CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Musicals Sound Like the Twilight Zone

Saturday, January 04, 2014

this entry brought to you by janelle monae, "oh, maker"


My wife and daughter were watching Grease the other day when I left for work. I've never seen it all the way through if at all, I realized, although I thought I had. But watching it reminded me of something I've always hated about musicals. This isn't a problem with modern musicals, but any musical prior to 1995 or so-- and that's most of them, because after that musicals come out at about a rate of one a year or so-- had this problem that I have never heard anyone articulate, and it was something that absolutely drove me nuts.

When characters have dialogue in a movie, the sound has depth. Characters that are closer to the camera sound loud, and characters further away from the camera sound further away. Right?

But when they start singing, suddenly they sound like their voices are coming from Dimension fucking X. The tone sounds completely different. The reason for this is because they're filming the movie on a sound stage or actually outside on a movie lot, while they recorded all the songs in a studio, the way you record music. And it takes me right the hell out of the movie. The thing is, I accept that, in the reality of the film, the music coming out of nowhere is a thing-- I don't have a problem with that. But the tone of their voices makes me feel like I'm watching a bunch of idiots pantomiming badly instead of watching characters break out into song and dance.
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with love from CRS @ 6:34 AM 

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