I could be way off base here but I imagine there is enough to get straight trying to create movie without worrying about getting your editors to synch with music you aren't paying to have in the movie.

I've heard similar claims about Pink Floyd and Wizard of Oz. It's called a coincidence and wishful thinking.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

quote:

---

Originally posted by Khephra Sol
Do this as many times as is useful.

---

How useful is this? what can we, as filmmakers, learn from what is clearly a coincidence?

In my work making very low budget, direct-to-video movies I use a licensed library of pre recorded music. Many, many times I have cued up a track from one of the 250 CD's I have at the beginning of a scene. And it syncs up perfectly - as if I cut my scene to the music.

It's uncanny. And it's a coincidence.

If you randomly select any CD in your collection and randomly select any DVD in your collection and start them up at the exact same time - there will be many moments where things sync up.

What is useful about this?

=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

This isn't coincidence. It is film making technique people can study. There is more than just accidental synchronization at work here, or I wouldn't bother mentioning it (it helps to actually look at the synch and then judge). The Pink Floyd synch was purposeful by the way (guitar solo matching Dorothy's steps while skipping and running home on the dirt road with Toto - not accidental coincidence). You have to pay attention to see how melody coincides with imagery too perfectly to be coincidence. Also, an understanding of alchemical concepts and orgone biophysics expands what can be observed and studied. These people are alchemically capable - much more so than the average academic alchemist.

Try 1941 to Revolver or the Yellow Submarine CD, and you will see (start point is first beginning credit). They do much more than just synch to the beat. They can whip up a movie in no time just using the music of the Beatles. 1941 is about "adolescent sexual alchemy," with sex energy dynamics encrypted into the imagery and all. Notice how the themes used in the music are made those of the film, often via analogy (Yellow Submarine indeed).

I've never heard about this one. But the Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz one - that's not a coincidence. If you watch it you'll understand. Of course, with that one, I always assumed the film came first - Pink Floyd and all...

So when the Pink Floyd album was cut we have to assume either (a) the band has a super-memory (b) they wasted time in the studio adjusting their timing (c) They got lucky.

Considering VCRs didn't exist we need to have a reel to reel player available durithe song writing process and that would mean that they couldn't change anything in the studio. I'm not a musician but it seems to me unlikely.

"Yeah Roger, that lyric is brilliant, but it doesn't match up with the tinman's footsteps so it's gotta go."

"Well David, maybe you're right, but then we've got to rework the entire guitar solo to match the flying monkeys."

No wonder Floyd has a nasty break up.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

quote:

---

Originally posted by Khephra Sol

This isn't coincidence. It is film making technique people can study. There is more than just accidental synchronization at work here, or I wouldn't bother mentioning it (it helps to actually look at the synch and then judge).

---

I have done the Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz thing and every once in a while it DOES sync up. I also was listening to The Best of Credence one day and happened to catch Casablanca on cable. It synced up so well my girlfriend and I kept watching until the CD ran out.

So I ask again: what can we, as filmmakers, learn from this?

Do you suggest that we take a record we really like and cut our film to it?

My favorite record album of all time is ?Rubber Soul?. Are you suggesting that I re-cut my current film so it syncs up to that record? What will I learn if I do that?

Are you saying that Kubrick actually cut Eyes Wide Shut to Abbey Road and that Michael Kahn cut 1941 to Revolver?

=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

What any individual filmmaker learns from watching music-movie synchronizations is their own business. It really doesn't take any serious genius to figure out what can be learned. It is the technique used by practically all the big money makers in the industry - a culture all its own which can be studied for decades by virtue of the larger cult-ure out of which it was born.

Rubber Soul, as well as Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, were use for Rosemary's Baby, the start point being that weird piano chime during the studio logo card, before the film starts.

As for actually synching your films to music: it would require that the entire creative process be altered to accommodate the synchronization - from beginning to end.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Khephra Sol

What any individual filmmaker learns from watching music-movie synchronizations is their own business. It really doesn't take any serious genius to figure out what can be learned.

---

Okay. How about telling us what can be learned.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Khephra Sol

As for actually synching your films to music: it would require that the entire creative process be altered to accommodate the synchronization - from beginning to end.

---

So are you saying that Kubrick altered his entire creative process to accommodate the synchronization of Eyes Wide Shut to Abby Road?

And what about Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz? Clearly Wizard of Oz wasn't synced to Pink Floyd - so do you think the album was written to fit the movie?

Kubrick didn't actually edit any of his films after 1955.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000040/

He would have had some editing decisions about flow and details but not enough to match albums so closely. This doesn't even pass the most basic smell test.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Eyes Wide Shut = Edited by Nigel Galt
Clockwork Orange = Edited by Bill Butler
The Shining = Edited by Ray Lovejoy
Full Metal Jacket = Martin Hunter

If he used the same editor for any of the films you named I might have given this more than a minutes thought but there is no way he convinced four different editors to go along with such a waste of time.

So Khephra Sol what is your point in sharing this info with the board?

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

It doesn't matter which editor Kubrick used, as long as it is someone who is already familiar with the process. Another good Beatles movie is Natural Born Killers, the start point being also during the studio logo intro, right when the music score begins (I've only tried the British LP releases on CD). It is an industry practice.

Oz would have been synched with some of the popular music of the era, so it is easy to use that movie to make an album (or have fun watching it to just about any studio music recording), and then Pink Floyd synched their album to the movie. From what I have been learning watching the Oz/Floyd synch, they would have had to have cut up at least three films into album length sections, and then watched them all at once, because there are at least three start points for that synch:

1) Third Lion Roar
2) Third Knock Dorothy Makes On Tin Man's Chest
3) Third Heel Click

I'm sure anyone who wants to learn by watching these synchs can figure out what can be learned for themselves; you just watch carefully to verify the purposefulness of the synch and then learn. I don't feel like telling people what they "must learn." Once you actually observe what is happening during one of these synchs, I'm sure all kinds of ideas will reveal themselves, each person learning what they will learn for their own reasons. It doesn't take any serious genius to figure out what they are doing. You just alter the entire movie making process to take into account a master tape which has whatever albums you are using for the synch playing at one time - some of them as echoing loops. You would journal to the tape, outline to the tape, write in synch with the tape, using ideas derived from the tape, along with other ideas one will incorporate (novels, dream-alchemy, etc...), storyboard in synch with the tape, film in synch with the tape, act in synch with the tape, move the camera in synch with the tape, do the soundtrack in synch with the tape, and then edit in synch with the tape. People are paying big money to watch philosophical dance without realizing it.

Hey I think I've made my opinions clear so I won't pile on. You are the first person I've ever heard who put this forth as if it was gospel and not some freak of timing so I think the burdon of proof is on you. I need a bit more than it works, they do it, its a mystery why.

Do you have any links to stories about this sort of thing. Perhaps some film magazines or film schools teach this as a valuable editing technique? Maybe some music magazines or music schools? Business schools, marketing magazines that might suggest how this helps market the film or album? A thesis written on the subject? Some books from people that understand the technque and want to make a buck off of it? No successful technique could have been around so long without a host of literature discussing it. Some links please.

Even some fevered writings on the High Times website would be worth reading. If you can't produce any meaningful links I have to assume you are (a) trying to toy with the readers of this board (b) someone who is easily duped.

I'm looking for option c, help me.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

quote:

---

Originally posted by Khephra Sol
It is an industry practice.

---

I've been in the industry for many years now and have met many experienced, talented editors including Academy Award winners. Never once has an editor mentioned that they routinely edit their movie to sync up with a Beatles album. Could you point me to an article from one of Kubrick's editors where he says he cut his film to sync up with a Beatles album?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Khephra Sol
From what I have been learning watching the Oz/Floyd synch, they would have had to have cut up at least three films into album length sections, and then watched them all at once, because there are at least three start points for that synch:

1) Third Lion Roar
2) Third Knock Dorothy Makes On Tin Man's Chest
3) Third Heel Click

---

Which leads me to believe that it is a coincidence. There are several places where you can start the album and it appears to sync up perfectly. Abbey Road also has many points where it syncs perfectly to Wizard of Oz. Do you think George Martin was watching Wizard of Oz as he produced that album?

So what you're suggestion that it's not only film editors who are cutting their movies to Beatles albums, but that musicians and record producers are recording their albums to sync with old movies.

You say it's an industry practice - but I have never heard a single, working film editor mention it. And as rjschawrz already mentioned, I find it impossible to believe that they restricted their talent to fit the sync of that movie.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Khephra Sol
I'm sure anyone who wants to learn by watching these synchs can figure out what can be learned for themselves; you just watch carefully to verify the purposefulness of the synch and then learn. I don't feel like telling people what they "must learn."

---

I never asked you to tell us what we "must learn" - only what your opinion is on what we CAN learn.

So far you have made it very clear that syncing a movie to an album or syncing an album is pure coincidence. I learned this many years ago when I would project my Super8 movies on the wall and but on the record of a James Bond score.

It sometimes synced up perfectly.

So in your opinion, Khephra Sol - what can we filmmakers learn from this coincidence?

=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Most of these proofs you guys are calling for wouldn't constitute proof of anything. The proof is in studying the synchs carefully and paying close attention to how the music works with the film in a supplimental fashion; there is much to study here. Making the film synch to the beat of an album is not studying anything; movies are synched with music anyway, so you can use any album to do that. The challenge is in finding the actual start point(s) where the genuine synch starts, using the actual album they used so that the synchronization is lined up with melody, theme, etc....

What one can or cannot learn should be obvious to anyone who can think and who is inclined to do so; I am not going to write a book for you here. One can learn everything from movie-making methods to alchemy in studying how they use music in synchronization with movies (watch for the use of analogy, etc...). The top people are on top because they know more than just standard movie making method. There are no links or articles for this stuff.

There is more to this than getting the music beat to line up and seeing funny stuff, or else I would not be wasting my time here. The burden of proof is on who ever wants to study this issue. I am not burdened with proving anything to anyone. The proof is in actually watching the synchs.

In order to come to the conclusion that George Martin was synchronizing The Beatles' albums to movies, I would have to find the movies he might have used and then try to synch them (the start points are usually pretty standard).