Any broadcast dropouts?

[AbleApe]

Did anyone experience any dropouts in the video feed, where the picture freezes with no audio for a few seconds?  Valley View in Cleveland had about three: two of them during the beginning of the Flying Stewardess short, and one during Plan 9.   Anyone else?

[MrTorso]

We did in Braintree, MA. (Boston). A couple of drop outs during the short and a couple more later.

[ern2150]

I experienced nearly exactly the same thing, and it seems like lots of folks did too, according to the mst3kinfo post comments.
Rifftrax' tweets suggest the uplink in Nashville was steady, but perhaps that crucial first satellite in the chain was infested with demon dogs, temporarily.

[MrTorso]

could have been worse. some places lost feed entirely and had to go home with refunds....

[ManUnderMask]

It happened three times in Springfield, twice during the short and once during Colton.

WE BROKE REALITY!

[MrTorso]

at least this site is back up to speed. At least until the west coast is done with their screening and they hit the site to try to download the goodies.

[Postmark]

Had one in Minneapolis Block E, but it was only a few seconds.  I yelled "Buffering" and got a few laughs

[IBNobody]

In Austin, TX, we had a few glitches during the short and during some of the songs. The actual movie went off without a hitch.

[Darth Geek]

We had one or two short ones in Wilmington DE, but mostly the sound was slightly out of sync for the first live portion (ironically while the guys were bragging about being live), some of the short, and part of the second live portion. The movie was uninterrupted and in sync, though.

[pstokely]

There were some during the short

[tygerbug]

   An unusual and kind of historic event tonight.

 Here at the AMC in La Jolla, CA, it was a huge mess in the very beginning, a bunch of dropouts not completely stopping until the feature started.

  [Keep in mind this was time delayed, so it wasn't even "live."]

 The main mess was at the beginning. There was some sort of Latina singer and her band. Instead of starting up the movie, this came up, and the people were completely clueless about what went wrong. We were watching this Latina singer over and over again as the guys opened up a Dish network selection screen .... you know, like if you have the HD Dish network on your home television! Some guy shouted, "I can get this at home!"

  It seems that Rifftrax was on a private channel on the Dish Network, and that the recording had started early. This was obvious, but the projectionists didn't figure it out for about six minutes. Then they fast forwarded through the Latina singer, and through the entire [apparently Rifftrax provided] slide show.

  Yeah, it looks like the Rifftrax guys prepared their own little slide show of "Trivia," like you see in some movie theaters these days. We didn't get to see that, because the projectionists didn't know to run it before the movie started. I read a bit of it as they fastforwarded, and there was one about Planet of Dinosaurs.

  Finally, they found it .... then they rewound it, then finally the show started. With audio that was too loud, and continued to be so throughout.

 And with a ton of dropouts, especially early on -- we lost a bunch of jokes during Flying Stewardess!

  I thought the show was very funny, with a lot of obviously new material during Plan 9 ... I've never seen the Legend Films releases of it, but there were a few jokes which were obviously current, and not from that DVD.

 The camerawork was quite professional, with the camera on a crane or jib or something, flying over the audience.

  However, the audience in La Jolla wasn't laughing, or at least not laughing loud enough to be heard over the Nashville crowd. It didn't feel live (partly because in California it isn't, partly because of the bumbling projectionists and dropouts, partly because it just plain didn't) .... It didn't feel all that special, as occasions go .... the theater was about half full, and not that energetic. Flying Stewardess didn't get as good a response as Plan 9.

  The colorization was interesting, about as well done as a colorization probably could be. I think for a film as silly as this, it's fine to see it colorized. However, the spaceman turning green when punched was an artistic flourish that shouldn't have been allowed.

  Rich Kyanka's contributions were very funny and went over very well with the audience as well.

  I'm not sure this audience "got" Jonathan Coulton, though it's hard to tell. I'm a fan and was mouthing the words during his two songs [two of his most popular - "The Future Soon" and "Re: Your Brains"] ... as were the Nashville audience onscreen. But it felt to me like the audience, or most of the audience, were thinking, "What the hell? Why is this musician guy interrupting our Rifftrax fun?" We had a dropout RIGHT as Coulton finished playing and the audience's nonreaction was palpable. Coulton is one of my favorite musicians, but I guess his appearance felt unexpected ... it might have worked better as an opening act, before MKB showed up. Certainly the audience were not singing along during "Re: Your Brains." A talent like Coulton deserves better, and again I was jealous of the live Nashville audience, who really got a much better show than anyone else.

  The quality of the broadcast was very clear, and the bit rate must have been extremely high.

   On the big HD screen, Mike, Kevin and Bill looked oversharpened. Mike's white teeth looked like terrifying fangs, and I couldn't help but be distracted Kevin's sassy pirate earring. Mike looked surprisingly thin and in ok shape, thanks presumably to his bacon diet [which also might explain why his teeth have morphed into the feral fangs of a blood-seeking beast]. Bill translated best to HD, probably because he's already white and oversharpened.

   All the hosting and introduction stuff felt very awkward. The Flying Stewardess and Plan 9 stuff, the guys were really performing the hell out of everything, but during those little introduction bits, they seemed a little lost, looking at the papers they were reading and looking down. Mike in particular looked down a lot ... he even seemed lost as the Rifftones with Jonathan Coulton performed "Plans 1-8."

  Similarly, although his short films played very well, Rich Kyanka stared at his feet and mumbled when Mike dragged him out onstage. I think he might have been impersonating David Blaine.

  Most likely, the lights onstage were exceedingly bright and our Riffers were simply blind, but Bill and Veronica hid it better than the others.

   I don't have a clue who that host woman is, but she gave off the air of "cheesy, attractive host who knows nothing about comedy." Veronica Belmont - apparently she hosts various technology and gaming shows, and has played Rock Band live with Jonathan Coulton. Fine, she knows technology and gaming. But she's not funny, or wasn't in this, and she gave the opening of the show an earnest cheesiness that seemed false and inappropriate.

  The other problem, arguably, would have been a host who tried too hard to be funny, that could have been terrible. Actually I'm not too sure what the Rifftrax guys could have done other than what they did. Arguably, all the pieces were in place.

  Jonathan Coulton is a huge name, and very talented, and so is Rich Kyanka [though I'm loath to admit it, his shorts were quite good]. Veronica Belmont apparently has quite a following as well.

   Here's the real problem for me.

   Doing this as a stage show, on a theater screen, I can't help but think we're watching the Brady Bunch Variety Hour version of MST3K .... in that MST3K had a fun and funky setup that really drew you in and gave a nice quirky feel to everything you were about to see.

  Here, the talent is the same and it's exactly as funny as you would expect from Mike, Kevin and Bill.

  However, the "wrapping" is just your standard cheesy stage show. Obviously I don't expect a live Rifftrax to visually be like an old puppet show set on a spaceship, and I've watched dozens of Rifftrax without being bothered ....

  It's the introductions here I'm complaining about, as they're not done in the humorous style we expect from Rifftrax .... They have a factual, nearly corporate feel to them rather than laid-back and funky. I sort of expected us to see something almost skitlike, with Mike being taunted about his love for bacon, or something.

  The MST3K format, back in the day, worked very well, taking breaks from the movie to do little skits and things. And the shadowrama worked better than the little glimpses of Mike, Kevin and Bill we got here, glad as I was to see them.

  What I would like to see is for Mike, Kevin and Bill to get a little looser and more comedic in these introductory segments .... to not just have some well-groomed woman come on and announce the players in a factual manner as if she's never heard of them before .... I'd like to see more banter, and for these segments to become funnier in their own right, while feeling more improvised and relaxed as well.

  Keep in mind that we people across the country, especially us poor tape delayed folk in California, are paying up to 14.50 to watch a Rifftrax, and we don't get to really see it live. It's rather like watching television, and it ought to be good television throughout, rather than be 95% good television with a few awkward hosting segments, which only remind us how good and relaxed the host segments were on that puppet show that one time. The format of the stage show just feels too generic and wrong to me, without the quirky edge that I would expect from Mike, Kevin and Bill.

   So, was it worth $14.50? Did I enjoy it? Yes, I enjoyed it, Plan 9 was riffed extremely well and I think Mike, Kevin and Bill accomplished all they wanted to accomplish here. The camerawork was very professional, and the special guests were huge names and performed exactly as you'd want them to. Whether they fit into the overall format is hard to say. The format itself felt generic and flat, with generic hosting by Veronica Belmont, and the event only worked 100% when Mike, Kevin and Bill were riffing the main feature. So there's still some room for improvement outside the Rifftrax itself. But considering the riffing of the main feature is most of the show, and exactly what you paid your $14.50 for, I must rate the show at 100%, since anything else must be considered a bonus. Occasionally the bonus materials hit 100% as well. It was nice to hear Jonathan Coulton sing his two familiar hits and Rich Kyanka's short films were surprisingly funny, though both Rich and Jonathan seemed to belong to another show perhaps. The iPod giveaway must have played great in one town in New York.

In conclusion:

All you of Earth are idiots! With your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!

[Piobman]

Here in Spokane... everything worked perfectly. No problems. Great show, great riffing... no complaints from me. Only thing I didn't feel added much was the images to the side with mike & co... seemed more distracting than a positive for me. Oh... and I could really have done without the audience shots. Not needed (I'm in one!). Can't wait for more of these to come! It was far better than I had expected.

[Hor-RIFF-ic Productions]

In Des Moines... had 2-3 drop outs during the short, and one more right before Plan 9 started, but none after that.  It was a great, enthusiastic crowd, and was very fun to be there!

[Otis]

"The colorization was interesting, about as well done as a colorization probably could be. I think for a film as silly as this, it's fine to see it colorized. However, the spaceman turning green when punched was an artistic flourish that shouldn't have been allowed."

Wait, it was in color? The whole show from start to finish was in black in white for us at the Marcus Cinema Crosswoods in Columbus, OH. Even the hosty bits.

[RockSiren]

Here in the Buffalo region, we did have to go home with refunds due to a storm