View Part I
View Part II

Summary:

A project over 5 years in the making (and re-making and re-making), this video features a montage of video clips from the “Greatest Hits: My Prerogative” DVD from Britney Spears. It’s not set to any of her songs as one might expect, but to the music from Walt Disney World’s EPCOT firework show, “Illuminations: Reflections of Earth”. The clips are mostly grouped by what video they came from, a clever transition between each, and they are all completely synchronized with the music. Enjoy!

So what’s up with Britney Spears?

The pre-2003 artist Britney Spears is my favorite entertainer of all time. WHY??!!!…you may ask, but despite the simplicity of the answer, allow me to explain anyway…

I’ve never cared about who she really is or what she does on her own time, so whatever all that may be, and whatever anyone else has ever thought about any aspect of her, it has never had any influence over my favorable perception of the entertainment. I know and love the songs, I know and love the videos, I know and love many of the performances, heck I even know a fair amount of the dance moves and, yep, I love those too. Do I know her birthday or how old she is? Nope. Do I know her favorite color? Nope. Have I ever at any time in the past present or future known where in the world she was or what she was doing? Unless I overheard the news or glimpsed a magazine…nope. I’m a fan of the artist because I love the art, and it’s as simple as that.

In 2003, as of her release of “In the Zone”, she started to become a different artist, one I didn’t like. With the exception of a handful of songs on that album (fortunately including the ones in her Greatest Hits), and her later-released single “Someday”, I didn’t like any of her other material, so I haven’t given any interest to her since. Does that crush my admiration of the old Britney? Nope, I’m still a hardcore fanatic of her :)

And what the heck is up with the music?

The first time I saw “IllumiNations 2000: Reflections of Earth” I was completely marveled by it. It filled me up with the most amazing feeling I can hardly describe. For about 12 minutes, there was nothing in the world but this extravagant night-time spectacle and this beautiful, moving music, all in my favorite theme park of the happiest place on earth. It was magic.

The original title led me to believe that the show was only intended to run through the end of that year, which was actually true, so when I returned to EPCOT the following year, I was pleasantly shocked to see it on the park map–because the show had been such a success, it was extended and “2000″ was dropped from the title. When 9:00PM finally came, the excitement that had been building in my all day long made seeing the show even better than the first time. 12 more minutes of magic.

I saw it again in the summer of 2005 and yet again in 2006, and the magic remains as strong as ever. I recommend it to absolutely everyone. In fact, I command you to see it. If you are not completely blown away by it, …well, believe me, you will be.

But why on earth did I decide to squash them together to make this video?

I honestly can’t be sure, because it was so long ago that I started the project, back in 2001. Since my working title has always been “IllumiBritney”, however, I’m pretty sure it was always planned to use the chosen videos with the chosen music.

I originally only wanted the first of the two songs used in the music, because the second, “We Go On”, wasn’t instrumental. My vision was to mesh the instrumental music with clips focused on Britney where she’s not visibly singing, seeming like each were made for the other, creating a beautiful masterpiece.

The videos I had were captured from TV, and the only software I had was Windows Movie Maker (kinda lame), so I had a hard time getting clips. I simply didn’t have enough to match a song that was over 9 minutes, so I took out the middle of it, leaving me with 5 and 1/2 minutes. It was fairy seamless, but the final product was only so-so video quality, an inconsistent resolution, and TV logos all over. It was no masterpiece, but it was at least a first draft of one.

Over the next few years, I kept finding ways to improve it, clipping and re-arranging the videos more effectively, eventually being able to keep the entire 9 minute song. I had made 4 or 5 new versions, progressing each time.

2004 is when the project finally got a giant kick forward. Her Greatest Hits DVD was released, so I finally had all her music videos plus extra footage, high quality and logo-free. I had enough to include “We Go On” in the project. There was only one problem left, the problem that had always been there: Windows Movie Maker.

Because the project was so big to work on, the program would run really slow, get confused, add or cut off frames, freeze and lose work…it was a total assortment of nightmares. It took ages to complete my next version. In 2006, Adobe Premiere helped to shoo those nightmares away. I could open a video, take out everything I wasn’t going to use, then save what was left as a new video. I loaded the cropped videos into Windows Movie Maker and it was much easier then to work with the timeline, and I finally had me the ultimate, smooth, high-quality, full-length video of my dreams.

What I have on YouTube is actually missing a few edits I did before I burned it onto a DVD, I don’t know how that happened, but there’s only 4 frame glitches in the whole thing so nothing to bother about. As soon as I get my computer back, I’m going to rip my DVD version and work on finding a way to compress it with high quality intact, so that I can have it available for streaming and possibly download from my website. It’s popularity goes on YouTube will probably determine how quick I am to do that ;)

Is this the conclusion of the project? Never…