Rings Around The World - DVD

DVD

The DVD of Rings Around the World contains the 13 songs featured on the CD version of the album along with 7 bonus tracks. These 20 songs are presented in surround sound and are accompanied by "low budget" music videos. The release also includes 16 remixes and interactive menus featuring ambient music created by the band. According to Keyboard player Cian Ciaran the group were worried that "doing a DVD might seem elitist, because only certain people have DVD players and systems, even now" but reasoned that "most people will have DVD playback systems at home within five years. Even if it doesn't take off, the stereo version of the album will always be there". The DVD release received a '15' certificate from the British Board of Film Classification, meaning that no-one under the age of 15 could buy or rent it in the United Kingdom.

Ciaran has stated that the Super Furry Animals were "very hands-on" during the making of the DVD. Initially the band were mainly concerned with the sound quality, describing the presentation of the album's tracks in surround sound as "radical, like the change from mono to stereo". The group directed the surround sound mix themselves, instructing audio engineers to move instruments and vocal parts between speakers: "We want that one bit of sound to travel from the centre, over our heads and finish on my right shoulder ... Let's have the main vocal in the middle, then each harmony in its own speaker." They soon became equally as interested in the remixes, visuals and interactive elements however. Ciaran has described this process as "not always a nice position to be in" when, for example, they had to reject music videos they weren't happy with. The band asked different directors to make music videos for each song having tried unsuccessfully to make a film to accompany their 1999 album Guerrilla themselves. According to singer Gruff Rhys the band "tended to go for illustrators who could cheaply using Flash ... and artists who like to work". The directors were asked to make the visuals as "extreme as possible" in an effort to avoid making videos that looked like just "another pop promo ... like MTV" and, according to Ciaran, had to "work even harder at creating something interesting" due to the limited budget available. Many of those who made videos for the DVD release had no previous experience of making films resulting in a "really fresh ... kind of scruffy" end product. According to Rhys the band made separate music videos for Rings Around the World's three singles as they saw the videos included on the DVD release of the album as "pure art" whereas they needed promotional videos that were more like adverts for the songs. Rhys has stated that the Super Furry Animals felt that fans placed too much emphasis on the videos on Rings Around the World rather than concentrating on the music, as a result of which the band used "really bland images" on the DVD release of their next album Phantom Power.

Although he enjoyed having so much control over the project Ciaran has claimed that it "sometimes felt like it would never end" and he was glad to get back to "the music side of things" upon the DVD's completion. Singer Gruff Rhys has stated that he found being involved with all aspects of the DVD release "really exciting" and particularly enjoyed working with "so many people".