Melbourne Shuffles to DVD
Author: Aaron Roach
Monday, January 30, 2006
Over two years ago, UEP embarked on a venture to capture the essence of Melbourne's dance scene. Their mission was to create a DVD documentary that would not only be cherished by all who have loved the dance but also inform people around the world about this special phenomenon in an exciting new media experience. Rather than pumping out the usual crowd shots, laser shots and DJ shots of recent dance music DVDs, 'The Melbourne Shuffler' documentary used guerrilla-style camera work and upfront and personal interviews to present an insider's look at the dance style.
UEP understood it was important to demonstrate the depth and diversity of the Melbourne dance culture, showing the different subcultures that have been developed throughout clubs, warehouse parties and outdoor 'doofs' across many genres of dance music. To do this, the team ventured to 26 events and did over 65 interviews with DJs, producers, dancers, lighting crews and event organisers.
International artists such as UK's Leeroy Thornhill (formerly of supergroup Prodigy), Nukleuz front-man Ed Real, Dark Trance lords Lab-4, and Dutch artist Pascal Feliz from Waltz & Feliz were interviewed, along side Melbourne's own Scott Alert, Simon Slieker, Garth, DJ Compound, Kelsta, Soul-T, Andy Golden, St.Luke, Itchy as well as Melbourne's own shufflers.
The documentary tracks the origins of the Melbourne Shuffle back to the end of the 1980s and the 'Commerce Club' described by DJs Richie Rich and H20 and is also accompanied by footage of Melbourne's early benchmarks like Razor, Global Village, Every Picture Tells A Story, Streetraves and Hardware parties.
As well as launching the Melbourne Shuffle onto the international stage, this DVD acts as a platform for the Melbourne sound, supplying an entirely Melbourne produced soundtrack features music from Ben Kakoschke, Siaqua, Zenergy, Brewster B, Syndrome, Benny Drohan, Itchy & Geezer, NFX, DJ Klasic, Pegz, Harvest Brothers, Elite and Andy Maurer and has been mixed by Hard Kandy front man, Scott Alert.
'The Melbourne Shuffler' DVD is a double disc set supplying a vast array of extras and providing an informative and innovative audio/visual showcase with over 220 minutes of special features including a Multi-angle DJ Master Class with Master Kaos, 'A Day in the life of DJ Ben Kakoschke', extra interview footage, extra dance footage, party organisation advice from some of Melbourne's best organisers, VJ Animation, Red-Light Raving and extra history footage.
'The Melbourne Shuffler' website (www.melbourneshuffler.com) has sparked massive interest from around the world and has received over 70,000 promo video downloads and has been visited by over 85 countries. Perhaps the biggest International following of the shuffle has occurred in Malaysia where Melbourne's shufflers were invited to showcase their skills on stage, headlining events with attendances of more than 10,000 people. Malaysia has also created a National Shuffle Competition.
DVDs are available on-line at www.melbourneshuffler.com and will soon be available in selected stores nationally. Tags