Fans of Boards of Canada will probably be familiar with a long-standing fan video for their track, ‘Everything You Do Is A Balloon’ from the ‘Hi Scores’ EP. Upped to YouTube ten years ago by user nonameno5, it samples from a movie,‘One Got Fat: Bicycle Safety ‘ from 1963, and the bizarre imagery works beautifully with the song. “A group of children, all wearing ape masks, rides their bicycles to the park for a picnic. Along the way, all but one are eliminated for violating basic bike safety rules.”

I’ve used it in my AV sets before and decided to do so again for my forthcoming Boards-inspired AV mix, premiering this Friday at Archspace in London. The quality has always been an issue though so I thought I’d seek out the original video and re-edit a new version, down to the frame, to see if I could get a better looking copy.

Upon finding a copy and comparing the two I was shocked to find that not only was the detail better and colour richer and less bleached out, but some scenes had been cropped or zoomed into so that there was more to see in some scenes. The differences are fascinating and the extra details make it even more disturbing. Here’s some A/B comparisons between the original frame and my re-edit.