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October 13, 2012:

THE ALARMING ALARM

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I have to admit that I was quite alarmed when the house alarm went off all by its lonesome at five-thirty in the morning. I was sound asleep and suddenly off went the alarm, which was alarming. I got right up but was so groggy I couldn’t even see the number pad so I put in the wrong code and the alarm kept ringing. I got the iPhone, used the flashlight app and could finally see what I was doing and entered the code and finally the damn thing stopped. That was quite annoying, as you ight imagine. I went back to bed but it took me almost an hour to fall back asleep. I was hugely tired, as I hadn’t gotten to sleep until three in the morning. But, I slept until eleven-thirty so I think I got seven hours in there somewhere. Of course, I was then behind on everything. I wanted to eat around noon, but that was not going to happen, so I answered e-mails, had a few telephonic conversations, we shipped The Ghastly Love of Johnny X to those who just ordered that title (those who ordered that and The Rains of Ranchipur have to wait a week or so until those come in), then I had several visitors in a row. I managed to finally go have a bowl of matzo ball soup and a bagel, then picked up two little packages and no important envelope, which was annoying, and after that I came back home. I then did work on the computer until it was time for me to mosey on over to my engineer’s home environment to finesse the last seven mixes.

We began with an easy one, and then tackled the six more difficult ones. Again, I just listen and then nitpick little details, all in the service of clarity and what feels right to my ears. So we have a little less of this and a little more of that or we smooth out a blend or whatever we need to do. We got it all done in about three hours and I must say they sounded really good to me. I’ll listen once again when I get them uploaded to the computer and I may or may not do further nitpicks after that (I didn’t for the first eight, as those sounded just as good here as they did there). Lanny had asked us to listen to one song and see if we could bring up the guitar and some percussion. I’d purposely left the percussion off (congas) because both my engineer and I felt it was too busy and fighting the drums and making them muddy. As it turns out, it was good Lanny mentioned the guitar because not only was it low in the mix, it wasn’t even IN the mix at all. The engineer, in cleaning up the track before sending it to me, accidentally shut the guitar off and off it stayed. So, we turned it back on, and I ended up putting the congas in very sporadically, so Lanny will get a taste of them throughout but the busy playing is not there. We should be able to put this to bed on Monday and get it in to mastering.

I then was hungry, since all I’d eaten was the soup and a bagel, so I went to Popeye’s and got a couple of chicken breasts but had them not include the biscuits. They were most yummilicious. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Little Shop of Horrors. I saw it originally before it came out, at a DGA screening. I quite enjoyed it, and it got a very nice reaction with some huge laughs during the first half. But as the film’s second half played out it got less and less interesting and creative and while I really did enjoy it, I didn’t go bonkers for it. Neither did audiences, and the film in its first run engagement was a box-office loser. No one seems to want to remember that fact – most people talk as if the film were some kind of huge blockbuster hit, but it most surely wasn’t. What’s fascinating about that fact is that the film tested well except for the ending. The test audiences hated the ending – they’d grown to like the two leads and didn’t like them begin eaten at the end, even though that’s the show ending. I wonder if they’d shown West Side Story to these brilliant test audiences if they’d have wanted Tony and Maria to live because they’d grown fond of them. And today, they’d go reshoot it so Tony is only wounded and the gangs now learn to co-exist while Maria and Tony live happily ever after.

Now, I don’t think it’s much of a secret that I detest these test screenings and the fact that filmmakers will sometimes completely subvert their films based on the whims of some people in a room. So, they went and reshot the ending and had the two leads survive and kill the plant. Only guess what? It didn’t make the film a hit, so why did they bother? The film’s original ending was ten minutes longer, a very long sequence of various Audrey II’s taking over the world. If you want my opinion, that’s what the test audiences were really not responding to, but they probably didn’t know how to articulate that. The ten-minute sequence, while fun on a certain level, simply is not interesting for ten full minutes. What they should have done was kept the original ending and then done a minute-and-a-half cut down montage version of the ten-minute ending. That would have worked very well. It’s nice to have both versions on the Blu and Ray. I watched the Director’s Cut with the long ending first. And I felt exactly as I did back in 1986 – the first half is great. The songs are fun, the cast is fun, and Frank Oz has a real flair for shooting musical numbers. The best thing about the numbers is that Frank Oz has a brain and he actually designed them for film – thought about the shots, and didn’t do what the directors of musicals do today (one in particular), which is set up twelve cameras and shoot the number from all angles and assemble it in the editing room. That’s no better than a TV special and it is hardly designing a number for the camera. And Mr. Oz lets each shot of each number play out – there’s no quick dizzying and pointless cutting because he designed the shots for the camera and they all edit together for that reason. It’s the only way to shoot musical numbers for the screen, but it’s a lot easier to be lazy and just set up your multiple cameras, stage the number for the proscenium and hope for the best in the editing and disguise it all with cuts of less than ten seconds duration – well, two seconds in most cases. The numbers are very creative and fun, the plant is great, too. But in the second half, the narrative just gets repetitious and the film kind of fizzles. I have no problem with the two leads getting eaten, just as I didn’t have that problem in the original Roger Corman film. But that ending is endless with the plants taking over the world. I know it was a technical challenge and probably fun for the filmmakers, but it just doesn’t work at that length. At a minute or so as a montage, it would be great. I watched the theatrical ending afterwards, and it’s cute and very well done, but it, too, doesn’t really work that well. The transfer is excellent all the way down the line.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must get a good night’s beauty sleep.

Today, other than some busywork to do, I think the day and evening are mine all mine. I think I’ll pay a visit to Malcolm and Christine at Mystery and Imagination Books – they’ve had a very tough summer. It must be very scary to have that slow a summer. Hopefully I’ll pick up some packages and an important envelope. I’ll probably go out for dinner or maybe I’ll just stay home and watch something. We shall see.

As it turns out, tomorrow is absolutely mine all mine and I will absolutely take the entire day and evening off and do no work at all. Monday I have to get everyone their music and stuff to listen to, then I’m seeing a cabaret act in the evening. The rest of the week is meetings, meals, getting the Christmas album to mastering, finishing its packaging, and lots of other stuff.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do busywork, visit a bookshop, hopefully pick up some packages and an important envelope, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite film musicals from 1970 to the present? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, and let us hope and pray that I am not again awakened by an alarming alarm.

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