Phil Collins-A Life Less Ordinary (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Animation Scene Selection Animation Interviews-Cast-Phil, Genesis Musicians & Crew, Friends & Colleagues, Family
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	60:29
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4,6	Directed By	Corinne Bishop
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Phil Collins Tony Banks Mike Rutherford Peter Gabriel
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Phil Collins

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	German English Spanish French Italian Dutch	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Phil Collins makes an interesting study as a rock star. Actually the antithesis of the "rock star" mould, he shuns fame and prides himself in remaining a "genuine bloke" and a family man. Yet despite a knock-about larrikin character ill-befitting a rock star, Phil Collins became well known, respected and admired by a global audience. In fact, his success was to escalate to a point where everything he recorded and released became a hit. By the time of the "No Jacket Required" album, he could do no wrong and his music became ubiquitous throughout the 1980s. As a consequence of the music having permeated the rock and pop charts for such a prolonged period of time, both with Genesis and also as a solo artist hand-in-hand, Phil Collins' popularity quickly waned over the early 1990s. Now, much of his audience has suffered "Phil Collins overload", with the 1980s material having been played to death both on the home stereo and on the radio. For many of us, it is now almost impossible to listen to songs like Sussudio, Invisible Touch or You Can't Hurry Love, without inwardly groaning at the over-familiarity of the material and the nauseatingly squeaky clean 1980s production values. It is indeed a pity that songs and albums recognised as defining and influential works in the development of 1980s rock and pop were to be so overused. Whilst much of the audience may now proclaim to have "moved on" and be "over" this music, still surprisingly very little is known about the life and career of its very talented creator.

    The first thing you quickly come to appreciate while watching this documentary is that it was not through luck or chance that Phil Collins attained his superstardom. The overriding attributes and adjectives that come to the fore are: hard work, versatility, honesty, talent, and a "great guy". This is a man who has had more than his fair share of personal setbacks in life; most of them ironically enough the direct consequence of his aspiring musical career and the side-effects of a public life. But with all this behind him, the documentary portrays a man who, looking back in his 50's, is finally able to be comfortable and content in his life.

    If you think you already know the story of Phil Collins, I would say think again until you have seen this documentary. It is a very well produced and well edited BBC documentary, piecing together new and very candid interviews with Phil Collins himself, various family members, all members of Genesis, and other music peers and associates. All interviewees are frank and revealing.

    For Genesis fans, this documentary also serves to give great insight into the development of the band, from the early days when a very young replacement drummer named Phil Collins was first auditioned and recruited, through the times of Peter Gabriel's increasingly bizarre live theatrics that eventually overtook the music on stage, to the inevitable departure of Peter Gabriel, through the change in the band dynamics and resulting wider commercial success as a direct result of Phil Collins reluctantly stepping in as front man. The documentary is very interesting and revealing from a Genesis perspective.

Video

    The DVD is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    This is a recent, high quality BBC production, shot with modern equipment. The image is razor sharp, with resolution and shadow detail excellent and a complete absence of any low level noise. This is interspersed with various pieces of archival footage, including home video footage of Phil Collins when he was a little boy, videotaped concert footage of early Genesis with Peter Gabriel, and videotaped concert footage taken during the later Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance tours with Genesis. All of these source materials are of lesser quality; the first one understandably so given it is dated home video footage, the earlier Genesis concert footage also being excusable, given the rarity of it, however the later Genesis concert tour footage is disappointing for its unexpectedly grainy and poor quality image. Still, as these materials are all only used sparingly in quick cuts, and the feature remains 90% high quality newly shot interview footage, this is hardly problematic.

    Colour is exemplary in the new material. All colours are perfectly saturated and the blacks in the backgrounds remain rock solid. Skin tones are also spot on. I did notice one or two interview settings with an overtly yellow palette, tending to throw out the skin tones as a result. However this would appear to have been a deliberate stylistic decision, no doubt done with the intent of trying to "mix up the look" of the footage - perhaps a bit obviously. In any event, this is no fault of the transfer, which faithfully renders all colours across the spectrum. Colouring in some of the archival footage is a bit washed-out at the source level.

    There are absolutely no MPEG artefacts, no film-to-video artefacts and no film artefacts in the newly recorded footage - a simply stunning transfer. There are some notable source artefacts in the archival footage, as you would expect from the nature of the dated, amateur and rare videotaped material.

    Six subtitle languages are provided. The English stream is perfectly accurate, well timed and is presented in a clear, easy to read font.

    The disc is RSDL formatted, but the layer change is thoughtfully placed in between the extras, so does not disrupt the feature.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

    Like the video transfer, the audio transfer also benefits from being a modern, high quality production.

    The audio track is a Dolby Digital 2.0 mix (at 224 kb/s) - perfectly sufficient for this feature.

    The mix is 2 channel and music is mixed across the front mains, however given the very high dialogue content of this feature, the Dolby ProLogic decoder puts the dialogue squarely into the centre channel and the soundstage remains very front-centre weighted.

    Dialogue quality is crystal clear and strong for all interviewees. Audio sync is fine.

    The songs that are mixed into the soundtrack are all sourced from remastered recordings and are clean and clear (the occasional live concert excerpt not so). The transfer exhibits a good dynamic range.

    Subwoofer use is nominal - it is simply not called upon.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
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Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
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Menu

Additional Interview footage

• "Phil" (39:01):  Phil Collins was interviewed on three separate occasions for this DVD and here are the three interviews. He is surprisingly open and candid throughout, even about intimate personal details. The interviews make for fascinating viewing in their entirety.
  When selecting this extras option, a menu screen opens up allowing you a choice of accessing one of seven different sub-topics directly (note these are simply chapter markers - actually there are many more sub-topics discussed) or of more use you can select a handy "Play All" option.
• "Genesis, Musicians and Crew" (22:59):  Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford were interviewed together and Peter Gabriel separately. Then there are interviews with other musicians and crew who have worked and toured with Phil. They provide some interesting anecdotes and insight into a man who was clearly a workaholic and even an obsessive to work with, but also a work colleague who was genuine and down to earth.
  The menu screen that opens up here allows you to choose from the five sets of interviewees directly. Annoyingly though, there is no "Play All" option this time.
• "Friends and Colleagues" (12:30):  Five more interviewees, being peers in the music and acting world. By far the most interesting and worthwhile of these is the interview with the disarmingly frank Bob Geldof - a man who pulls no punches and is always interesting to hear from. I must say though I found the other four interviews starting to get pretty boring and repetitive from here; they don't seem to add anything more meaningful over and above what has been disclosed in the feature.
  The menu screen that opens up here allows you to choose from the five interviewees directly. Again, there is no "Play All" option.
• "Family" (20:17):  These interviews with close family members start to become intensely personal, to the point where I started to feel like I was prying into someone's personal life. It is admirable that the family members felt so comfortable in opening up and discussing their personal feelings for the public to see, but I think we got enough of a feel for this in the feature and didn't really need to see all this material in its entirety.

    The DVD boasts a faultless video and audio transfer, apart from the odd poorer archival footage.

Video
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Extras
Plot
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