Low-Life | UK Hip Hop Story | International | ITF DJ World Championships 2003 DVD Review

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ITF DJ World Championships 2003 [DVD]

ITF DJ World Championships 2003 [DVD]

A moment ago I gave you the press info on this ITF DVD, but now I'm lucky enough to be able to give you my opinion on it. What I love about new digital media and the way that things are developing is that it means High quality production values can now be achieved by virtually anyone and this means that more obscure and less profitable areas can receive the same treatment that in the past only mainstream content would benefit from. This is a point in case. No doubt previously videos were available, but here we have great sound quality and a picture with no break up, good colour separation and overall a well put together product. The cover is a bit simplistic and the print definition isn't as good as it could be, but this is a minor issue as the real concern s what is on the DVD its self. The DVD is printed to look like one of the gold Vestax platters which the eventual winners receive.

The menu page is simplistic in design and therefore easy to navigate, there's only three options, Play the whole presentation, Play the Interviews, or look at the Special selections. Also, having been hosted in Munich and the DVD being produced by a Swiss company(Evolution) you have the option of choosing English or German. Mine started in English so I left it that way. The looping windowed intro gives you a tasty taster of what is to come.

The main presentation starts with shots of the main hall filling up and then it s straight in to the Quarter finals of the Advancement section of the competition. Each DJ has their own set of decks on stage and two at a time they go head to head with two rounds of 90 seconds. The likes of Manchoo, Phel, Micro Metz, Jekey, Tiger Styles, 1-2, Mr B and amongst others all get busy on the decks. During the opening rounds I can't help but think that many of the DJs fall off there routines at least once and some really early on too as they just seem to loose it. For me Phel from France was really the only one who kept it tight for both his rounds as well as coming with a funk fuelled set which remained more musical whereas some of the others descended into noise.

Throughout there are numerous special showcases, too many to mention, but I'll let you in on the first. As the decisions of the judges are calculated DJ Woody, the winner of last years Advancement competition is filmed dropping a tremendous showcase of his skills and comes off tighter across a longer period of time than many of this years competitors and one feels had he been in the comp he could have walked away with it. He really plays a trumpet sound and could be making jazz here. He even busts a new one on me which is using two tone arms on the same record so that he's playing and cutting up two different bits of the same record at the same time. This has to be seen.

Rafik, the home favourite performed well as did most of the other DJs who got through the rounds and stepped up their games. The whole show is filmed either from a static camera at the back of the hall, or whist the DJs are playing there are a couple of shoulder cam close-ups focusing on the DJ and the decks. When viewing this you'll see crabs, flares, orbits and multiple combinations of them. Some of the cutting is clinical in its sharpness and some of the patterns created while beat juggling is absolutely mind blowing. We don't get to see the whole scratching part of the competition, but we do see the final where Teeko cashed against Irelands DJ Flip. Again we get to see the Beat Juggling Final featuring DJ Virus and Kid Fresh who manages to call out Virus hard style using vocal samples.

The special features include interviews with DJ Woody & Tiger Styles as well as Germany's DJ Rafik from the Lords Of Fitness Crew.

At 180 minutes in length you get full value and if hardcore DJing is your thing this is going to be a must have souvenir of what is now one of the premier DJ competitions. I can understand how some of this is going to be unintelligible to the uninitiated, but never the less anyone has to admit the skill demonstrated is outstanding whether they like the sounds produced or not. In total there are more than 30 DJs from 15 countries with 12 ITF champions to be counted amongst them.

Check the press info