Since 2001, Toby McKeehan - otherwise known as TobyMac - has been on his own, making a name for himself with one hit recording after another. In 2002, EMI released several short DVD projects for a few of their top artists and included Toby with his first DVD release, Momentum. The bargain buy DVD included three music videos for songs from TobyMac's solo debut, Momentum, along with a slew of extras. However, since then, fans haven't been able to get all of Toby's music videos in one place... until now.
Moving Pictures is TobyMac's third DVD release (including his 2008 live CD/DVD project, Alive & Transported) and features eleven of TobyMac's "official" music videos, with the addition of his two newest videos, which were commissioned by other directors and don't feature Toby himself in them at all, "ShowStopper" and "City On Our Knees." Aside from these music videos, the DVD has absolutely nothing else to offer. There's no commentary from Toby for any of the videos or even any commentary from the video directors. There's no bonus live footage, photos, or anything besides thirteen music videos. Moving Pictures is such a bare bones DVD release that it really feels like it was put together half-heartedly and quickly, from the minimalistic packaging on down to the simplistic DVD menus. There's really nothing extra to offer fans except for the videos themselves.
The upside to Moving Pictures is also that it is what it is. Fans of music videos and of Toby's work can finally have all of his videos in one place. And with thirteen videos in total, that makes for almost 50 minutes of music, which is about your usual audio recording length. The videos themselves are very well done. Some are presented in widescreen format, while the older ones, obviously, are in standard format. "Tonight" is the newest of the videos that features McKeehan himself and is primarily live footage from his winter 2009 tour mixed with some footage of him riding a motorcycle and singing the lyrics. It's pretty much a standard studio-music-set-to-live-footage video, but it captures highlights from his live show well. "Made To Love," "The Slam" and "Ignition" are taken straight from Alive and Transported, so they're more of live video footage (with live music) than concept music videos like most of these other videos. It's a bit deceiving to look at the packaging and video list because it doesn't specify that these videos are just the live ones from Alive..., so those expecting new, never-before-seen videos will likely be disappointed.
"Feelin' So Fly" is among the highlights as one of the more fun videos to watch. It's pretty simple, however, being literally just one camera inside an empty trailer with people from Toby's entourage as well as fans and tour crew dancing in front of the camera. And because it's clear that he filmed this while on tour, it also features guest appearances from Family Force 5, Thousand Footh Krutch and Building 429. "Gone," in addition to being a favorite, is among the video highlights (kind of a party video mixed with concept footage) along with "Boomin," which is another standout video that uses some fun effects to create another great party video (and the added rap verse from Shonlock makes the video even more fun than the original album cut). "Lose My Soul" is another cool one that features Toby in a pawn shop for the concept video portion with special guests Kirk Franklin and Mandisa singing along.
The "bonus videos" are two takes on songs from his latest album, Tonight. The original vision was for videos to be made for every track on Tonight, each by a different director, but sadly only two of those made it onto this project. "Showstopper," directed by Dust of Mars Ill, is a nicely shot video but a strange concept that is basically just a couple of kids meeting up for an epic water gun battle. "City On Our Knees" is an imaginative animated video that Toby used as the backdrop during the song's live performance on much of this past spring's "Awake Tonight" Tour. It's a nice bonus video to include on here.
If anyone's been itching to have every video TobyMac has produced in one place, Moving Pictures fits the bill nicely. Otherwise, the presentation of Moving Pictures and its lack of extras feels more like a bonus disc that would be included with a regular studio album (or a "hits" collection, which this also kind of feels like) than a stand alone project. And since TobyMac is still making music and likely to make more videos, Moving Pictures is only temporarily a complete collection. Hopefully in the future, TobyMac will be given a more unique and thoughtful video collection worthy of the artist's impressive career.
- Review date: 11/13/10, written by John DiBiase of Jesusfreakhideout.comRecord Label: Forefront Records
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