Remembering Mondo

A small extract from Mondo, a short film that married music and video editing techniques from 1986

Back in the day when I was learning my then video editing skills I remember seeing this music and editing experiment called Mondo (I think somebody showed me it on laserdisc , that’s how long ago it was) and once in a while the unintended effect of pushing digital data around on a computer conjours this up the memory of this video piece for me whilst reminding me that back in 1986 non linear computer editing was not the norm as it was today and punching numbers into edit controllers linked to large U-matic or betacam linear tape edit recorders was what most of us had to work with. Anyway this attempt to partly compose in the video edit suite was made by Jerry Chater who went on to make many adverts and music videos on his own. Here he collaborates with Kevin Godley & Lol Creme.

It kind of heralds some of the video mashup pieces that became more common by the time of avid computer editing in the 90’s. Note the change of numbers in the close up of the guitar in order, presumably, to keep tabs on which section is being utilised during the edit. I’m unsure if this was still an entirely tape based edit or whether one of the earliest non-linear edit systems was used (the Quantel Harry could handle 90 seconds of digitised video back then) or not but it’s always stuck in my mind.

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