The Water Cycle

1981, 40 minutes, 1” C-format master
Stereo music by Karl Jenkins and Mike Ratledge, previously of Soft Machine.

Thorn EMI commissioned The Water Cycle in 1981 as a launch album for their new consumer videodisc system called VHD. Unfortunately the system was never released to the UK public.

The video is in seven sections based around the theme of the journey of water through its natural ecological cycle:

1. Sea
2. Evaporation
3. Clouds
4. Rain
5. Seepage
6. Run-off
7. Sea

The sections are designed to form a whole programme or can be viewed separately as small themes on their own (the discs would have provided random access)

Donebauer initiated the overall concept and production process and specified the timings and feel for the various sections. The musicians then created a base electronic rhythm track whilst video material was being shot on location. The basis visual material was then processed and pre-mixed synchronous to this rhythm track.

The musicians tracked this visual process and worked in their own studio to build up a soundtrack in sections. The video was then mixed and edited to the expanded soundtrack. The musicians then added final musical elements to their sixteen-track master, mixed down to a final stereo master and laid this back to the video.

Apparently simple now, this process was pushing state of the art technology to synchronise these elements together so precisely at that time. In the commercial world it was more usual then to edit video to existing music as in pop promos than create them together in this way.