America the Beautiful: the National Forests Of Utah; Apogee: Life In Motion; Coral Sea Dreaming...An Evolving Balance

Scenic music videos, with a few exceptions, are fast becoming the equivalent of elevator music for the eyes. It's o.k. background stuff, but it doesn't really engage the forebrain. Case in point is the re-packaged 1991 piece America the Beautiful: The National Forests of Utah. Set to a background classical soundtrack featuring works by Rachmaninov, Gounod, and Adam, the video offers scenic footage of seven national parks, including Dixie and Fishlake. Unfortunately, the shots are held for nearly equal duration, making this less of an artistic video and more like an enhanced slide show.Apogee: Life in Motion, on the other hand, is a much more visually stimulating piece, with clever camera angles, time-lapse photography, and a few other special effects thrown in. Cinematographer Craig McCoury captures people, industry, nightlife, and wildlife in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, San Francisco, Seattle, and Oregon. Each of the eleven sequences on the film are set to an original New Age-like score by McCoury. While there's neither the artistic nor the narrative mastery found in Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi or Powaqatsi (the obvious inspirations for Apogee), the video has enough breakneck time-lapse photography to please thrill-seekers and enough variety in locations to keep general audiences interested.For a look down under Down Under, Coral Sea Dreaming...an Evolving Balance offers some of the finest underwater cinematography around. Cited "Best Nature Video of 1993" at the U.S. International Film & Video Festival, this wondrously colorful view of the flora and fauna on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, set to a New Age score by Tania Rose, captures sea turtles swimming, sea grass swinging in the ocean current breezes, and a fish which goes into a bigger fish's mouth to perform dental assistant work, removing unsightly plaque buildup and eating any leftover bits (perhaps of brothers and sisters) which are stuck to the palate. An informative glossy booklet lets viewers know a little bit more about what they're seeing and about the Great Barrier Reef, in general. Four years in the making, Coral Sea Dreaming, like the abovementioned Apogee, doesn't really invoke a story the way that Reggio/Glass collaborations have done; still, the imagery is simply breathtaking, and it's sure a major improvement on Video Aquarium.America the Beautiful: The National Forests of Utah is not a necessary purchase. Apogee: Life in Motion is recommended for larger music video collections. Coral Sea Dreaming...an Evolving Balance is highly recommended. (R. Pitman)