Two observations from opening night of the Dallas Video Festival.

1) Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation was actually a lot more fun that I expected it to be. Sure, the video and sound quality are horrible, but you have to remember that this was filmed by a bunch of 10 year olds with early 80s equipment. What really made the experience fun was seeing how these inventive kids worked around obvious problems with re-creating the original. No bi-plane to fly away in for the opening scene? Just substitute a motor boat. The substitution of the family dog for the date-eating monkey is priceless. And the stop-motion animation style of filming the iconic red line tracing Indy’s globe-trotting provoked spontaneous applause from the crowd. It was ingenuity at its best.

2) Only eight of us ventured in to watch German music videos (hey — that’s double the number in the theater at the start of the screening!), but those of us who did got to watch stuff we likely wouldn’t have seen anywhere else. And that’s one of the real benefits of having festivals like DVF in our back yard. I may never sit and watch another German music video in my life, but at least I can now say that I have. My mind was expanded a little last night.