Product: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 4.0
Who did the amateurish audio mix?
I believe this is the strongest theatrical piece ever created by Rice and Webber working together or separately, so they started in strong fashion right out of the box. This film version of the play milked every bit of potential charm from the script and music, and did so with a fairly small budget. There are times when the camera and player blocking are not doing enough. The performances are thoroughly entertaining throughout and very tongue-in-cheek, and Don Osmond does a first class musical theater interpretation of Joseph, both vocally and in what the audience gets to watch. Here's the sad part of this production -- the audio mix is awful. You notice this at the very top of the show as the kids are entering the auditorium. The ambient sound of all this is way down near the noise level of the DVD, and it's difficult to figure why, because at the moment no other audio is happening. Later on, you discover that solo voices are mixed at a much higher level than the choral parts, even when there is no solo accompanying the chorus. The chorus should ALWAYS be mixed hotter than the solo. Many voices are always louder than one. The instrumental backing is also frequently mixed far in the background. The producers of this DVD should remix this track full of very poor choices and re-release with the new mix. The poor mix soils an otherwise polished production.