"Renaissance Day" has arrived. A New MikeVideo "internet movie". Part 1 Part 2

I went to my first "Ren Fair" in 1979. Two friends I met in the South Bay talked excitedly about  their roles in the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire "dressed up" in costume. They were a part of one of the "guilds" of "players" at the Faire. Unlike "theme parks" or conventional theater, unlike a concert or a County Fair, the Renaissance Pleasure Faire is a hybrid "experiential theater" where "fairgoers" can dress up and be part of the "show" which consists of a visit by Queen Elizabeth and her entourage to an countryside merchant town around the end of the 16th century. The performers consist of costumed historical figures, nobles, players, merchants, shady ladies, peasants, and rouges.

There are many Renaissance Faires scattered around the country, but the original RPFC was located in Aqoura, near Buellton in central California. It was begun in 1963, and I had always wanted to attend one of the Faires, specifically since I was known as a "Shakespeare scholar" and loved the historical period of Elizabethan England. True "players" are part of the Renaissance Academy of Performing Arts (RAPA) and my two friends belonged to one of the "guilds" that "performs" at each Faire, adding credibility and truth to the idea that when one travels to a Ren Faire, he is travelling back in time.  

Jugglers are everywhere at the Renaissance Faire.

Although some visitors, especially nowadays, can be spotted with teeshirts, shorts, and cellphones, for a long period of time, most of the visitors dressed up in Elizabethan garb when attending, and everyone speaks Middle English, so that the "illusion" of actually being in Elizabethan England is maintained. I remember after one evening of partying all night, the two friends decided not to go with me on the date we had planned, and I ended up going with another buddy, who wasn't really "into" the experience. As a result, I left my first Faire salivating for a chance to go again.

As luck would have it, that would be a long time. The Faire moved from Agoura to the Glen Helen Recreation Area in San Bernadino, and the next time I attended was in the early 90s with my girlfriend Pat. We made the trip yearly after attending together, and while we didn't dress up (except for a period Robin Hood hat, which I always wear) we found this excursion one of the many things we enjoyed doing together.

After I left Pat, I still kept up the habit of going to the Faire each year, and I have taken friends who haven't gone to engage in this singular experience. I had been shooting video since the late 80s, and wouldn't have taken my overweight VHS recorder to make a movie at the Faire, but when digital video was introduced, I got one in 1998, and during my May 1999 visit, I expressly went to "shoot" a "movie" to be entitled "Renaissance Day." As with all my videotaped projects, I would shoot much footage, and see if, in editing, I could actually present a "filmed" entertainment that would "take audiences" along with me immersing them in the music, sights, and sounds of the Faire.

Hammered Dulcimer player Glenn Morgan, who supplies the "theme music", "Port Lairge"

Of course, I had only recently begun my website, and the video would be the first major "audio visual" centerpiece of my new website. I made some stills from the footage, and put a couple of pages on AllThingsMike "announcing" the video, but each time I watched the footage I had shot, which took up two one hour videotapes, I didn't see where I would edit, because I liked everything I had shot. I would play the "footage" for my friends. I knew at some point what I had shot would really look good in edited form, but the task just kept being put off.  I proclaimed on my first MikeVideo page: "The mark of a great video is for people to just not get bored. The best person for me to bore with my video is my roommate, who quite frankly explained that this was "the best I'd ever done." And that was just the raw footage before even a whit of editing has been performed."

Years passed, and yet I didn't create my opus masterpiece of filmmaking. I made two other "movies", "Nantucket Holiday", a travelogue consisting of footage shot on vactation on the island, and "Selling Sex at the CES" about the Porn industry's trade show in Vegas.

In 2002 I created a small internet movie lasting about six minutes titled "The Music of the Renaissance Faire: Music and Pictures from the MikeVideo "Renaissance Day" It features musical passages as they were shot, and has received some "favorable reviews" when it was online.

Queen Elizabeth I entertains the court with her wit.

Last year when I put up the new "MikeVideo" pages, I "announced" that in early 2005 I would finally "complete" "Renaissance Day". I knew the task was daunting, but the Pinnacle Studio 9 video editing software is pretty intuitive, and doesn't take as long to "render" as earlier programs. My two "internet movies" from last year proved to be easy to make, and I could stream them from the web. The quality of the 2002 "Music of the Renaissance Faire" video was deplorable, and one couldn't even make out the faces of the musicians.

Video streaming quality has come a long way in just two years.

Over the past two weeks, I have been "constructing" my opus. I finished it this afternoon. The file is a whopping 174 Megabytes, and that is just the windows streaming media file. The MPEG file which has been burned as a Video CD is 231 MB. The film is 23 minutes long, and contains 133 separate "shots" or "edits". The footage is from two different camcorders and shot during two different Faires, at two separate locations.

I tried to construct the film with the Queen's progress through the Faire clearly shown. I shot everything with a single camera, and while I will admit that one piece of equipment I lack and need to get is a unidirectional microphone, most of the sound is from the tape. I have made few "embellishments". The "theme" song for the video is called "Port Lairge" and is performed by Glenn Morgan on the hammered dulcimer. I also include excerpts from a couple of Steeleye Span tunes.

A knight prepares for the joust.

I don't know the names of a lot of the performers in "Renaissance Day" but besides Glenn Morgan, who is shown playing, one of the featured groups is a "bawdy" men's choir called "The Poxy Boggards". Even in the almost half hour program, I could not show "everything." that happens at the Faire. I tried to give a flavor for the place and to tell a bit of a story. I'm rather pleased with the results.

A lovely lyre artist.

EDIT: 2/11/07 4:33pm pst. Currently, this page ranks as #22 on my Fishcan "Greatest Hits" list, so I have updated the links to the video to YouTube. When I wrote the article, I was still posting the vids on my own server. The Video streams from YouTube in two parts, 1 is HERE and 2 is HERE.  I actually was able to upload the whole thing to my server, and removed three other videos I had online to that the server space wasn't used up completely. I was able to download and start viewing in less than 5 minutes. I sized the file at 240x320 instead of the larger more unwieldy size but the picture quality is not compromised at all. As usual on AllThingsMike, this is totally free, and if you right click and "save as target" you can download the film to your own computer. (Not Anymore. YouTube doesn't allow downloads.)

This is a major project, and I would like people who read this blog entry who might think it is a neat piece of internet filmmaking to tell their friends. The more interest I have from folks concerning these endeavors, the more I feel inspired to make more.

Take some time out from your busy schedule, and take a trip back in time to the 16th century and spend a "Renaissance Day" with MikeVideo.

(NOTE: All the images used as "photos" in this entry are actual "frame grabs" from the video itself. The MikeVideo  "internet movie":  "Renaissance Day" is copyrighted 2005 by Michael F. Nyiri and MikeVideo Enterprises. Glenn Morgan's and Steeleye Span's music is copyrighted and all rights are reserved.)