Gotten Over It

What happens when the protagonist in Manwa Re gets a life and rocks out.

TUM HANS DIYAY is the upcoming single from the ever morphing Ali Noor (Manwa Re) who rears up this once with his new band noori and a superlative video for the song that is now nearing completion. All footage has been shot and now video editing has almost ended. Only post-production work will be left after that and one should be able to catch the video 'within a week or so,' Ali Noor promises, on our terrestial and satellite channels. But then again Ali Noor did promise us his album a year ago, so fingers crossed on that estimate.

Back to the video, and what a video it is. Think Ali Haider's Jadu video crossed with Guns N Roses' Garden of Eden. Shot with a widescreen lens it has Ali Noor, shorn of his trademark beard, and his band rocking out on the markedly uptempo number. Keeping up with Pakistani video traditions, this video has a large number of bandis in it. There is actually an overdose of them (not necessarily a bad thing). The video almost reflect the insides of the mind of the Manwa Re protagonist who has after pining after his Manwa Re, has gotten over her in a big way: he is now out and about and after long deprivation is out to binge.

Visually and musically too this video stands at the opposite end of the spectrum from Manwa Re. Whereas Manwa Re was sober and purposely low key being shot mostly shot in slow-mo, the new video is more of an up video with loads of fast cuts, color and action. Put in one word, the video is simply FUN. A lot of credit for the same must go to Usman Zaidi and Mohammad Ali Jafri who jointly directed the video, shooting it at Zaidi's photograhers (Usman's family concern). The final editing is now being done by Ali Noor and Mohammad Ali Jafri at Noor's Small Sounds/ Big Videos.

Actually a number of edits are already ready and when I came in Mohammad Ali and Ali Noor were busy arguing which one of the four edits they ought to release. After checking all four out, the answer to me is simple: all four. Each edit has its own merit: there is an edit which is higher energy than others with a lot of fast cuts. There is another edit which is more in line with the lyrics of the song and seems to be telling a story. Edit three has a lot of live band performance shots which shows that these guys can actually play their instruments and then there is my favorite, edit four with a LOT of bandis in it. Wonder which one they will release. By my last reckoning they seemed to be on the verge of editing up a fifth edit with elements of all four in it.

Check out updates and more pics at http://www.nooriworld.com