Tag Archives: movies

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Lesson #403: Shepard Tones

I finally got around to watching Dunkirk today. It’s stressful. But it’s beautifully made, and there was a variation on Elgar’s ‘Nimrod‘.* Which mostly drove me crazy by pretending to be Nimrod, very slowly, for a bar or two, without ever becoming Nimrod. In looking it up later, I learned that it wasn’t actually Nimrod, which mostly exonerated it.**

Anyway, one of the way that your blood pressure gets ratcheted up in this film is the Shepard tone. Identified by cognitive scientist Roger Shepard, the Shepard tone is an auditory illusion that gives the listener the sense of a perpetually rising tone without ever actually rising. Using overlapping tones, as the scale rises the top end fades out and allows the bottom tone to pick back up very quietly as the other pitches continue to rise. It’s sort of like a round of, say, Frere Jacques, where after you’ve finished the line “ding dang dong”, you pick back up at the top of the round with “Frere Jacques” while your friend moves into the “ding dang dong” line. While this is happening, you’re quieter in the initial “Frere Jacques” and the ultimate “ding dang dong” lines, and louder in the middle “dormez-vous” and “sonnez les matines” lines. The Shepard tone is a more uniform and linear version of this idea that tricks your brain into thinking it’s continually climbing. The effect of that is a sense of mounting tension, and Dunkirk‘s composer, Hans Zimmer, uses this masterfully. You can hear it (and the snippets of Elgar) in this piece.

To hear what a Shepard tone sounds like in isolation, listen here.

For more on the theory of the Shepard tone from some BBC scientist types, see here.

 

*We’ve previously discussed this very piece of music.

**It is, however, a brilliant choice of music for people familiar with the wave of Elgar’s (posthumous — he died in 1934) popularity in England at the time.

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An Addendum to Lesson #161: In Which I Attend My First Drive-In Movie(s)

A year(ish) ago, I wrote a post about drive-ins and mentioned that I’d never been to one, despite having had plenty of opportunity in my teenaged years (and later, when I lived in a southern state) to do so.

With Cowboys & Aliens opening yesterday, I sent my movie-watching friend an email on Tuesday saying only, “Cowboys, aliens, you, me and beer?” She countered with a suggestion of hitting the local drive-in (in other news, we have a local drive-in) for a triple header involving Captain America and two other movies I didn’t like anywhere near as much.

Drive in? YES!

The friend I went with had also never been to the drive-in, so when we got there and discovered that there were swingsets near the screen, we both geeked out hard on the “IT’S JUST LIKE IN GREASE!” aspect of it. Because for both of us, the drive-in scene in Grease is about the only reference point we have to drive-ins.*

*Don’t judge me!

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Lesson #215: The Colts Band

Autobiographical Note: Years ago, when we were still in college and he was working as a freelancer, my best friend took me with him on an assignment involving the legendary Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas after which, he introduced me to him. That remains one of the highlights of my time in college.*

I mentioned to my best friend at some point during the World Cup that I’d watched the ESPN 30 for 30 episode “The Two Escobars” about Pablo Escobar (the drug kingpin), Andres Escobar (the late footballer) and Colombia’s surprising run at the World Cup in 1994 and that I’d found it really, really interesting and he told me I had to watch “The Band That Wouldn’t Die.” So that’s what we did tonight…because we both love sports, documentaries and the city of Baltimore.

It turns out the Colts band was instrumental in taking football back to Baltimore. After Irsay literally took the Colts away in the middle of the night in March 1984, the band kept playing. Not only did they keep playing, they played halftime shows for teams in the NFL that were not their own. In the end, when the NFL expanded again in 1997, they were the driving force behind getting the Ravens to Baltimore.

There is still a bitter undertone in Baltimore about the departure of their football team in the middle of the night. Still. Even though they now have a football team and even though that team won the Superbowl while I was in college. However, until I saw this documentary, I had no idea how much of a football history there is in Baltimore.**

*When we were talking about it, he admitted that at the time, he didn’t realize how important Johnny Unitas was to Baltimore. It was only after Unitas died that he really understood. I, despite being a poor American football fan, somehow had a deep understanding of Unitas’ importance to Baltimore — possibly because of my internship at a sports radio station, my family’s connection to the town and team or both — and was beside myself over this opportunity that I only today discovered was a 13-week engagement for my best friend.

**I’m not really that much of an American football fan, to be honest, so the Ravens were always just the other team after the Orioles, who are my baseball team.

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Lesson #161: Drive-ins

My brother called from Boston last night to work out a few details about my impending move/visit to see him as I pass through. Somehow in the course of our hour long conversation, we got onto the subject of movies. He and his wife went to the drive-in last night to see Iron Man, which he recommended — I saw in Jerusalem — and Shrek 4, which he thought was stupid — which I had guessed from the previews. I have never been been to the drive-in.

Somewhere years ago, I heard that there were only about 50 operational drive-ins remaining in the United States. This was probably around the time my friends and I went apple picking in the backwoods of Maryland one weekend and ended up making friends with the owner of the local drive-in. Somewhere, there are pictures. That place is shut down now. It might even have been shut down then, but the screen was still there as was the little cafe next to it where we had lunch.

Imagine my surprise when I decided to go see what I could find out about drive-ins now and discovered that there is a whole website dedicated to telling you where to go, should you want to go. According to said website, there are 374 drive-ins operating in 47 states (all but Alaska, Delaware and Louisiana) and 66 across Canada.

The highest concentration of drive-ins run across the steel belt: Pennsylvania has the most active drive-ins with 34, followed by Ohio which has 30 and Indiana rounds out the top four with 20.* I don’t know if this says something in particular or if it’s just a coincidence.

1958 was the peak year for the popularity of the drive-in with 4063 open theatres, including 382 in Texas alone.** Popularity began to wane in 1959 and plateaued for a few years in the late 60s and early 70s (between 1967 and 1972, the number of drive-ins slid only from 3384 to 3342)*** before falling again. The downfall was fairly consistent until the mid-1980s when the number of drive-ins was reduced by 25% to 999 in 1986, the first time the number had been under 1000 since 1948 when there were 820. There was a continued slow decline in the 1990s and the numbers leveled off in the 2000s with more or less 400 open drive-ins.

Your Jeopardy trivia tidbit for the day: The first drive-in was opened in Camden, New Jersey in June 1933.

*New York is third with 29.

**I’ve lived in Texas; somehow this makes perfect sense.

***As a historian, I find this very interesting because these were the peak years of global revolutionary fervour and in the US, anti-war sentiment.

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Lesson #109: Durham Athletic Park

Today was the day. Bull Durham Day 2010.* Every single one of my sporting friends watches this movie as a sort of spring tradition. Every year around the time that the baseball season gets underway, we break out Bull Durham.

And in honour of the film, it’s time to take a look at Durham Athletic Park.

Durham Athletic Park was opened in 1939, though there had been a park in existence on the location from 1926. It burned down in early 1939, which is really not all that uncommon for a ballpark at that time period.** Anyway…the park was decommissioned in 1995 when the Bulls moved to Durham Bulls Athletic Park (which incidentally was designed by the same guys who designed the home stadium of my team, the Baltimore Orioles). Its measurements were 330 to left, 410 to centre and 305 to right field and the park had a capacity of 5000.*** From 1938 – 1943, the park was home to the Durham Bulls of the Piedmont League and then from 1945 – 1967 and from 1980 – 1994 of the Carolina League. From 1945-1967, the Bulls were affiliates of the Tigers, Astros and Mets, but from 1980 until 1997 (three years after the Bulls moved to their new park), they were affiliated with the Atlanta Braves. The ballpark currently still stands, but is no longer in regular use.****

Autobiographical note: I love Bull Durham more than any other sports movie in existence. Not just because of the impending start of the baseball season, but because I truly love baseball. The movie is 20+ years old, but baseball is still the same. I spent some of the best summers of my life working in the minor leagues and even though this movie was released when I was 8, it illustrates perfectly what that life is. I have known those guys and I have been in those dive bars and I have slid on the tarp during rain storms. I enjoy major league baseball in the same way that I enjoy any professional sport of which I’m a fan, but I love minor league baseball because it’s not about ridiculous ticket prices and $8 beers; it’s about families having a great time at the park and guys who would be Joe Hardy.

*I love my friends. I posted on my Facebook update that in the craziness of my mid-week (my best friend’s birthday and Desmond’s long-awaited return on LOST on Tuesday, my friend’s return to the city and Rocky Horror with my housemates on Wednesday and last night’s catching up and return trip to Rocky Horror — the stage manager in me refuses to see a good show just once…there’s a fascination in finding the details) I had forgotten that today was the day that Bull Durham got pulled out and a bunch of my sport guys went “wait, there’s an official day for this?!?” and seemed horrified that they didn’t know about this event. I had to reassure them that it was not, in fact, an official day, just the day that a friend and I had decided we’d watch it.

**Parks in those days, unless they were new, were made mostly of wood. I mean, the famed Orioles player-manager John McGraw (and a Boston Beaneaters player) essentially burned Boston’s South End Grounds to the ground when they started a riot in 1894. Incidentally, this is a fact I knew offhand. Yes, I know *way* too much about baseball history.

***The first minor league baseball park I ever worked in measured 330 down both lines and 392 to centre with about a 4500 (ish) capacity.

****For more information, see here and here.

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Lesson #107: Rocky Horror

Lawyer Housemate, Club Manager Housemate, The Vet and I are all big fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show — though I am the only one to have ever seen a live action version of it. Anyway, when we found out the touring company was going to be in town, we decided we had to go.

Best. Theatre. Ever.

It was SO much fun. I’m used to seeing live versions in which a bunch of people get up in costume and mime the film that’s playing on a giant screen behind them, but this was a stage performance like any other musical. Except that it had audience participation like you do at any performance of the show. And then after the curtain call, the entire audience did the Time Warp. We’re talking some serious fun.*

So in honour of the house excursion** to the theatre tonight, a little bit about Rocky Horror…

The film is an adaptation of the stage show, which I didn’t know. Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of it being onstage. It was first produced in London in 1973 with Tim Curry*** in the role of Frank N. Furter. When the production moved to Los Angeles in 1974 and then Broadway in 1975, Curry stayed with the part. There are 29 different cast recordings of the show. (Seriously! 29!) The movie, with an ongoing limited release since its original release in 1975, is the longest running film release in history, which is pretty cool! Audience participation began in 1977 in the US at midnight runs of the movie.

If you want to get a bit of a look at the show we saw, see the official tour website. Otherwise, you can read up on the show in general here.

*There was a country type who evidently knew nothing at all about the show attending with his girlfriend sitting next to Lawyer Housemate and he was not impressed with the more risque aspects of the show. Apparently at the end of the floor show when Rocky all but mounted Brad, there were some “Jesus!”es and some “Oh dear Lord!”s. Funnily, this was exactly the point where I turned to The Vet and said something very similar in a completely different context.

**Urban Planner Housemate had never seen Rocky Horror until recently and he did not like it at all…not for any puritanical repression, he just doesn’t like musicals. Marine Biologist Housemate is away home for spring break, so she didn’t come either.

***I love Tim Curry!

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Lesson #88: My Favourite Movie

I’m having a cheating day of sorts. I was busy today and when I wasn’t busy, I sat myself in front of my computer with a beer and watched my very favourite movie of all time.

And I learned that even though I’ve probably seen said movie about 100 times, I can still see things I’ve never seen before. In fact, today I noticed two actors in very small parts who I hadn’t noticed were in it, one detail of a meal at the end of the film that tied back to a line at the beginning and a continuity error. I like that I can see the same movie so many times and still have it be new in ways.*

On a completely unrelated note, I learned that sardines that are over 6″ in length are sometimes called pilchards. Also, there are 21 species of fish classified as sardines. Oddly, I learned that from a friend’s Facebook status update. Yup, my friends are nerds too!

*Although, admittedly, I’m pretty close to being at the point where there’s nothing new for me to see.

**Sort of. It’s apparently a sort of back fields kind of thing where riders take their horses over hedges and stuff. But I’ve never been and there’s beer and I’ve got nothing better to do, so why not?

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Lesson #85: Fireflies on the British Isles

Urban Planner Housemate and I decided to watch a movie tonight. I didn’t care what we watched, so he perused the house’s small, but odd, movie collection and came across an anime film (belonging to Club Manager Housemate) called Grave of the Fireflies. Apparently it’s a classic. Until tonight, I had never seen any anime, so I don’t know the difference one way or the other. Anyway, early in the movie it comes out that he’s never seen a firefly.

My soul cries. I *love* fireflies.

This led us to a half hour discussion after the movie (which is incredibly depressing) about whether or not there are fireflies on the British Isles. It turns out that there are a few counties in England that have fireflies, but they do not live on the Isle of Man or Ireland. Which explains why he’s never seen one.