Mastered’ did the audio. And WAS is clearly in stereo as you can hear the vocals zooming past on both channels
 
“When I Fall In Love” was a very odd setup for Karen. Why the piano was there with no pianist is curious and the set, really didn’t do anything. And while I love Karen’s hairstyle and clothes, I don’t recall there being any other scene with how she’s dressed. Unless there are other trims that offer an explanation. But I think that video should’ve been recorded with something different, like maybe Karen as a bridesmaid seeing a girlfriend get married and the song was her own internal monologue.

But yeah another piece of evidence that Richard still has the original raw footage for MMM is the inclusion of “From This Moment On”. A lot of times the tapes would be reused and stuff like that recorded over.

But remember that with “Interpretations” the audio was also remastered, as the VHS & Laserdisc both say “Digitally Mastered’ did the audio. And WAS is clearly in stereo as you can hear the vocals zooming past on both channels
I think somewhere I saw MMM Outtakes on YouTube, and I found the exact take that corresponds to the version that aired (on Interpretations), and that orchestral bridge was a mess. IIRC, Karen was bobbing her head and swaying on the piano seat, and the camera operator swung the camera to somewhere black, then it came back online. I'll try to find it with a timestamp.

Also, regarding the remastered audio -- to my knowledge, all of the videos on both Gold/YOM and Interpretations had remastered/overlaid audio. One of the parts this is painfully (to me) evident is on "Reason to Believe" on Interpretations, in which the 1987 remix is laid over the MYOKOM performance from 1971. It looks like Richard's keyboard fingers are busy (because they were on the original album mix) but you don't really hear any of it because it was scrapped for the remix. So I always do enjoy revisiting my project of overlaying the [stereo] 1970 album version over the 1971 video, as it originally was (albeit in mono).
 
One of the parts this is painfully (to me) evident is on "Reason to Believe" on Interpretations, in which the 1987 remix is laid over the MYOKOM performance from 1971. It looks like Richard's keyboard fingers are busy (because they were on the original album mix) but you don't really hear any of it because it was scrapped for the remix. So I always do enjoy revisiting my project of overlaying the [stereo] 1970 album version over the 1971 video, as it originally was (albeit in mono).

Something similar happens in the footage of “We’ve Only Just Begun” on the usual hits DVD compilation. In the drum fill between the first and second verses (just after the line “we start off walkin’ and learn to run”), you see Cubby O’Brien do the fast tom-tom fill in the background but the video doesn’t match the audio because it’s the 1985 remix version of the song and they changed that fill when the drums were re-recorded in stereo.
 
Something similar happens in the footage of “We’ve Only Just Begun” on the usual hits DVD compilation. In the drum fill between the first and second verses (just after the line “we start off walkin’ and learn to run”), you see Cubby O’Brien do the fast tom-tom fill in the background but the video doesn’t match the audio because it’s the 1985 remix version of the song and they changed that fill when the drums were re-recorded in stereo.
That video was literally playing on my TV when I got this notification. :shock:

(But the one on my TV was my version with the Singles 1969-1973 version overlaid on the YOM DVD.)
 
I think somewhere I saw MMM Outtakes on YouTube, and I found the exact take that corresponds to the version that aired (on Interpretations), and that orchestral bridge was a mess. IIRC, Karen was bobbing her head and swaying on the piano seat, and the camera operator swung the camera to somewhere black, then it came back online. I'll try to find it with a timestamp.

Also, regarding the remastered audio -- to my knowledge, all of the videos on both Gold/YOM and Interpretations had remastered/overlaid audio. One of the parts this is painfully (to me) evident is on "Reason to Believe" on Interpretations, in which the 1987 remix is laid over the MYOKOM performance from 1971. It looks like Richard's keyboard fingers are busy (because they were on the original album mix) but you don't really hear any of it because it was scrapped for the remix. So I always do enjoy revisiting my project of overlaying the [stereo] 1970 album version over the 1971 video, as it originally was (albeit in mono).
Isn’t the audio for “From This Moment On” the original mono version from the TV master? I’ll have to check the DVD, but I thought the last time I played it everything was only coming from my center speaker.
 
The UK/Canadian CD of INTERPRETATIONS contains the mono "From This Moment On". When the disc was re-issued in the States a year later, Richard had updated it with a stereo piano.
 
“When I Fall In Love” was a very odd setup for Karen. Why the piano was there with no pianist is curious and the set, really didn’t do anything. And while I love Karen’s hairstyle and clothes, I don’t recall there being any other scene with how she’s dressed. Unless there are other trims that offer an explanation. But I think that video should’ve been recorded with something different, like maybe Karen as a bridesmaid seeing a girlfriend get married and the song was her own internal monologue.

But yeah another piece of evidence that Richard still has the original raw footage for MMM is the inclusion of “From This Moment On”. A lot of times the tapes would be reused and stuff like that recorded over.

But remember that with “Interpretations” the audio was also remastered, as the VHS & Laserdisc both say “Digitally Mastered’ did the audio. And WAS is clearly in stereo as you can hear the vocals zooming past on both channels

Karen was wearing those clothes and the same hairstyle in the segment that follows with John Davidson (“You’re Just In Love”). But you probably know this already. :)
 
Karen was wearing those clothes and the same hairstyle in the segment that follows with John Davidson (“You’re Just In Love”). But you probably know this already. :)
Another performance that should be released on DVD! Like... an "As Time Goes By" DVD.
 
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