NTERVIEW WITH THE MELISSA ETHERIDGE INFORMATION NETWORK
from 2002

You are a very renowned person in the DVD creative field and founder of Zuma Digital. Can you tell us a bit about how you got started in the industry?

I went to Bennington College in Vermont and at Bennington I was exposed to new media production through the New Media Centers, which were a consortium of computer and technology companies that granted equipment to schools to start production facilities. Mostly those schools were big huge universities and mine was little ‘ole Bennington with like 350 people. Having no previous experience, I fell accidentally into new media production. I was a mathematics, sculpture and philosophy of science major. I was interested in design and sculpture, and maybe continuing my studies in science. I basically fell into new media production at Bennington and I made a few products for Bennington. Friends from those projects started a company that closed soon after college, but I was first exposed to DVD in 1996. I found a partner to start Zuma Digital, which was founded in 1997. Zuma became 25 people, one of the leading firms in the industry. We basically specialized in entertainment type products: movies and music projects, such as this product for Melissa, business applications of DVD and new media, and we also did a lot of work in the fine art and museum community. For example, we did Yoko Ono’s retrospective of her fine artwork. I have worked in all kinds of industries and on all kinds of projects. Some of my favorite consumer projects before were the “Lou Reed: Rock&Roll Heart” documentary DVD for American Masters, which won a Grammy for Best Long Form Music Video, the “Jennifer Lopez: Feelin’ So Good” project, which was a TV program on DVD. The biggest project I have ever done is for “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within,” last year, which has won many, many awards. It actually recently won another award for best special features, which was very exciting.

The creative and physical power of the DVD is so huge and is such an art form at this point, can you describe some of the programming intricacies that go into producing a DVD, especially in relation to the project you worked on with Melissa?

This project was actually very interesting from a DVD prospective because it utilizes almost every possible feature, or bells and whistles if you will, of the DVD format. There is a high quality main film program. Generally, a DVD is built around a jewel of the film on the disc. In this case, as opposed to the Lou Reed and Jennifer Lopez projects - both of which were video captured projects - this is a film-captured project, just like a feature film expect, it’s a music project. That in and of itself is quite a feature. The main program is presented with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound so that is a theater-like presentation of the audio in surround sound, which was mixed in Los Angeles and put together by some great audio production engineers and houses. There is also an uncompressed stereo track of the [“Live…and Alone”] concert, basically equivalent to what you would get with a CD audio disc. With the film there is also a third audio track, which is Melissa’s commentary. Her commentary runs the length of the concert film and was recorded here in Los Angeles. The commentary is basically Melissa’s reflections on the film, the music, the concert, life, art and everything in between. On Disc One there is also two multi-angle segments. Basically, on DVD there is the capability to have multiple camera angles, or in this case multiple angles of the film shots available, so that the user can switch between them. There are two songs, “All American Girl” and “Scarecrow,” which the user can switch between three angles each and get different views of Melissa’s performance. Each disc also has a Web link on it. There are about 100 million households in TV land and 20 million or more of them have DVD-ROM computers that they watch movies on. For those people, on both discs, there is the added feature of a Web link, which will connect them directly to Melissa’s website online and allow them to watch the movie on their computer. Then there is Disc Two, which has all the special features. The really cool interactive feature on disc two is the tour diary, which visits 11 locations in the U.S. and Europe and the viewers get to travel along with Melissa. Each city is introduced by a title card that shows the path of the tour and the cities that Melissa visited. It shows how many days they traveled and gives some interesting factoids, such as how many bottles of water Melissa drank and how many bagels the crew ate. So, as you go along you are able to select and visit the tour in different cities and get information about each city. There is a beautiful map of the U.S. and Europe that lets you select each of the different cities along the tour route. It is really neat because you get to see every city that is visited on the tour. Everyone at home that saw the concert in their city will be able to sit back, and even if there isn’t a documentary segment recorded in their city - because there are only 11 cities where that was done - every city is represented on the map. People will be able to see their city light up and the other names of the cities where the tour traveled. On disc two there is also a 35-minute interview with Melissa, which was shot and produced by Michael Simon who was the director and producer of the concert film and all of the bonus film footage that is on the DVD. During the interview Melissa discusses every topic that you can imagine. There are two tour bonus songs which are video montages of “Yes I Am” and “Dance Without Sleeping,” both recorded in different cities. I think that “Dance Without Sleeping” was recorded in Amsterdam and “Yes I Am” was recorded in Atlanta. So these two songs are bonus video film clips that will be available on disc two.


What are some other rare and special features included on the DVD that you can tell us about?

There are two video clips – one of which is a rare 1987 solo club performance. Melissa found an old VHS tape of her performing in a club here in Los Angeles in 1987. It is very old and quaint quality audio and video, but it is a rare look at Melissa performing before the big record days. As a counter point to the “Live…and Alone” show, there is a 5-minute performance piece recorded in 2002 at the Roxy in Los Angles, right after the “Live…and Alone” tour, where Melissa is performing with her band. Another neat feature is that DVD has the capability for what is called high-resolution audio, or 24 bit/96 kilohertz high-resolution audio, which is basically about twice the quality of a normal CD and the rest of the audio that’s on the disc. Actually, I wouldn’t exactly say quality, I would say twice the audio resolution, because it is not necessarily higher quality, it’s just that more of the information in the music is actually able to be captured on the DVD. Along with her greatest hits, there are also the two bonus songs, “Alive” and “The Weakness In Me.” As far as I understand, this is the only place that these two songs will be. To wrap up the disc there is a complete discography so that you can go through all the screens of the discography, music videos, singles and albums. Again, there is a Web link on this, too. Each of the discs has a small little video intro before the main menu. When you put in disc one it goes right into the concert, which is generally how DVD’s are done - you put in the disc and it starts playing the movie. This is an important point, because to everyone working on the project, this was treated as a film project just as much as a music project.


There will be a deluxe version of the DVD along with a standard edition – what are the differences between the two?

Yes, there are two versions of the DVD and for me it will be interesting to see because basically the difference between the two is that the 2 disc deluxe edition is just packed with special features. The single disc version is basically just the concert film with a little tiny bit of special features. The really cool thing on the standard edition is “The Weakness In Me” 24bit/96KHz bonus song that is included. It is on the double disc edition as well, but it is a nice bonus feature on the single disc. Basically, the single disc is for people who just want to view the concert and are not necessarily interested in all the special features. Though the single disc version of the concert does include some of the documentary footage interwoven throughout. The single disc is a little less expensive as well. The deluxe edition has a second disc, which includes all the bonus features, plus additional bonus features included on disc one.


You have worked on such a wide range of projects, from entertainment to business and museum clients, what are some of the different and unique challenges you face putting together a DVD for rock n’ roll musicians like Melissa?

Certainly one of the challenges when working in music is the audio quality and the attention that has to be paid to it. The entire team of people - from the producer and director of the film, to Melissa’s recording and mixing engineers that she has worked with in the past and quality control consultants like Cheryl Engels from Partial Productions - basically all work together to ensure that the absolute highest quality audio presentation of the content is included on the DVD. Also, making sure at every stage along the production process that the highest quality is kept and anything that can be done to improve the quality is enhanced at every point. The other factor is the look of it. I think the DVD, from a visual perspective, is going to be a really fun, fresh exciting look at Melissa. In a larger sense as well, an exciting look at a rock musician – any rock musician - from what it is like on tour and what it takes to put it all together. As far as performances go, what an amazingly powerful performance is captured and recorded on the concert film! In presenting all of that, basically, my job is to create the wrapper and presentation. It is about keeping the quality and enhancing the experience at every point. So we spend a lot of time in design and a lot of back and forth with Melissa and her team achieving the design direction for the menus and special features that they felt personified the music on the DVD. That is something that is very different in comparison to working on a film project where generally it is much more marketing department driven. The menus on a feature film DVD are often driven by the box art, or the poster art, or the billboard art for a movie and in this case there was an opportunity for a much wider palette for the menus and the interactivity and the DVD aspect of the project. You have the chance to really enhance and add a whole new layer to the film and the music itself.

You’ve touched on your role as development and creative director for the “Live…and Alone” DVD, can you describe for the fans exactly what your role was in putting together this project?
Sure. It’s interesting because I think that for a lot of average DVD users it would be hard to imagine what my role is. I think that there is an assumption that you make some video tapes of all the stuff that you want on the DVD and someone somewhere types up all the stuff that they on the menus and it goes into some magical computer process whereby it becomes a DVD which looks beautiful, functions properly and is compatible with all of the players where it is going to be used by consumers. At the end of the day, it is an incredibly intricate process of combining the creative and technical vision of everybody involved to the best ability of the delivery format, which in this case is the DVD-Video. The best way I have ever heard to describe my role is that of a media architect. If you hire a builder to build you a house the lights will work and the plumbing will function, but it will look like everybody else’s house. On the other hand if you hire an architect the lights and plumbing still work, but you have a unique presentation of your vision. My job is to do that with the media that ends up on the disc. So, often times, on other projects I am originating some of the media, but in this case I was crafting the media that had been produced by Michael Simon – the producer and director- and putting the visual wrapper around the DVD in terms of the menus and interactivity and the functionality – plus making sure that it is easy for people to use. Melissa’s fans aren’t necessarily looking to play a video game, but they are probably looking to learn more about Melissa, the tour, and the music. To do that they navigate menus and we want to make sure it is a fun process, an easy process, an intuitive process. That is really what my job is – to guide the design, the look and feel, the functionality and to mesh that with the technical requirements of the format.


At the beginning of this project, what were some of the first creative, technical and logistical issues that you discussed in putting together a project of this magnitude for Melissa?

In all cases, I think that DVD’s are 90% pre-production and organization. We tried to spend a lot of time doing that. Basically, I sat down with Bill Leopold, Melissa’s manager, and Michael Simon, the producer and director, and we talked about what was available – what had been shot, what could be edited, what was high quality. I told them a little bit about what was possible on DVD and what consumers really liked to see. There was an interesting USA Today article a few weeks back and it talked about the most popular extras that people want to see on DVD. Basically, what it said was that deleted scenes are the favorites, behind-the-scenes documentaries are second, and interviews with the cast are third. I tried to present to Bill and Michael what consumers are looking for in general and then they told me what Melissa’s fans would want in particular to see. Then we started to craft what the feature specification of the DVD was going to be and basically from that initial feature specification, we started to first work with Melissa to see if she had anything to add to it – If she had any different ideas about the presentation. She has been very supportive and very available. Steven Girmant, her tour manager, is super and has been wonderful facilitating the process. Basically, we would post things online for Melissa and we sent DVD’s to her on tour which are basically sort of rough-cut versions of what we were working on and we would get comments back via e-mail. We were able to roll those into new versions of what we were building and refine the process as we moved along and refine it in the very early stages so that by the time all of the film was being edited and all of the menus were being built, we had a perfectly clear idea of how it was going to come together. We did a lot of prototyping early on , putting little bits and pieces of the DVD together so that everybody could see what it was going to feel like in the end. That is something that you don’t necessarily get to do very often, because DVD’s (whether they are music or film) are usually driven by the movie studio or the record label. One of the wonderful things about this project, and all of my other favorite projects that I have been involved with, is that it was driven by the artist. It was Melissa’s idea to shoot the film in the first place. She worked with Michael to film it. It has been driven by her vision and I think of my job as protecting, sheparding and producing that vision for the format. That is something that doesn’t happen necessarily when it is driven by the label say, or by a studio, not that they don’t have a sensitivity to the artist, but they have a different business need that they are looking after, which is the bottom line of their company.


In terms of maintaining a sensitivity to an artist’s body of work, what are the main challenges you face as creative director and how specifically did you make sure to remain true to Melissa’s artistry?

One thing that I did was get everything that she has ever put out and I sat down with my designer – I have a wonderful designer who I’ve worked with on this project, whose name is Henry Steingeiser. Henry is an amazing designer here in Los Angeles and we looked through everything that Melissa has ever released and we looked through the concert. The concert really drives the direction of the DVD. To us the concert film - both in the content, the presentation, the visuals, the colors, the timing and the pace - was a key direction in terms of where to go design-wise. So, we really let Melissa’s performance drive our creative process. Having her input was absolutely essential. Basically, we kept some of the elements that have been consistent and that can be thought of as the “Melissa Etheridge brand.” She has a typeface she uses, for instance, called twang, and that is the main typeface that we used throughout. She has a color palette that has been used in the past which has often been monochromatic at times and we tried to take that and add to it a bit from the presentation of the film, which was a little more colorful. We tried to keep that gritty, lusty, sexy look that she has always had and expand on it with something that was a little bit more colorful and bright and optimistic and cheerful and reminiscent of the concert experience. We laid everything out - I still to this day have it pictured up on my wall here in my office because I am designing the packaging of the DVD as well. So as I design the packaging and work with my designer on the menus of the DVD - I keep the old things out, along with the new proofs and I make sure that we’re not only keeping the recognizable brand attributes from a marketing stand point, but make sure to remember the visual and instinctual cues that people use when looking at a photo. I was looking through the LA Weekly a few weeks ago flipping through the pages, for example, not even paying attention and boom! Melissa just jumped out. I didn’t even see the image, but I knew. We tried to keep those elements and to let it merge with what people experienced at the concerts, which was a very eclectic, bright, colorful and emotional performance.


Can you describe your collaboration with Michael Simon, the producer and director, in coming up with the finished product?

Michael is responsible for all of the film elements, so basically Michael is the producer and director and is responsible for the editorial and delivery of all of the film elements that are on the disc - which are the concert itself, the documentary elements of the tour diary, the interview, the bonus songs - that kind of thing. Basically, again, early on we talked about what was available and crafted a feature spec based on that. As we moved along it was a very collaborative effort where we both worked together to ensure that the process was quality assured. One of the most important things in DVD production is that there are so many steps to the process and having an error 5 stages back can compound time and money a month later in a way that you could never imagine. So, there was a lot of back and forth where we would just call each other and say, “Is this what you were exactly meaning?” Of course language is a difficult tool, so we e-mailed back and forth we drew pictures, I made demos and he made rough cuts and basically we used all of the tools – language, drawings, media production - to refine and assure the quality of the process as we went along. Of course, Michael had some pretty strong visions for the interactive elements - like the map on the tour diary. It was essential to him that every city was represented and that every city’s name came up on the map. He had a real artistic vision for how the map would function and how it would look, so we tried to take all of that into account as we designed it. Basically, I am the hinge or valve from what happens upstream of me, which is Melissa’s performance, the recording and production of the elements and what happens downstream, which is the package and the technical presentation of the content. So, it is my job to constantly be going back and forth between folks upstream from me – Melissa, Michael, Bill Leopold - and make sure their needs are met and that they are clear on what the deliverables are and what their responsibilities are because when they get a DVD back from me they have to have comments on it so that we can promptly get them into the new version. It was important that everybody’s comments were heard and all of the small changes were made so that we could as much as possible make a perfect DVD.


When was the fist time that you met with Melissa and can you describe your collaboration?

I met with her at the recording of the commentary track and pretty soon after she left out on tour. So we collaborated via Fed Ex and posting images on the Web and e-mail and through Steven, who was just absolutely wonderful and essential at making things happen and bringing it all together. We were able to work back and forth, which was really wonderful because having the artist’s involvement is such a powerful, driving force. It’s almost like when you look at the final product you can just taste it, you can feel it, you can tell that their hand was personally involved. It is wonderful when you are working on a project and you have that because it drives your enthusiasm everyday. I know how much Bill, Michael and Melissa – the folks upstream from me – appreciate my role in sort of easing their technical challenges, whatever those were.


When you were first approached for this project had you known of Melissa’s music and what was your first reaction upon meeting her?

To be honest, despite my work in the media industry, I am a very media and technically removed person in my personal life. I haven’t had a television for twelve years. I don’t really buy music of much any kind. I had certainly heard of Melissa Etheridge the performer and heard of her songs. The thing for me that immediately drew me into the project was - my first exposure to the project to meeting Melissa, Michael and Bill – was when I went to the recording of the commentary track. I showed up there and it was in session already and Melissa was in the studio. I saw her through the glass wall and she was watching the concert and it was the first time I was watching the concert. It was probably the first time I would have to bet that I have ever seen Melissa Etheridge perform and what an amazing performer! From where I was sitting I couldn’t even hear the music because it was playing in the recording booth in her headphones. We were in the studio on the other side of the glass. Just watching her perform onstage, by herself, in a giant theater with every single person in the crowd completely enraptured with no place else that they could think of being except right there in that moment at that time with Melissa performing was amazing. Coupled with hearing her talk about it so honestly and plainly was truly amazing as well. I have produced a lot of commentary tracks for a lot of artists, but few of them with the sincerity, and the honesty and the simplicity of Melissa. She was just sitting there and some of the things that she would say off-hand - just honestly, completely heartfelt about herself, about the world, about her performance about the film – the kind of thing that a normal human being would offer in a conversation about something, but in no way the kind of thing you are accustomed to hearing a star performer be so honest and heartfelt about. I was completely blown away. That day I got to take the concert home and I watched it that night and it was probably the first time I had heard eighty percent of the songs that were on there. For me, the thing that I love about music is that I love story songs, and Melissa is such a great storyteller. So, for me I really started to enjoy the music and just watching the performance. To this day, I am blown away by Melissa Etheridge - the performer. She is not just a talented singer and a songwriter and musician, but a performer. It is amazing watching the film. It is very compelling to me.


Would you say Melissa as performer is what you find most compelling about her as an artist after having spent so much time on this project?

Yes, absolutely. Her ability to command a performance and to emote, to have an emotional connection with the crowd, which is certainly something in modern music that is more or less often totally lacking, is amazing. It is something that must be incredibly difficult to achieve. Then the other thing I thought about after the fact was that she was being filmed and recorded. I was looking at the behind-the-scenes photos after the fact from the concert and three feet away from her is this guy with a huge camera sticking it in her face like right on-stage, totally in her way. You can’t tell. She is totally comfortable. She is clearly not performing for the camera; she is performing for the crowd. Watching her connection with her fans is amazing. Even without the sound, it was just clearly evident – not even knowing the music as a total outsider as if I was deaf – just watching it you could tell just looking at it, just seeing Melissa perform, seeing the crowd respond and the way Michael captured it on film – it’s very compelling.


What are some of your favorite segments from the DVD?

Well, for me as a DVD producer of course a lot of times I like the things that are a lot of hard work that come together really well. So, for me, the tour diary is one of my favorite parts of the DVD because it combines a lot of things - Michael’s documentary, the really cool design of the DVD and fun factoids. You know it is hard work to figure out how many bagels the crew ate at every stop along the way. Those are the kind of things that I have to do as a producer that I don’t think people necessarily realize. That I would have to one day sit down at an Excel spreadsheet and figure out how many bagels the crew ate each day so that you can plug it all in and figure out that before the time they reached Berlin, they ate 13,000 bagels, or however many it was. So, that to me is really cool. Being able to include the 24bit/96KHz audio is cool as well just because it is very rarely used and, in this case, a very well used technical feature on the DVD. The two bonus tracks were exquisitely performed, produced, arranged, composed, recorded, mixed, mastered and delivered. To be able to be involved with this level of quality for me is always just a wonderful experience. It is not everyday that everyone in the process is not just interested in, but totally committed to delivering the absolute best quality that is possible. Also, it is not just technical overkill and bells and whistles. You could have something be 24bit/96KHz and not necessarily have it be good, but in this case it takes advantage of the capability and it’s meaningful. The merging of the creative and the technical is meaningful. Again to Melissa and her management to Michael Simon the producer and director - this is a film project - just like any of the great concert films, the great performance films and the great documentary productions about musicians and performers.


What would you say makes you most proud about the finished product?

I think that a product should not be judged by the highest quality that it has reached, but by the unfortunate lowest point that it may have reached. And for me maybe that is because I am a producer and I talk to a lot of people and they usually say people don’t even notice, but I actually think that people do notice. And for me the thing that I am the most proud of is that there is a consistent level of quality throughout everything on the DVD. You don’t go from watching the concert to navigating the menus and feel like you’re watching, or having a different experience. It all feels seamlessly part of the same experience because it is all produced with a consistent level of high quality. To me that is what I am most proud of because I feel like if I am going to be judged by this, by the lowest quality unfortunate issue that may have slipped in there, it is a pretty high bar. I would like to add that Bill Leopold is such an amazing person to bring all these things together. It’s really cutting edge what they are doing. And not just cutting edge technically, it is cutting edge marketing, it is cutting edge performance, it’s cutting edge media savvy, and Bill has been very steadfast in supporting the process along the way. And unfortunately, so often in situations such as these, I don’t want to call it a battle, but it is definitely not a collaboration, which was not the case here. For me, I come from the fine art world and I dream of collaboration and he has been the catalyst that has helped everyone collaborate on this project. I again don’t necessarily know a lot of managers either, I hope to meet a lot more now that I have started working out here, but if they could all be like him that would be great. Bill should be recognized for the way that he has contributed and sheparded the project through what will be years - from the idea to the shoot and Melissa’s performance, to the film, DVD, TV and beyond – to carry it all the way through and to have the vision come together was amazing on his part. Again, it is not a computer driven process it is a human driven process.


After working directly with Melissa and having met her, what is it that you most admire about her as a person apart from Melissa the performer?

It has certainly been fun to meet her and I certainly look forward to it more because she seems so honest. I watched her at this marketing meeting where the DVD and the marketing plan were introduced to the label. She came in at 10:30 in the morning and performed a song to like 35 people in the marketing and sales and production department at her music label. It was pretty hard for me to imagine a lot of other performers being eager to do that. Then afterwards she went around and spent a good half hour seeing everyone and meeting everyone and she wasn’t in a rush at all. She was just totally honest. I am from the East Coast and kind of think of myself as something of a small town person, or at least someone who dreams of small town life, and I work in the media industry and it is pretty rough and tumble. It is Hollywood and it is the music industry and it’s money and everything else. To be able to have any connection and be a part of a project where you are getting to work with someone whose just so honest, so straightforward, so true where you feel like when she shakes your hand and looks you in the eye and says she appreciates it and says, ‘thank you’ in a way that you know she totally means it has been really wonderful for me. I don’t necessarily know so many stars and performers – but it is hard for me to imagine that they are all so wonderful.


Melissa recently told M.E.I.N. that the DVD was made specifically for the fans. That really comes across?

Bill and Melissa call it “The Greatest Hits,” which, in being able to go through her past discography, this is “The Greatest Hits.” If you are a Melissa fan it is all here on disc ready to go - the best possible quality, presentation that you could possibly hope for.