16 - RA 6 - Dramaticism

I must say Andrew, sitting in a sweltering recording booth, and Dan who is comfortably in bed, that I am very, very cold.

I’m cold because I still go to school, and my school is a very, very cold place. It’s not because of it’s geography, or that there is very cold weather, in fact outside seems to be very nice. The problem is that the school is made seemingly all of brick, and it repels roughly 110% of all sunlight, so it actually gets colder no matter how much suns pours onto it. The other problem is the heating inside is an absolute joke, there are small space heaters stuck into the corners that heat nothing. That is not an exaggeration, you can leave them on full blast for weeks at a time, nothing is getting any hotter. And Andrew, if you think sitting in your workplace and writing blog is questionable, I’m sitting in a physics class and writing blog, I think that sets a new low bar for poorest place to write blog. While physics is very interesting and all, and I certainly love knowing how the world works in all it’s strange and amazing ways, that doesn’t mean it isn’t very boring.

Here’s a topic that occurred to me reading the last couple of blogs.

We have this alarming tendency to

Break the blog into

Paragraphs

For very little reason other than, seemingly

Dramatic Impact.

In short, while we might be getting points for entertaining each other, I don’t think we’re scoring much in the way of academic writing. Then again, we cite work and don’t reference it, tend to ramble about nothing in particular, and most un-academically, have our own opinions on things. So yeah, don’t put these blogs on google scholar or anything.

And I have decided that this weeks topic is ‘Okami’ (2005, Clover Studios.) Dan, after you mentioned the shrine from near the end of the game that I’m not even going to try and remember the name of (Seriously, how did you do that, you don’t even have the game, I do,) I dusted it off and started a new game. I am quite a completionist, so naturally I avoid games like Okami because there’s so much to do that can be easily be missed and subsequently extremely difficult to find later. But I cranked open the game, and started reimmersing myself in this interactive experience. Thinking of it from a purely critical palce, the game is absolutely flawless, with endless charm and invention, outstanding all around gameplay, graphics, music, art style, memorable characters and a compelling story. The only detractions from a gamer stand point is that the dialogue can be a little bit WAY-TOO-MUCH-TALKING-SHUT-UP-ALREADY! Plus, it is simply a very unique game, I have never seen another game even remotely like it. One of my friends said it was a feudal Japanese Legend Of Zelda, but that’s like saying that Mario set in Brooklyn is still a Mario game. Well… we know how much that movie had to do with the games. [Shudders] So no, it is an all around fantastically amazing games that is among the greatest ever designed and easily among

My Favorites

Of all time.

Did I break it into paragraphs so I didn’t have to write as much blog… Maybe.

Dan, I’ll read from you tomorrow. Andrew, till Thursday.

R. A. Lyons.

15 - AL 4 - Segues

Hello from the sound booth brothers.

Now I know what you’re thinking:

•         What kind of consummate professional is writing a blog while he’s meant to be recording?
•         How bad are this guy’s priorities if he’s writing a blog when he’s meant to be working?
•         He’s in a recording booth?

The answer to all of these questions follow the same theme, I am a very hardworking lazy person whose priorities are entirely contextual.

As it happens though, I’m sitting and waiting for the musicians to come back from lunch, which is entirely doughy and sugary food, and therefore likely to make the music sound worse and the musicians will get tired and sleepy. All-in-all, I’m both glad that I ate salad today, and that I’m sitting in this murky, musty, blazing hot room, and not out in the bright, cool, spacious recording room.

But the reason I talk about this now is because both King Kong from 2005, and the score that I composed that is now being recorded play nicely together. For the score, I was requested that it be based around a soft French horn, with strings and piano backing. Relatively easy orchestration, and I think it goes well with the actual film. But one of the composers they mentioned for it to sound like is Howard Shore, or James Newton Howard. As it happens, Howard Shore was going to compose the score to King Kong, and apparently had already recorded a bunch of it, but ended up being replaced about ten minutes before the film came out. His replacement: James Newton Howard.

And now the easy segue into my thoughts on King Kong. R. A., like you I haven’t seen the original King Kong, but I’ve heard pretty similar things about it, clearly we’ve read the same Wikipedia page on the subject. It looks kinda old and dated, though I’m pretty sure I’d appreciate it more if I saw it. But as for the new one, I have actually seen it pretty recently. It’s very good. I am not quite as up on my film terminology and practices as you Dan, so I don’t think I can get into quite so much detail, but it was really, really good. I’d even call it one of my favorite monster movies of all time, though I guess I haven’t seen all that many. It feels a bit like Lord Of The Rings in how it looks and sounds, and the overall atmosphere of the movie, though unfortunately it’s not quite as good. I agree with you Dan that it has a couple moments of… questionable filmmaking, but on the whole it’s a really fantastic movie.

Also, thanks Dan for listening and responding to the song. I initially wasn’t actually going to do it, but when it was late on Wednesday, the tune just sort of came up, and within an hour I had the lyrics written and was recording it. I know I’m not that great a singer (I’ve been described as being painfully out of tune) so I pretty much had to rely on it being funny and catchy. But I now think I can definitely get more songs done, partly because it was actually quite fun. I’m open to song suggestions though, because they can be pretty hard to come up with.

Also, like you said a few weeks ago R. A., the first blog took me hours to write and the second one even longer, but since then it’s become much quicker. It’s almost like through regular practice the commitment to something, you can get better at it. And on that note, I am starting to teach myself the piano. Now I can hear the sounds of musicians returning which means I should probably get back to work.

R. A. , I’ll read from you on Tuesday, Dan, till Wednesday.

Andrew Lyons.

14 - DL 6 - Easy Film Earwhacks

Ahhhh, it feels good to be backing up R. A., very good.

I think I’m getting towards a way to share PDFs that doesn’t involve emailing, though it will involve another website, and I don’t know if they’ll claim ownership over our work etc. So I’m still working on it, but I’ll hopefully be on top of it soon.

Speaking of being under things, R. A. your sickness seems to have infected your blog post and the very act of me reading it has caused me to become contaminated because I too, am now, under the weather. I’m not quite bed confined, but my head feels like the machine from ‘Okami’ in the Ezo Fuji Irwak Shrine that is blasting out a storm so cold and so strong that it is freezing the nearby village to death. I guess it doesn’t help that it is noticeably freezing outside, but still, I have to blame someone for the common cold, so I’m blaming you.

Something I found funny is that your idea, R. A. of listing a daily favorite is quite nice, but that you managed to forget to actually list one. Although maybe you were saving it until Andrew and I agreed to this. It’s a nice idea, but every day is probably kinda steep. I, for example, listen to the same album of soundtrack of music for a few weeks if not months before swapping, and my favorite usually doesn’t change. I think we’ll have to go through a few drafts of ideas before we put that one into action. But on the topic of ideas:

PRESENT TIME!

Andrew, you emailed me a private link to your song, and I don’t know whether to count that as having fulfilled the challenge or not, since it was to post it up on the blog. But I guess it’s my job to make sure you can do that, so I can’t really enforce consequences on you. It was a short, simple, and funny song about how we don’t know the words to say in conversations, and I think the bit at the end about how it’s easier to talk over text cause we have time to think was very nice. Overall, funny, charming, and I was singing it to myself in the car this morning, so good job. Like the PDFs, I’ll find a way to put the song on the blog soon.

And now, finally, the section we’ve been waiting for. King Kong.

1933 – Directed by Merian C. Cooper, released by RKO Pictures.

What a groundbreaking masterpiece this was. Every film made in the last twenty or so years that relies of visual effects created in post-production, rather than practical effects while filming owes this film the greatest of debts of gratitude. It will take more than the short paragraph to sum up how unbelievable this film would have been to audiences at the time. Looking back on it today, it is still quite good. I can marvel at the visual side of it endlessly, but there are faults. The dialogue isn’t that strong, and this doesn’t lead to great performances, though considering the actors were performing largely against nothing, they do quite well. Kong himself is a little mixed in my opinion. He had many moments of just uncanny creepiness with his cartoonish expression, and I never fully liked him. I was certainly on his side in the battle with the planes, but overall, I wasn’t sold on him. So overall, an excellent film, visually phenomenal, narratively sound, writing-ly iffy.

2005 – Directed by Peter Jackson, released by Universal Pictures.

I didn’t actually realise that Peter Jackson and crew started making this film before Lord of the Rings, and continued making it basically immediately after finishing the extended edition of Return of the King. But they did, and even though I’m sure Jackson and crew were burnt out, tired, creatively spent, and wanted to just crawl into bed and eat ice cream for a few years, they go right back on the horse, and produced this film. With a huge budget, the best visual team in the world, some of the best narrative adapters in the world, and a guaranteed epic scale to the film, how did it do? Ehh…. It is very, very good, but it has problems. The slow motion is too frequent and distracting, half an hour could indeed have been chopped from the film, and the story was sometimes told very in-organically, something that bugs me as a film writer. However, it is every bit as visually flawless as you stated R. A., with not a frame being anything less than outstanding. There were moments of melodrama ‘S-K-U-L-L- -I-S-L-A-N-D-‘… Really Jackson? But they were countered by such wonderful moments of subtlty and emotion (Darrow and Kong on the ledge at sunset) that I wouldn’t detract any points for them. The dialogue is much better, feels organic and fits each character. The characters themselves are all likeable and I especially enjoyed Adrian Brody as a writer stepping out of his comfort zone and becoming the embodiment of what he writes about. The real star is, of course (He is in the title,) Kong. This is a brilliantly done portrayal of Kong. I have only positive things to say, there is literally nothing that didn’t work about Kong. He was simultaneously a fiercesome beast and king of the jungle, and a lonely, compassionate figure looking for acceptance and love. The eyes, that is a work of art. They never stop being the big eyes of a ape, but they yield such endless emotion that it’s astounding. So yeah, on the whole a very good film. Visually outstanding, dialogue and acting extremely strong, narrative was epic but a little inorganic, slow motion was overused and the film a bit too long with moments of awkward melodrama. Kong, perfect. Definintely a recommendation overall.

Andrew, I look forward to your comments tomorrow, and R. A., I hope you get well soon.

Favorite song at the moment – Dirty Paws, Of Monsters and Men – My Head Is An Animal. Because it’s a fantastic song, and makes me wish I could sing, that the band would bring out another album, and that there was more music like it in the world.

Daniel Lyons.

13 - RAL 5 - Monstrous Things

Good slightly-more-on-time Dan, and hello to you Andrew.

I unfortunately haven’t seen the original ‘King Kong’ from 80 years ago, but I have seen the remake from 8. Years ago that is. I did some reading though, and it seems the original King Kong is basically the forefather of modern visual effects driven films, and that the director Merian C. Cooper and the filmmaking team basically rewrote the FX handbook in order to make the film they wanted. And this was in 1933, years before Orson Welles did ‘Citizen Kane,’ a film I have seen which has some amazing visual moments in it.

So, ‘King Kong’ a la 2005. It’s pretty good, great in fact. I really liked it. It was about 30 minutes too long, but it was so amazingly well made in every possible way that I didn’t even notice till after the film was over. There’s not a frame that isn’t visually impeccable, and I was never once bored in the entire film, in fact I was frequently on the edge of my seat. But what I think worked incredibly well, was that it was a monster movie with no villain. Or at least, no actual villain, because you could say that human nature was the villain here. Carl Denham’s ambition ruining himself, getting people around him killed, and getting Kong captured and displayed, but also Kong’s love for Anne Darrow which drives him to his ultimate battle on the empire state building. For not having a villain, it was an incredibly driving monster film. I also really liked the music, and I propose an addition to the blog below that relates to this. All in all, I can’t really compare it to the original for lack of having seen it, but this remake was pretty fantastic.

I have a topic about future careers. In school for the last couple of weeks, the career guidance counsellors have been sending those of us in our second last year of school all sorts of messages about our future. I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, an architect, a lawyer, a real boy etc. And I especially don’t know when I’m put on the spot and asked full frontally. But I do have an ambition which you two, Dan and Andrew, already know, which is to be a writer. I have a number of books I’d like to write, which fall into either series which are always fantasy books, or stand alone titles which are frequently little stories about a small group of people in unusual circumstances. But as well as writing novels, which if I could make a living off would be about seven kinds of amazing, I want to write other things to. I’d like to be a new kind of critic that doesn’t just criticize end results of a film, but objectively and without bias looks at a film, tries to identify with the filmmakers and the production, and positively comment on the result. Although this positive comment might be that the filmmakers have probably learned exactly how not to make a film... I’d also like to be some kind of social commentator, though I’m not sure how. Maybe write some kind of article giving thoughts not on a particular topic, but instead just on the culture and social systems that we live in, although I guess that does count as a topic. So that's what I'd like to be, novelist, critic and journalist (kinda). What about you two, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Blog Addition:

I propose that we each give a daily favorite piece of music. It’ll be a little blog post that you, Dan, will post up. Each of us gives the piece of music, who composed it and the date etc. And a sentence or two why its our favorite of the day. And then, the other two have to listen to said song. It’s in an attempt to, what I’m calling, learn more about each other as adults.

Anyway, I’m still really sick, and my bed is becoming less comfortable by the day so here’s hoping that I am able to leave it soon.

Dan, I’ll read from you tomorrow. Andrew, on Thursday.

R. A. Lyons.

12 - AL 3 - Boundaries

Hello brothers. It’s really funny reading you two write blog posts cause you write them just like you’d talk to each other. At least, how you’d talk if you talked in really, really long blog posts.

Anyway, my creative process:

Unlike you two, I get paid to compose music, so there’s a great deal of pressure that I get things done.  And when there’s that pressure, that you have deadlines when you have to hand it over, and often reasonably strict guidelines for the music itself, it’s actually a lot easier to get things done. You both talked about universal truths that are faced by people who have to be creative for a living, and I think that one of those truths is that we can keep working on something indefinitely if we’re given the option. I would probably still be changing the first song I ever wrote if I didn’t have to hand it in to class. So having deadlines and guidelines really does help me. I know you two must be cringing at the thought of limitations put on your work, but believe me; it helps. Often the best thing you can do for a project, is let it go.

R. A., if you just give yourself a word limit, or character limit, or really any kind of boundary that you cannot pass, and Dan if you give yourself a time limit, or budget limit, or write something that only has a limited number of days to be filmed, then something will very quickly change. Both of your focuses will move from adding more and more content to your story, to making the limited amount of content you are allowed to use the most substantial and well developed it can be. This little change in the way you write will make a huge difference. So while you may not like the idea of self-put arbitrary limits on your creative process, I know from nearly five years of personal experience, it works.

With all that said, composing isn’t all that difficult to start with, and it gets progressively harder as you go along. You can sit down with any combination of instruments, and keep hitting and strumming and blowing till you find a sound that works, and form a tune that it works with. After that, it gets hard. That first stage is my favorite because I can create very distinct sounds for each of my compositions, and people who employ me love to hear this diverse range. Once you are on a project though, all of those limitations set into place. There may be dialogue, or sound effects, or producers that have such a specific vision in mind that they basically compose for you. There’s also the timing of the picture to consider, and what tone is currently on screen. One of the most baffling parts of the process is that what tone I think each scene is, eg. Happy, sad, intense, passionate etc. might be completely different to what everyone else sees.

But it all works to give me more boundaries to work in, and the deadline only approaches faster. But by this point, I have the sound the composition needs to be, I know if it needs to be happy or sad, how long it has to last, the instruments that go into it, and I usually have some idea of what kind of music the producer likes, so I try to play into that. And then, all of a sudden, it’s done and out of my hands.

I guess that’s something that not just the two of you, but all creative hopefuls and professionals should remember. Ultimately, you’re not making something that only you can enjoy, and that is never going to leave your personal property, you’re making work for other people.

The less you think that the work is only about you, and the more you realise that it is for other people, the easier it will get to just let go, and produce some amazing products.

That’s a little bit about my creative process.

Dan, R. A., it’s been an interesting few days, and I’ll read from you next week.

Andrew Lyons.