MTV May Run Junior's Video

A video made by a Harvard junior may debut this week on MTV, furnishing millions of Americans with the images they will associate with a new group's first album, record company officials said yesterday.

John H. Lindauer '88 spent more than a month filming the group, the Newcity Rockers, and using animation and microfilming techniques to create the three-minute video, which MTV is now considering as a companion for the group's song, "Black Dog."

Spokesmen for Critique Records, the Newcity Rockers' label, said that MTV would decide today whether to run the North House resident's video, which shows scenes of the band performing, computer graphic displays, and brief sequences relating to the song's lyrics.

"I think the video is brilliant," said David Salidor, publicist for Critique Records. He said he was "absolutely sure" that MTV would accept the video for airplay.

Lindauer, who impressed Critique Records with demonstration tapes, originally submitted the finished video early this month to the record company. Critique then endorsed it and sent it to the music television company.

"It's very likely that it was an accident, or a turn of fate that I was chosen," Lindauer said. "Bob Rivers, the record producer, told me that my stuff was real 'crash, bang, boom,' and said that was what they were looking for," he said. He refused to state how much money he will receive for the video.

The video features special effects created by such animation techniques as rotoscoping, which involves manually tracing hundreds of filmed frames, and also sophisticated microfilming processes.

"I'm pretty sure some of the techniques had not yet been used extensively at Harvard in the VES Department," Lindauer said. He described the time he spent on the video as "a very educational period. I worked over 16 hours a day for any entire month."

But Lindauer said the skills he learned in Visual and Environmental Studies courses had been a great help in making the video. He cited courses taught by Dennis Pies, whom he said used to be a professor of Visual and Environmental Studies, and Steven Eagle, a former Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies, as particularly applicable to his video work.

Lindauer said that he collaborated with Eagle on certain limited portions of the video that will accompany the Newcity Rockers' remake of "Black Dog," which was originally written and performed by Led Zeppelin.

Said Salidor: "John is going to be in high demand very quickly. I only hope we'll be able to afford him."