RTF Me: Random Thoughts From Me

Deceptions in stories are always the best when you can’t see them coming. The example that came to my mind when thinking about examples for this topic was from the 2006 film, The Illusionist.  The music throughout the entirety of this film plays to both the audience and the characters within the story. Philip Glass weaves a mysterious score for the film that is both intriguing and deceiving. 

The most notable sequence within the film that supports this topic is the murder of Sophie. The music as she is riding to see the prince is filled with low brass notes and higher uneasy flutes as she waits for the prince. Upon his arrival we get the super low brass again. All of these elements put the audience in the mind set that something is going to go very wrong in this scene. She is vulnerable with the prince and the music tips us off before any action even takes place in the scene, priming us for her murder. Once the chase scene starts, the low brass and stings pick up as well as some steady percussion, the percussion stops suddenly with the stabbing (metaphor for her death) and as the horse rides out with a dead Sophie, the strings become very cacophonous and eerie. There is also some underlying marimba that sounds menacing, like death rattles. The volume and intensity swells and then we cut to Eisenhiem and all is quiet. All of these musical cues lead us to believe exactly what we are seeing unfold, or rather, what we are not seeing. We do not see the prince stab Sophie, we only see her “lifeless” body being carried out by the horse and hear what might be a struggle in the barn. Yet there is no doubt, at least there was not any in mine the first time I saw this, that she has been murdered by the Prince. This is completely accomplished by the music since we do not have the visual clues to back this up. This event takes place well before the end of the film and is strong enough to hold legitimacy throughout the rest of the picture. 

In the following scenes we see the police and Eisenhiem looking for Sophie after her horse rides back to the palace alone and covered in blood. The music in this sequence is also very dark. There are low and melancholy strings, swelling up and down, conveying the unease and uncertainty that the filmmakers want you to experience at this point in the film. There is a woodwind/ flute musical cue when we see Sophie’s body in the water and a descension in the notes as Eisenheim dives into the water to pull her out of the river, the music turns darker contrasting the high woodwinds and low brass and stings. Here the music is not only reflecting the action but also the tumultuous emotions that are being portrayed in the scene. The notes scaling up and down portray the feelings that Eisenhiem is experiencing, hope, loss, uncertainty are all represented in these chords. This only further reinforces the fact that Sophie is dead for the audience. 

Even further along in the story, when he conjures up Sophie as an apparition the music comes in softly with the contrasting high and low strings, giving a feeling of unease. The audience (in the film) are very afraid of what is occurring, he has just brought a woman they all knew personally back to life and the music is conveying that through us.  The tempo increases the intensity throughout her short speech, the notes rising, flutes and piccolo enter right before she disappears with low brass and clarinet or oboe going on like the wisp that she leaves behind. The music is drawing out the emotions in the scene, playing us, manipulating our emotions to draw us in. 

This is what makes the ending so rewarding is the fact that the music and the performance of the actors were able to fool us so well. The music when the Chief inspector figures it all out is very bouncy, lots of strings brass but not in a threatening way but an almost light and wonderful reveal. Then as we, the audience are let in on the happy ending the music becomes regal joyful with horns and flutes and strings combining to give us that resolute feeling of joy, strings and flutes that take us all the way into the credits. We are finally on the same page and left in wonder of the power of how music can weave a fabricated reality without us even realizing that it deceived us. 

The Help is a complicated film; In moments it has you laughing, in others it had me sobbing. The main themes of the movie are those of victory and the harshness of reality and that definitely comes through in the technical aspects of the music artfully crafted by Thomas Newman. 

In general, the main instruments that I caught, at least in the emotional parts of the film in the end were a contrast between a piano and an orchestra. The composer writes phrases that in either part sound happier or more melancholy and that pairing captures the essence of this film. In almost every piece of music there is a mixed emotion, whether it is fear and humor or sadness and hope, the complexity of the instruments is apparent but totally work together to fill out the emotion in the scene, supporting and enhancing what the audience is feeling already. 

There is a scene where Skeeter is sitting in her living room watching MLK give a speech about the horrible events occurring in the south at the time. This is underscored with simple and sad strings, no other instrumentation. The only emotion we are getting is the melancholy nature of the high and descending strings.  However, shortly after this, there is a murder in the town and Abeline is tossed off the bus, forced to run home, and the strings slowly descend before jumping back up into a nervous high and soft tones before dropping out completely, being replaced with contrasting instrumentation: a piano and low bass. The piano contrasts with a low bass tone, the tempo of the piano is faster and stays up high in the notes with the low tolling bass and as this happens the narrator says the words “cold, brutal, deliberate, chilling” and although those words all apply to the action occurring on screen, they also all highlight what the music is invoking in us. Even though the visual is just of Abeline running, we are completely absorbed in the emotional state of her haste and I believe that this is one case where the visual would not nearly be as powerful if the music did not enhance the emotional nature of the scene for the audience. 

Mixed emotions are conveyed again through the duality of the music when Minnie takes the pie to Hilly’s house. There is acoustic guitar strings and some low woodwind instrument, from which we get the mischief vibe from the strings as well as the fear of what she has done (from the woodwind) and how it is going to effect her life. There is a stark contrast in tempo, the string plucking is very rapid, eighth or sixteenth notes, where as the low woodwind is whole notes underscoring the whole section, further setting the two pieces apart, helping us connect with both emotional sides of the scene. Hilly totally deserved the retribution she got but Minnie’s fear of what might happen to her because of it is conveyed clearly as well. 

When the book is released, the music I heard was hopeful. The fact that word comes to mind speaks to the ability of the composer. The clarinets, marimba, bells, piano and some kind of strings, builds and sounds more hopeful and happy than it has for a while in the film. 

Then we get to the music in the church when Abeliene walks down the aisle of clapping again strings and piano melancholy but sweet. Rising high strings, harp, one low horn, but soft and jubilant, invoking the feeling of a win, but somehow still melancholy tones come through, there are very few pure moments of pure happy music but this is probably the closest it has come in the entire film. 

The last scene of the film, when the little girl finishes saying what Abeline taught her the music comes in, soft strings then the piano, soft and melancholy in the moments where it is sad, then it diverges a little, contrasting lower notes with the higher notes, it’s a bittersweet melody.Then the clarinets come in adding a slightly more hopeful tone when Abeline smiles, even though the ending is so sad, the music perfectly underscores how we are feeling left in the wake of all these emotions, as the piano turns brighter we get big and sad strings that add to it. its the perfect mix. 

The music in this film perfectly conveys the complicated emotions that accompany the story. The audience is left feeling the duality of the issues. It’s a tough thing to have you smiling and crying at the end of a film but the music ofThe Help greatly helped to facilitate that response. 

long time, no blog! Here are some thoughts about the music from the first Harry Potter movie! 

I love movies and I love music. As a kid, I did a lot of watching and a lot of listening, but nothing stands out more in my childhood than Harry Potter. I literally grew up with him and the characters of the novels, picking up the first one when I was ten and finishing them up when I was 16 so naturally when the films came out, I was all too excited to go see them and they have made a lasting impression. Not that I thought about it much as a child, but the biggest difference between my imagined visual imagery of the books and the movies was the artful and whimsical music that accompanies the piece. Not to brag, I have a pretty active imagination but I couldn’t have ever made something come to life the way John Williams does in these films. Originally, I wanted to compare and contrast how each of these films handles creating a mood, physical setting and underlining action, but I ended up running out of time and space just with my notes on the first film. 

I’ll start with the physical setting; through out the film the music is creating a tone that has so many facets that are interesting enough to just listen to but paired with the picture are so beautiful. The opening scene in front of Privet drive occurs on a dark and misty night, there is a slight breeze and a chill in the air. This is made apparent in the music. Throughout most of the film, the music is very light and whimsical, but even in the opening scene you get the undercurrent of something dark within the first few seconds. It starts off with a simple high note melody and a lone low rumble underneath. Then the high rising and falling strings enter, possibly indicating the wind in the trees as Albus Dumbledore arrives on the scene (underlining action, but I’ll come back to that. Throughout most of the film, the music is very light and whimsical, but even in the opening scene you get the undercurrent of something dark within the first few seconds. Moving to the scene with the falling letters, the music depicts how the letters rain down everywhere by using heavy low strings and brass and descending notes. Again this accentuates the action that is occurring also. Another example is later on when Harry enter’s Gringotts bank, the music is very regal, just by listening I got the notion of a palace and the visuals concur with this. There are granite floors, candles, torches and large crystal chandeliers as well as goblins dressed in slightly regal looking suits with frilly cuffs. Then when Harry actually enters the vault, Williams somehow manages to capture what gold sounds like. The notes “sparkle” and glimmer with some kind of percussion.  

Williams uses his music to underline a lot of the action that is occurring in the film. Just in the opening scene, Dumbledore is cued with the rising and falling strings, and in a lovely moment when he is de-luminating the lamps on the street, we get a rising set of tones for each light he puts out, going higher and higher each time. Then we get a rising progression as the camera literally pans upward when Professor McGonagall shape shifts from a cat to a woman. The music quiets then picks up again with Hedwig’s theme when Hagrid enters loudly on his motorcycle  with Harry. Skipping ahead to the snake at the zoo scene, the music re enters when the snake begins to move in response to Harry’s questions and responds to the snake’s answers (becomes darker when he nods to the bred in captivity sign) What I find interesting about these moments is that the music becomes the voice for the snake and uses the action in the scene to more fully tell the story. The scene without this music would not convey nearly as much emotion. The music cue’s the glass disappearing and Dudley falling through will a single low brass note and a brass section that follows, indicating suspense, then the music picks back up with a mischievous bouncy sound as the snake slithers off.  Again there is another sound cue when Dudley hits his hands against the glass and another when Vernon glares angrily at Harry (another low brass chord) Low brass cues many of the male Dursley’s actions. Another example is the scene where Neville flies for the first time. He gets caught on a sword of a statue and the music crescendos then stops then crescendos again when he falls again. Later when Hermione is attacked by the troll the music scores the action again, with various hits and smashes being indicated by the music. There are countless examples throughout the work. 

When it comes to setting a mood, Williams is a master. In the opening scene, just by listening, I am fully intrigued by the mystery that comes through with the haunting voices the swirling strings and the childlike simplicity in some of the phrases. A more specific example within this scene is when they are leaving baby Harry on his aunt’s doorstep. The music turns melancholy, not quite sad, a few seconds before we see and hear Hagrid sniffling and crying. The entire scene is laced with wonder which I think is invoked through the contrast of the high strings, and the low strings and voices and the simple celeste phrases. When the title of the movie finally comes, horns and voices come in with a heroic like addition to the strings and really let us know who the hero is. The scene where Harry draws a birthday cake in the dirt for himself has a theme that goes with it that makes us feel lonely. The phrase itself is simple, mainly just an oboe and a harp?, it is childlike, and isolated which totally indicates what is going on in the moment. The scene in Diagon Alley is set to this jovial and wondrous music. It sounds like walking through a kings court or a circus, totally gets us into the mindset of this child taking in a whole new world for the first time before. Later when we see the mysterious stone for the first time, the music completely changes tone, very dark and mysterious, with resounding voices and low brass that sound threatening and ominous. A different example is when Harry first sees Hogwarts for the first time. The music here, I would argue, is the most jovial we have heard yet. There are lots of bells and strings and brass that make a really full and warm sound. This is the first time in Harry’s life that there has been hope for a better life, and he is realizing that all this wizarding stuff is really real and the music perfectly conveys that joy. Then in the quidditch scene we get the overall sense of urgency and danger throughout when Harry begins to have trouble with his broom. And then later in the restricted section of the library the spookiness is perfectly conveyed through the haunting tones and strings.

There are countless examples of each of these elements of film music in this piece and it is due to this score that Harry Potter is what he is today in the world. This work has definitely left an impact on my life and I’ve barely just scratched the surface of what is going on in the piece. 

Here is a link to the written part of Hedwig’s theme which is repeated throughout the entire film. http://www.8notes.com/scores/2474.asp

**Only part way through season four**

The most admirable thing about this show is that everyone can generally overact, fantasize crazy things, and be totally unrealistic but the warm and sad moments never seem out of place. This is not a show one would assume could bring an audience to tears but it does a good job of striking up great emotion and comedy all in one setting.

Now back to watching.

Last week I was sitting in my living room watching an episode of Reaper when my sister walked in and asked, “What is this show? It looks like something that would be on a Saturday morning special right after Power Rangers.” I automatically felt a little defensive, (cause everything I waste my time watching has some merit) because I honestly thought that the show was pretty decent, but after thinking about it I can see where she was coming from. 

I’ll start with the good stuff though. 

The concept was pretty brilliant: a sweet unwitting kid who gets sucked into a being a bounty hunter for the devil = super interesting. You got all kinds of opportunities for conflict, intense situations and great characters, which I think Reaper nails down pretty well sometimes. 

I didn’t have a hard time liking Sam, Andi, Sock and Ben — feel bad for Sam, Andi is likeable and sweet, Ben is just plain nice and Sock is the crazy, lazy, bum, but still loveable — they’re all just cute. Then you have the devil, Jerry, who was intriguing, mysterious, smooth and evil, and also a big enough personality to foil all of the good characters in the entirety of the show — good stuff. 

All of this adds up for some really interesting action, which sometimes they get, but overall, they could have been way more creative with their story and complexity instead of making so many farce-y scenes. (which is funny, but not all of the time) 

Some of the plot lines were great, interesting and witty (ex. get out of hell free card = nice) some not so much. Mostly I didn’t like how they abandoned random storylines all over the place.

1. There was no point for Sam’s younger brother. None. 
2. Why did the mom (suddenly) hate the dad so much? Their dynamic was weird and never really explained. 
3. First Sock’s mom wouldn’t let him move in but a few episodes later she just gives him her house for no reason?  
4. Kristin copping out and going back to Japan, also her 180 degree crazy reversal made very little sense. The brother-sister thing should have bothered her all along if it was gonna bother her at all. 
5. Josie, Katy, and Ben’s perfect girl’s random disappearances from the show with little or no explanation.
6. Morgan getting sent to Hell, the devil making a big deal about him screaming Sam’s name and then nada. 

— a lot of this is probably due to lazy writers, but if you want an invested audience, you’re gonna have to do a bettter job of fleshing out the events that are occurring and those we don’t see (like Sam and Katy officially breaking up? Never got to see that, or even hear a line about it) He was on the phone with her — he went to save Andi from the acid thrower — he and Andi were dating? 

Then back to the first issue my sister raised, for a lot of the first season, the filming and dialogue was a little off. It looked pretty low budget, and some lines were really awfully written, but both of those things got better as the series went on, especially with the dialogue in the second season. You had way more funny lines (Sometimes you just have to look reality in the face and say NO) and only a few rogue WTF ones. 

So I noticed that all the women in this show were absolutely insane, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In most cases, it was pretty interesting, but some others were just annoying.

1. Andi going back and forth on whether Sam is or is not evil  ”we can’t be together because i think your evil but its okay for me to lust after you anyway” Dumb. Just pick a side woman! You’ve known him for years, you know he isn’t evil and even though multiple people told you he isnt evil, of course your going to trust the other crazy girl demon over the angelic demon leading the rebellion against satan. Of course. Just pick a side and stick with it. 
2. Nina the demon — who was introduced trying to kill Sam, but really, she’s sweet. Until you dump her and she rips the windshield off your car while you’re driving it and then tries to drop heavy Work Bench inventory on top of you. Yeah. 
3. Kristin, same thing, sweet but crazy. “Yeah, let’s be best brother and sister. Just kidding, let’s have some sex. No, just kidding, I forgot our parents were married and I can manage hotels now!” 
4. Sam’s mom, bipolar. Starts out as only sweet and nice but then does a complete 180 and becomes ice bitch, starts fighting with the hubby, and we never find out why. 
5. Katy, psychopath. “It’s cool, you talk to my boyfriend, I’ll just come at you with a knife.” Yeah that’s totally normal… yikes. 
6. Katy’s mom — “I’ve been with Jerry for over 21 years now, I don’t know if he’s ever going to commit…” hmm. yeah, that’s a toughie. At least she got her shit together and let that one go. 
7. Josie - she dated Sock. Twice. Enough said. 
8. The english rando girl, whatever her name was, takes the cake. She tricked Ben into marrying her, dated someone from Cirque de Soliel, got pregnant, told everyone it was Ben’s, kept Ben from dating anyone else, moved in with him, stole all his savings, and let him go to jail. Oh, and she did all of that without breaking a sweat. Psychopath.  

— I understand the conundrum of having all of your protagonists in more or less happy relationships, but let’s face it. All of the women on this show were pretty insane, and that’s maybe taking it a little too far in the opposite direction of happiness? Maybe?

I think for the whole story, they could have been way more creative. They sorta had a way that each vessel loosely related to the soul they were trying to capture but not all the time, and that could have made for some interesting sleuthing. Also it took a LONG time for Sam to escape his vapid dumb luck, and move on to actual skill, which they only kind of developed. Also, they set it up for him to have demon powers, but never took it farther than a few weird things that happened to him. Again, the writers approach an interesting idea and then just abandoned it in favor of other things. I think with fewer shenanigans and a little more complexity, the show could have stayed on the air longer. 

The ending though, I was actually okay with. Not really a fan of having Andi lose her soul at first, but if you had to end the series, they did a relatively good job at not making it miserable that we can’t see more (cough cough, My Name Is Earl, damn you Greg Garcia, cough). The fact that it ends on the unknown in relation to God’s plan being unknown is kinda poetic, in that none of us ever realize what God has laid out for us and that gives some hope that everything will be fine. At least now Sam and Andi are together, AND united by the fact that they’re both owned by the devil, yay!

Despite some Sock-level-laziness in the story, I still loved the characters and their dynamic with each other, too bad that this one didn’t make it. =/

Let’s talk character.

Reese Witherspoon plays Lisa, a pro softball player who gets cut from her team for being too old. While everyone seems to love her, and her team looks up to her as a role model, I did not get that vibe at all. She seemed pretty vapid, almost tasteless even. She had all these quotes and rules to live by but even with that she seemed to just kinda float through her own life which is not something that you want your protagonist to do in your story. We see a few moments where she lets her rough side come through but almost always followed with an apology that shouldn’t be there (most notably when she walks out on Owen Wilson the first time and then apologizes, ridiculousness!) She is totally has the right to be upset, she just lost a huge part of her life! She deserves to get a little crazy, but we never really get to see it. 

A flaw of the protagonist in script writing is that the other characters are usually more developed than they are, (because usually our main character is ourself…) which I definitely think is what happened here. 

We got Owen Wilson, who plays Matty, a hunky pitcher out to catch some tail. While his character was entertaining and more developed than Lisa, he was way too much for a girl to put up with. Speaking from a moderate amount of experience, I’ve put up with quite a bit from boys and I would have left him in a heartbeat after the row of toothbrushes. Everything he did and said was just tragic. Even though he obviously cared about Lisa, his personality was not something that any self respecting girl like herself would put up with for any amount of time. He calls her crazy right off the bat, doesn’t listen to her, only goes the bare minimum to be sweet and nice to her, and still has anonymous sex and expects her to be okay with it. The way they’ve set up Lisa as a person, none of that should have been okay with her, and she let it all slide. Until he gives her a watch, then of course, she dumps him.

**Note: Even when she dumps him, it’s kind of ambiguous until she kisses Paul Rudd if they actually broke up or not. 

Paul Rudd’s character, as usual, was so lovable. George was a pretty generic nice guy but I’ll admit I totally fell in love with him and even his flaws — all his crazy — just made him cuter. Plus he was honest to a fault, romantic and sweet, never pushing or intrusive, and on top of all that, his life was in shambles and he was holding it all together for the girl! Perfect foil to Matty and the clear choice over him, don’t know what she was thinking? 

Even in the secretary Sarah had more strong character traits than Lisa. George could have ended up falling for Sarah and it would have been just as believable and truthfully I almost thought that was going to happen for a second in the hospital room when she had her baby. 

Besides the lack of character development, the plot was fairly slow moving and not very interesting, mainly because the main character didn’t do a whole lot other than run back and forth between her apartment, Matty’s place and George’s place. 

Although I will say there were a few great beats: George thinking his dad was the father of the Sarah’s baby, everything Matty did (carrying the bar-bq home in the rain, the cat poop story as an uplifting tale, even just the fact that in his mind he was pulling out all the stops for Lisa) George getting distracted and not videoing the engagement, the scene between Sarah and George where she wants to tell him what is going on, the Playdoh scene was great too — surprise, surprise! They usually involved Mr. Rudd…

Overall the movie was cute but not fantastic, wouldn’t buy it, but was at least worth my time to watch Paul Rudd being as adorable as ever. 

No one will ever top the epic-ness of who ever came up with it.

“Pie-lette”

If you know anything about Pushing Daisies, you know the protagonist, Ned, is a pie maker. So the writers took this really awful, not creative (heresthefirstepisodeofourshow = pilot) and made it into something meaningful, witty, and cute. 

I have nothing but respect for the creators of this show.