Get Yourself High

UK/Europe Promo CD
Virgin Records (UK), CHEMSDJ19
 01 Get Yourself High (Radio Edit) (3:24)
 02 Get Yourself High (LP Version) (5:48)

Japan CD
Virgin Japan, VJCP-12175
 01 Get Yourself High (LP Version) (5:48)
 02 Electronic Battle Weapon 6 (9:03) 
 03 Get Yourself High (Felix Da Housecat Chemical Meltdown Remix) (6:37)
 04 Get Yourself High (Switch Rely on Dub Remix) (5:41)
 05 Get Yourself High (Switch Rely on Rub Remix) (6:20)
 06 Get Yourself High (Video) (3:26)

US CD
Astralwerks, B0001BS4K6
 01 Get Yourself High (Extended Version) (6:50)
 02 Get Yourself High (Feliz Da Housecat's Chemical Meltdown Mix) (6:37)
 03 Get Yourself High (Switches Rely On Dub) (6:20)
 04 The Golden Path (Ewan Pearson Extended Vocal) (6:35)
 05 The Golden Path (Ewan's Rave Hell Dub) (6:55)
 06 Nude Night (6:21)
 07 Get Yourself High (video)

UK/Europe 2 X 12"
Virgin Records (UK), CHEMST19
 A Get Yourself High (Extended Version) (6:50)
 B Electronic Battle Weapon 6 (9:03)
 C Get Yourself High (Felix Da Housecat Chemical Meltdown Remix) (6:37)
 D Get Yourself High (Switch Rely on Rub Remix) (6:20)

UK/Europe 12" Promo
Virgin Records (UK), CHEMSTDJX19
 A Get Yourself High (Switch Rely on Rub Remix) (6:20)
 B Get Yourself High (Switch Rely on Dub Remix) (5:41)

UK/Europe 12" Promo
Virgin Records (UK), CHEMSTDJ19
 A Get Yourself High (Extended Version) (6:50)
 B Get Yourself High (Felix Da Housecat's Chemical Meltdown Mix) (6:37)

"Get Yourself High" features K-Os on vocals.

The martial arts style video for "Get Yourself High" was directed by Joseph Kahn. The video's effects and animation was provided by an American company called KromA. The video is composed entirely of footage gleaned from the 1978 Chinese martial arts film Shaolin yu Wu Dang (“Two Champions of Death”) except that the material has been altered so that, in addition to swords and knives, the characters wield vinyl records, microphones and headphones as weapons and appear to be singing the lyrics of the song. Get Yourself High, featuring vocals by Canadian rapper K-OS, is the second track released from the Chemical Brothers’ new compilation album Singles ’93–’03 on Virgin.

Kahn edited the video himself creating a condensed version of the kung fu thriller that makes an uncanny fit with the song’s narrative line. The track’s refrain, “Don’t rely on us to get you high,” becomes a mantra that an old sage chants to a young warrior before sending him into battle with a rival gang. The combatants are as much master DJs as martial arts experts so that in the final battle sequence hero and villain square off with giant boom boxes strapped to their necks.

KromA’s role was to integrate the computer-generated musical props into the 25-year-old film footage and to alter the faces of the characters so that they appear to be singing. For the latter, the studio used facial capture technology to record the lip, cheek and jaw movements of an actor reciting the lyric. The resulting data was applied to a CG head that, in turn, was textured, modified and blended with the film footage.

“We added custom controls to hit certain syllables such as P’s and U’s where the lips protrude because the facial capture software did not fully pick up the Z-space movement,” explained KromA visual effects supervisor and lead artist Bert Yukich. “We also animated the tongue and teeth which was necessary to make certain letters look correct.”

In some scenes, the film characters were themselves speaking, which meant that the footage had had to be further modified. Yukich used Elastic Reality to morph the film footage so that the jaw movement of the film characters matched that of the CG model.

KromA animators produced the records, microphones, headphones and boom boxes as CG models. (The mother-of-all-boom-boxes worn by the chief bad guy is an amalgam of features inspired by several real world systems.) The props were then integrated into the film scenes so LPs became deadly projectiles and headphones became the means of applying a death grip to a villain.

Yukich went to considerable lengths to get CG elements to blend with the old film footage. “The source material for the video was a DVD copy of the film chosen by Joseph because of its degraded look,” Yukich said. “The DVD appeared to be made from a poor quality dub and that was further degraded by DVD compression. I used a combination of 50 filters to replicate that look so that the CG appears to be a natural part of the film.”

Credits for KromA go to Bert Yukich, lead artist; Amy Yukich, executive producer. Credits for SuperMega/HSI go to Joseph Kahn, director.

Source: KromA