Thank you OhMadonna for this wonderful explanation.
When the tour film first came out I don´t liked it that much but now I love it.
MDNA Tour is my favorite Madonna tour of them all.
Her biggest artistic masterpiece for me.
The journey of a soul from darkness to light was incredible <3
It is now a wide shared opinion that the official MDNA Tour film is nothing more than wasted potential. Horribly edited, color saturation turned up the max, over edited vocals, added crowd reactions taking away from the performance. All things that are accurate. However, many fans only complain about the shortcomings of the film. In reality, we should feel lucky it turned out the way that it did. Join me on the long journey it took to get the MDNA Tour on film.
Background
The MDNA Tour was the ninth concert tour undertaken by Madonna in support of her twelfth studio album, MDNA. The tour was one of Madonna's largest and most intricate performances to date. Played in predominately stadiums in Europe and South America, and mostly in arenas in North America, the tour was a critical and commercial success. The show did find some controversy for the usage of firearms in the performance, Madonna flashing her breasts, and accusations of lip syncing. Madonna did not let this deter her and she gave 110% each and every night.
The Initial Film Plan
It was decided early on that the team wanted to film at least part of the show during the July 14 stop of the tour in Paris at the Stade de France. Indeed, crane cameras and hand held cameras found their way inside the stadium. However, deciding to film the show here created a scenario rarely used in modern concert film production; it was one night only show. Usually, the selection of the venue to film a concert goes to venues that will be getting the show for multiple nights in order to make sure the show is completely captured and there is footage to fall back on should something in one show go wrong. So the filming here as you can see was strange. The show in Paris went off mostly without hitch (and even included the nipple flash from M) and the crowd was mostly into it. However, the footage that was captured didn't suit Madonna completely. Some rumors say that she felt the footage was shot from too far away and that not enough of the performance and energy on stage was captured in the footage. So, the choice was made to cut this footage and start from scratch.
South America? Yes! No!
Madonna found incredible success with the filming of her Sticky & Sweet Tour in Argentina. It is a very well known fact that crowds in South America are some of the most energetic in the world. Madonna planned to film the first two shows of the South American leg and her first ever shows in Columbia. It was all perfect. Amazing crowd. Beautiful stadium. Incredible show. Except...the director that M so desperately wanted to film the show was unavailable to shoot in Columbia. So, instead of not using the team she wanted, she decided to axe the filming in Columbia and looked for another place to film. However, cranes were placed in the stadium in Buenos Aires for extra crowd shots.
Miami Life Saver
Madonna decided to film the last two shows in the US at the American Airlines Arena in Miami on November 19th and 20th. The venue is a mid-size arena (not a small arena, but far the biggest arena she brought the show to) and the arena always looks great on film. So, all the equipment was loaded in. The shows were sold out and the crowds in Miami usually promised to be energetic. However, on the 19th, Madonna was much later arriving on stage than usual and by the time the show began, there were very noticeable empty patches in the venue. The same happened the following night. While the show footage that was captured was exactly what M wanted, the empty spaces and lack of energy by the third act of the show rendered much of the Miami footage unusable.
A Brilliant Solution
Faced with the issue of having two less than satisfactory shoots, less than a month left in the tour and no time to organize another shoot. It was time for M and her team to make a choice. Which footage was going to be used in the final film? After some deliberation...obviously it was decided that they would blend the footage of the two shoots and throw in some of the club show for good measure. That is what we ended up with.
So, my point? Maybe we should all spend less time picking out the faults of the DVD and just be grateful that we even got one.
fernando2 got a reaction from Zaktkoons in What songs do you want to hear on tour?
