Turns out I’m not the only person fuming at the Drama Desk Awards over their decision to eliminate the Orchestrations category. Jason Robert Brown says what I said, only with Tony-winning clout. JasonRobertBrown.com
But it’s ok, because the Drama Desk Awards blinked and have agreed to nominate orchestrations this year. Congrats to Bill Elliot (Nice Work If You Can Get It), Larry Hocham (Death Takes a Holiday), Martin Lowe (Once), John McDaniel (Bonnie & Clyde), Michael Starobin (Queen of the Mist), and Danny Troob (Newsies). It was a strong year for orchestrations and the board of the Drama Desk Awards should be ashamed of themselves for eliminating the category over the weekend. These slots could have easily gone to Lysistrata Jones or any number of the many plays with original music this season, like Stick Fly. BroadwayWorld
And while we’re at it, here’s a video on what orchestrators actually do.
The real fun is when you have to reorchestrate on the fly because you have no access to an English horn or contrabassoon.
Ehsan Khoshbakht takes a look at the signature style of Vincente Minelli films. MUBI
Disney has asked the director of Coraline to adapt Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book into a film.
Bit Rebels found a really fun and rudimentary automaton that you can build with cardstock. Bit Rebels
Get that coin Mario. Again and again and again...
Finally, I tweeted about this earlier today, but I have to share it again. Someone uploaded a recording of the Broadway production of Marie Christine. It is a loose adaptation of Madea, set in 1890s New Orleans with Audra McDonald taking on the leading role. The score is magnificent even if the story as a whole is overwhelming. This is the playlist.
I decided to put the time in to watch the entirety of Death Note over the weekend. It is a 37 episode anime series adapted from the manga series of the same name. Essentially, it’s a twisted detective story/crime thriller hybrid. A super intelligent high school student named Light finds a supernatural notebook that allows the owner to kill anyone by writing their name and imagining their face. Light begins to kill all of the violent criminals appearing on the news, attracting the attention of L, the world’s top private investigator and Light’s equal in every way. From there it’s a slow trek to any sense of resolution, with tons of repetition and a lot of style to distract from the pace.
Tune in four weeks from now to see what's in the trunk on The Killing.
In a lot of ways, Death Note reminds me a lot of another detective show currently airing: The Killing. This show follows the investigation into the murder of a teenager. Season one has 13 hour long episodes that only cover two weeks of the investigation. The case is not resolved by season end. Season two–another 13 episodes–promises to reveal the killer in the last episode. The performances, style, and investigation are interesting. It’s just the information is revealed so slowly that you might lose interest in who killed poor Rosie.
I’m not willing to call a shift toward slow and methodical plot pacing a trend on television at this point. Long story arcs driving prime time series are not common. There are overriding arcs–The Big C has coping with the cancer diagnosis, Glee has nationals, etc.–but the individual episodes are more contained. Longer arcs are typically saved for genre shows, but even American Horror Story and Fringe break things up with stand alone episodes.
The issue at play with all of these decisions is pacing. How fast do the writers want you to realize what’s happening? How much information will they give you at any given time? How much time passes in a given episode? Where is the story focused?
Even the characters on Death Note are bogged down in slowly revealed TV drama.
In the case of Death Note and The Killing, there is no sidebar content. If you’re not dealing with the crimes, you’re dealing with the lives of the people connected to the investigation. They’re all consuming narratives that rely on the novelty of the story arc and character development to retain viewers. There’s also a certain emphasis on style.
Both of these shows have a distinctive style. The Killing is simultaneously pale/dreary with supersaturated environmental elements. The grass will jump out at you more than the people investigating in a field. There’s a common joke at this point about the presence of rain, but it is a moody detective series. Rain makes sense.
Hyper-stylized noir makes Death Note stand out.
Death Note is animated and hyper-stylized noir. As soon as Light or L begin to piece together a plan in their minds, the world is transformed. Everything is gray scale except for eyes and hair. Light is bright red, L dark blue, and Light-stalker/enthusiast/ally Misa bright blue. Space and time fail to exist any longer in their imagination.
When it takes so long to make any progress at all in a story, is a strong visual style enough to keep your interest? I don’t think so. It comes down to how the story is told. And in the case of long form storytelling on TV, that’s all about pacing. If the pacing or character development is too slow, you’ll lose the audience before you resolve the story.
Look how high the grass grew before they got a single clue in The Killing
The Killing has a major inertia issue. It’s not that the story is taking too long to unfold. The problem is that the writers don’t know how to maintain the pace without frustrating the viewer. Can you really expect people to stick around for a detective show where a red herring is explored to the end almost every week? The Killing is taking a serpentine route to its conclusion. It’s covering a lot of ground in each episode, but it’s not really advancing the plot.
Death Note has the other issue going on. The story moves at a quick pace, even if time itself is moving slowly. The characters, however, are static and underdeveloped. You learn everything you need to know about Light, L, and everyone else as soon as you meet them. Their motivations and approach to the investigation/crimes do not change so long as they are in their original states. The overriding story is hindered by the character development issues. Why should you care who wins in the end if the protagonists are Mary Sue’s and everyone else is static?
I’m drawn to slow and methodical storytelling. Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors and I love to sink into a two+ hour film with small stakes and oodles of character. The problem with this long and slow approach on TV is the episodic format. The genre is designed to be told in installments.
Slow and stylish works if the characters and pacing match the story.
If you want to tell a twenty hour continuous story over the course of a few months (doled out a half hour or hour at a time), you need to find a way to keep the audience interested. This is why shows like The X-Files have monster of the week episodes. You go off track for a week or two in order to recharge the audience. It’s the intermission at a play or halftime at the football game. Even then, if you put the break in at the wrong part of the story, you lose interest. Anyone else remember the outrage when Trey Parker and Matt Stone inserted a nonsense Terrence and Phillip special in between the two-parter about Cartman’s real father?
Do the challenges mean that people should avoid creating long form stories for TV series? I don’t think so. Some stories need more time to develop. Some of those stories could make for interesting television. It comes down to how much work the writers are able to put in to get everything mapped out in a way that makes sense. There needs to be a delicate balancing act between character development and story pacing that stays internally consistent. It’s not simple, but I would imagine getting it right is rewarding.
A union fight in British Columbia leads to the banning of Dr. Seuss quotations in classrooms. CBLDF
Are you a fan of House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski? Then check out this Tumblr someone linked me to. It’s a multimedia adaptation of the novel put together for a class final and it’s really good. Hallways Haunted/Texts of Leaves
Amazon has an exclusive Tim Burton Blu-ray collection coming out next week. Batmans, Pee-Wee, and Corpses abound. Cinema Blend
Fed up with Etsy’s crap about protecting a reseller because they got caught with their pants down and refuse to admit it? Take steps to ensure you support actual handmade sellers on Etsy. This team is a good start. Team EtsyHandMade
Any interview with Juliette Binoche is an excuse to link to an interview with Juliette Binoche. Love her. IndieWire
Come for the examples of critics using hyperbole to be right (logic be damned) about new technology, stay for the comment section where everyone in the world but me saw a live demo of The Hobbit‘s 48fps stock. Pajiba
I have a bone to pick with the Drama Desk Awards. Why on earth would you choose to eliminate an award for orchestrations? Do you want every musical to have a synthesized recording as an orchestra? Or do you just not care that the orchestrator is the person who defines how any production of a musical, new or old, sounds? Flames on the side of my face. Playbill
Next you’ll tell me the Drama Desk Awards board won’t be impressed by business cards that actually play music. Bit Rebels
Music Box Business Cards
Finally, this episode of The Indoor Kids featuring Alison Haislip is great. One, the guest is Alison Haislip, who just has a really engaging personality. Two, they’re playing Limbo, which is an amazing game. Three, they show you all the surprisingly gory deaths in a black and white game.
Nigel M Smith has a great interview with Chris Colfer about his screenwriting debut Struck By Lightning. IndieWire
Samuel Zimmerman interviews Sound of My Voice star Christopher Denham about the movie I can’t see tomorrow because the limited release is very limited. Why you hate audiences, Sound of My Voice? Fangoria
I can whip up a spec script like that if Warner Brothers is looking to Twitter users for new screenplays. Cinema Blend
I’m really digging the Hell Yeah Horror Manga Tumblr. This gif is creepy, but really clever. Hell Yeah Horror Manga
Hell Yeah Horror Manga
If that wasn’t enough creep factor for you, this one off Whomp! should make you sad and scared. Whomp!
Amir pays tribute to that other Pixar film. You know, A Bug’s Life? The Film Experience
Ironically, Audra McDonald’s version of the Lupone freak out is ineffective because the audience member didn’t have a cellphone out. I was wondering about the un-characteristically poorly proofed tweets. Playbill
Finally, I’m teaching some students “Don’t Tell Mama” from Cabaret today. I came across actual video footage of Judi Dench performing Fraulein Sally Bowles in the original West End production of Cabaret. Yes, it’s synced audio from the cast album. Doesn’t take away from that performance.
Recently, I had the opportunity to watch Alien with a group of people for the first time. I was really getting into the pacing and style of Ridley Scott’s approach when someone started started talking about the lack of music. It seemed like an odd complaint to me until I started to think about what they meant.
Horror movies use scoring for a few different reasons. The most obvious is building tension. Jaws relies on the John Williams’ score to establish the shark attacks. The Exorcist uses “Tubular Bells” to set the audience on edge. Odd sounding music is one of the calling cards of the horror genre. It just sets the audience up to be scared.
At the same time, those unnerving music cues let the audience know something is going to happen. Yes, you quickly learn to fear the leading tone of the tuba in Jaws. The music also lets you know a scare is coming. You work yourself up because you start thinking about the scare. At the same time, the music lets you adjust to the rules of the film. The scares become bearable because you realize, even on a subconscious level, that it’s coming up.
Even the life sucking aliens don't make a peep.
Which brings us back to Alien. You don’t get that courtesy in Alien because Alien only has two clear music cues. Jerry Goldsmith wrote lovely Classical-styled scoring that isn’t even used in a traditional way until the last moments of the film. The first cue is a character listening to music in his quarters. Neither is connected to a scare.
So how does the audience learn to cope with the twists of Alien? They don’t. Everything, from a cat popping out of a dark room to an alien bursting throw a chest, is an unpredictable and shocking moment. It’s part of what makes Alien such a raw experience.
The cat in particular is used brilliantly. Two of the characters are obsessed with the well-being of an orange tabby that gets loose on the ship. The cat jump scare is a cliche that usually emits an eye roll the first time it pops up in a modern horror. For me, it’s used best in Alien. You get hit with it again and again. When you think nothing is going to happen, the cat pops up. When you think it will be the cat, it’s an alien. When you think it’s an alien, it’s the cat. These cycle over and over in the second half of the film and never fail to make me jump.
You don't even get the satisfaction of Ripley firing up the gigantic flame thrower in Alien.
But how come those scares work even on someone like me who has seen Alien many times? It’s hard to say for certain. I would argue that the lack of music makes a big difference. There just isn’t a big cue to let you know that something is coming. There is no instantly recognizable sound to remind you that the cat is coming up again. You’re left as defenseless against these scares as the crew of Nostromo is against the alien attacks.
Alien does not coddle you with the traditional orchestral cues of the horror genre. It goes even farther, stripping a lot of expected sound effects from the soundtrack. Sure, you get footsteps, pipes banging, and doors closing, but only when it’s convenient to the story. Ripley comes charging down a hallway with a flamethrower already lit. You just never get to hear the louder sound of it firing up to warn you its coming. The image is striking because it is so unexpected in context.
Is the lack of scoring in Alien a gimmick? I don’t think so. The quality of the storytelling and the directorial approach justify the omnipresent threat of unexpected events. The original tagline even relies on the concept. If no one can hear you scream in space, why would you expect any use of sound to follow horror movie standards?
Silence is golden for the crew of the Nostromo.
If anything, the two uses of original scoring are more of a distraction in Alien than the silence before the scares. I can understand someone listening to music on a portable stereo. It just doesn’t feel necessary in the grand scheme of the story. Everyone else is content to go about their business in silence. Why break that? You don’t really learn anything that the casual Hawaiian shirt and ball cap didn’t already let you know.
The intrusion of scoring in the final moments of the film comes across as more of a ploy than the lack of music before. That sudden injection of music is almost cheesy and doesn’t provide the expected catharsis of a sweeping theme at the end of a horror. You get so used to the silence that the predictable lead in to the closing credits immediately cuts the tension in a bad way. There is no time to linger on the conclusion of the story. The music sends you right back to the reality without anytime to process what you saw.
Silence might have been the answer at the end of Alien. As much as I love horror film scoring, I do wonder how directors could work with composer to shake up genre standards. Ridley Scott proved the efficacy of silence in the same way, say, Carnival of Souls showed that any music can become menacing in context. I really would like to see what other scenarios lend themselves to such a sparse sound design. It might not satisfy everyone, but it could shake up how people experience the modern horror genre.
Take a Hike is a short comedy film with heart. Writer/director Mark Blitch’s story isn’t revolutionary. It’s not intended to be, either. The goal is exploring the relationship between a young man and his girlfriend’s father with a little humor and lot of character.
Brandt and Terry have great chemistry as Adam and David
Mark Blitch teams up again with actors Taylor Brandt and Todd Terry. They previously worked together on The Code (full post), a horror/comedy about the bylaws of monster attacks. Here, the focus is on the actors, not the concept, and Brandt and Terry give believable performances.
Take a Hike slowly reveals the layers of tension between the two men. Adam (Brandt) invites David (Terry) out on a hike to bond. David makes it clear that he does not like Adam and does not want him to be with his daughter. After getting lost, a snake attack forces the two to rely on each other as they argue for and against the relationship.
A snake attack isn't even the biggest issue in play for Adam and David.
Though only eleven minutes long, Take a Hike never feels rushed. We get to learn a lot about these two characters in a short amount of time. Even more impressive is the balance between the relationship. Blitch refuses to allow either character to fully control the audience’s reaction to the story. I felt more connected to Adam, but that doesn’t mean that I disliked David.
What we have here is a short film that met all of the goals it defined from the start. The camera work is appropriate even when it indulges in lens flair and scene-setting time lapse photography. The editing is clean and establishes a nice, easy rhythm. Joey Williams’ music doesn’t distract from the story and Cameron Ernst’s original song at the end complements the conclusion nicely.
Here’s where Take a Hike really gets interesting. Something this polished came out of a time constraint festival. The 168 Hour Film Project challenges filmmakers to write, shoot, and edit an 11 minute short film in one week based on an assigned theme and Bible verse. The goal is to create a film that deals with the required subject in a subtle way.
If I didn’t know about the festival, I wouldn’t have known that Mark Blitch and his crew had any restrictions to deal with. It’s a credit to the writing that a story like this didn’t just become a mouthpiece for proselytizing. Take a Hike is simply a well-executed short film that wouldn’t be out of place in most festivals.
Special thanks to Taylor Brandt for contacting me about this short. You can find out more about Take a Hike on Facebook.
Update on that absolutely absurd Etsy/reseller nonsense from yesterday. The actual company making Ecologica Malibu’s furniture speaks out and Etsy is sending poorly written cease and desist letters to people covering the story with actual evidence. Regretsy
Turns out that Kazakhstan can now officially draw a link between Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and a surge in tourism. ABC News Australia
Susan Gerhard has a great interview with Sam Green, the director of a new documentary about Esperanto called The Universal Language. Fandor
Apparently Biz Markie likes Barbie dolls. Who knew? Gawker
This is why skilled people can’t have nice things. The Trenches
Tired of bullet time? How about amazing bullet-time inspired light painting installations? Dude Craft
Bullet Time Light Painting
Finally, the NY Shakespeare Exchange is trying to Kickstart the budget for their 2012-13 season. Their goal is to make Shakespeare accessible to as wide an audience as possible. If they raise 45,000 dollars, they will be doing a really cool video Shakespeare project in honor of Shakespeare’s 450th birthday. They’re going to hire 154 actors to perform all 154 sonnets in 154 locations throughout NYC and release them online for a year leading into the birthday celebration. It’s worth at least watching their fundraising video, if not donating as well. I’m kicking in next week when I get paid again.
The newest episode of Felicia Day’s Flog opens with a promise that she will play the violin. She follows that up by saying that people will be disappointed. Never underestimate the ability of a nerd or geek to undervalue their skills by choice or by accident.
The main content of the latest Flog is a performance of Tom Lenk’s song “Serenade for Carrie Fisher.” Aside from the name, the concept for the song caught my eye. I, too, was the music theory student who didn’t exactly follow the rules on composition assignments. I mean, I transcribed the “I Love You Song” from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee for a final assignment in Music Theory III where we could choose any published song that involved phrase modulation (without an actual key change) and analyze it. I also procrastinated so long that the professor still has my one and only handwritten copy of the song. And the actual sheet music came out the day after the assignment was due.
But I digress. I like the idea of a tongue in cheek Puccini-styled dedication to Carrie Fisher, especially in the context of being required to write like Bach. As my first college theory teacher said, “Everyone makes mistakes except for God and Bach.” He is the father of music theory and, unless you really like didactic order and precision, can be a bit dry to channel for assignments.
Just take a look at this…intriguing performance. The fancy embed code isn’t working right now. Just skip ahead to 2:40.
Lenk’s composition is solid. The main theme has a nice, lilting quality to it that I quite enjoy. In the second and third segment, he gets a bit more experimental with the violin part. The melody is left unresolved at key moments. It just builds a really nice sense of tension that feels a bit other worldly. They’re not Star Wars allusions, per se, but they’re informed by the sound of science fiction. You can just picture something unusual showing up at those moments in a TV show.
Let’s get to the real draw here. It’s one thing to put up a video of a lovely little song being played well by two competent musicians. It’s an entirely different thing to make a simple Romantic song (by way of mostly-stringent Baroque progressions) entertaining for a wide audience. From the snap costume changes to the looming invasion of sci-fi imagery, the Flog performance of “Serenade for Carrie Fisher” brings a less popular style of music alive in an entertaining way.
Felicia Day suggests that there might be more musical performances in the future. I can only hope so if this is the musical company she keeps.
