played by Tom Waits. I'm into it.
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
100th Post!
In honor of this 100th post (as arbitrary as that sounds), I'm going to plug some films that are either at The Ross currently, or are going to be there in the coming weeks. Apparently due to budget cuts at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, the future of The Ross is in jeopardy. I don't really know the specifics of the situation, nor do I really know what I (or anyone else for that matter) can do to help the cause. I do know, however, that going to see films there in the coming weeks couldn't hurt their cause, and might possibly even help. Given the no lose scenario I just set up for you, check out these titles:
Anvil: The Story of Anvil (showing June 26 - July 9)
- Essentially a 50/50 mix of Spinal Tap and The Wrestler. Supposed to be absolutely fantastic.
Whatever Works (showing July 3 - July 9)
- Woody Allen's new film starring Larry David. Intriguing if nothing else, right?
Moon (showing July 10 - July 23)
- I think I've mentioned this movie on this BLOG a couple months ago or so. Shenanigans on the moon. Shit is dramatic. Looks like a looker. Check out the trailer.
Tyson (showing July 24 - July 30)
- For the shear novelty of Mike Tyson I'm going to see this film. Dude bit someones ear off and has a tribal tattoo on his face. Gotta be some sort of crazy. Check out some of the interviews he has done on YouTube for a better understanding of his personality. He is an island.
Anvil: The Story of Anvil (showing June 26 - July 9)
- Essentially a 50/50 mix of Spinal Tap and The Wrestler. Supposed to be absolutely fantastic.
Whatever Works (showing July 3 - July 9)
- Woody Allen's new film starring Larry David. Intriguing if nothing else, right?
Moon (showing July 10 - July 23)
- I think I've mentioned this movie on this BLOG a couple months ago or so. Shenanigans on the moon. Shit is dramatic. Looks like a looker. Check out the trailer.
Tyson (showing July 24 - July 30)
- For the shear novelty of Mike Tyson I'm going to see this film. Dude bit someones ear off and has a tribal tattoo on his face. Gotta be some sort of crazy. Check out some of the interviews he has done on YouTube for a better understanding of his personality. He is an island.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
music in film
An interesting take on the film industry's Frankenstein approach to adding music to a film in post-production by Will Oldham in an interview (read the interview here):
AVC: You mentioned talking to Richard Linklater and Caveh Zahedi about your ideas on movie music. Can you summarize those ideas?
WO: Well, for a while, it seemed like you were always seeing movies where all the music was determined by the music supervisors and their special relationships with certain record labels. And I just felt like, “Wow, I’ll bet they spent months or years writing this screenplay, and I’ll bet they spent months shooting this, and I’ll bet they spent months editing this, and now they’re spending no time at all picking these completely inappropriate songs with lyrics to put under a scene that has dialogue.” How does that even work? How can you have a song with someone singing lyrics under spoken dialogue and consider that mood-music, or supportive of the storyline? As somebody who likes music, when that happens, I tend to listen to the lyrics, which have nothing to do with the movie. And then I’m lost in the storyline. Not only is that a crime, but it’s a crime not to give people who are good at making music for movies the work. It’s like saying, “We don’t need you, even though you’re so much better at it than I am as a music supervisor.” Like the cancer that is that Darjeeling guy… what’s his name?
AVC: Wes Anderson?
WO: Yeah. His completely cancerous approach to using music is basically, “Here’s my iPod on shuffle, and here’s my movie.” The two are just thrown together. People are constantly contacting me saying, “I’ve been editing my movie, and I’ve been using your song in the editing process. What would it take to license the song?” And for me it’s like, “Regardless of what you’ve been doing, my song doesn’t belong in your movie.” That’s where the conversation should end. Music should be made for movies, you know?
I suppose I can see where Will Oldham is going with this. On the one hand, the music of a film is part of a film's language (yes, film is a language), and it helps set a scene's inflection. When we speak to each other, the inflection in our voices serves the purpose of projecting mood, tone, and feeling. In a movie, however, inflection would be nonexistent in a scene with no dialogue, leaving it up to the viewer to interpret or impose their understanding of feeling onto the movie. This, in and of itself, isn't necessarily a bad tool to use in some cases, at least in my mind. However, what makes a movie successful a lot of the time is how well a movie directs the viewer in terms of the feelings the movie itself is projecting.
It's easy for us to think of using familiar songs as a cop out in a way, but on the other hand, maybe that familiarity is something people like Wes Anderson are using to direct our feelings and perceptions of a movie. I would be hard pressed to find a more appropriate song to put in place of The Beatles, "Hey Jude," when Richie Tenenbaum frees his bird Mordecai in The Royal Tenenbaums. It was comforting and climactic all at the same time because it was so familiar.
I can agree with Will Oldham to a certain extent, but to say Wes Anderson doesn't put enough thought into his films is presumptuous at best.
AVC: You mentioned talking to Richard Linklater and Caveh Zahedi about your ideas on movie music. Can you summarize those ideas?
WO: Well, for a while, it seemed like you were always seeing movies where all the music was determined by the music supervisors and their special relationships with certain record labels. And I just felt like, “Wow, I’ll bet they spent months or years writing this screenplay, and I’ll bet they spent months shooting this, and I’ll bet they spent months editing this, and now they’re spending no time at all picking these completely inappropriate songs with lyrics to put under a scene that has dialogue.” How does that even work? How can you have a song with someone singing lyrics under spoken dialogue and consider that mood-music, or supportive of the storyline? As somebody who likes music, when that happens, I tend to listen to the lyrics, which have nothing to do with the movie. And then I’m lost in the storyline. Not only is that a crime, but it’s a crime not to give people who are good at making music for movies the work. It’s like saying, “We don’t need you, even though you’re so much better at it than I am as a music supervisor.” Like the cancer that is that Darjeeling guy… what’s his name?
AVC: Wes Anderson?
WO: Yeah. His completely cancerous approach to using music is basically, “Here’s my iPod on shuffle, and here’s my movie.” The two are just thrown together. People are constantly contacting me saying, “I’ve been editing my movie, and I’ve been using your song in the editing process. What would it take to license the song?” And for me it’s like, “Regardless of what you’ve been doing, my song doesn’t belong in your movie.” That’s where the conversation should end. Music should be made for movies, you know?
I suppose I can see where Will Oldham is going with this. On the one hand, the music of a film is part of a film's language (yes, film is a language), and it helps set a scene's inflection. When we speak to each other, the inflection in our voices serves the purpose of projecting mood, tone, and feeling. In a movie, however, inflection would be nonexistent in a scene with no dialogue, leaving it up to the viewer to interpret or impose their understanding of feeling onto the movie. This, in and of itself, isn't necessarily a bad tool to use in some cases, at least in my mind. However, what makes a movie successful a lot of the time is how well a movie directs the viewer in terms of the feelings the movie itself is projecting.
It's easy for us to think of using familiar songs as a cop out in a way, but on the other hand, maybe that familiarity is something people like Wes Anderson are using to direct our feelings and perceptions of a movie. I would be hard pressed to find a more appropriate song to put in place of The Beatles, "Hey Jude," when Richie Tenenbaum frees his bird Mordecai in The Royal Tenenbaums. It was comforting and climactic all at the same time because it was so familiar.
I can agree with Will Oldham to a certain extent, but to say Wes Anderson doesn't put enough thought into his films is presumptuous at best.
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