Hear the original and retooled versions of “Imitators”

Listen to the solo work of, say, John Lennon and Paul McCartney - or just about any other musician who used to play with a band - and it’s easy to see the value of collaboration. There are certainly people out there who can go it entirely alone and come up with something brilliant. But I’m continually amazed at how different - and usually better - a work of art is when different minds take hold of it.

You see this a lot in film. Someone writes a script with one vision; a casting agent assigns actors to certain roles and it starts to take on a different shape; then the director pulls it in another direction; the soundtrack, written by someone who may have a completely different vision, changes the project even more; then the editor gets hold of it, tears it apart and puts it back together again with the final product frequently bearing little or no resemblance to the original idea the writer came up with. Remember Groundhog Day? That was written as an existential drama about a man trapped in time before Harold Ramis and Bill Murray took it over thinking, “You know, this could be really funny.”

I’ve been working a lot lately with a friend of mine on some music. He’s a classically trained jazz guitarist and I’m just someone who picked up piano and guitar over the years and figured out how to do desktop mixing on my computer. We’ve both been trying to write songs on our own and while I’ve come up with a few things I’m happy with, I’m the most surprised by the work we’ve done by collaborating. I’ll come up with an idea and it’ll get him to thinking about something completely different, which then makes me think of something completely different and the whole project starts to swirl around until it takes on a distinct shape that’s nothing like anything we would have come up with on our own.

This year he’s been trying to write a song every few weeks and put out an EP each month with a couple other guys. They’re calling the ambitious project or band Hello Come In. For one of their recent EPs my friend wrote a spare, country-flavored tune called “Imitators.” Think early Wilco. To him (and he did write the damn thing), it was an intimate, reflective, mostly upbeat meditation on our search for identity and meaning. I would call it “optimistic” or “hopeful.” But to me, I saw the potential for a lot of darkness. A few days later I had produced a completely different take on the song, taking his stripped-down, swinging tune and turning into a borderline-creepy, electro-pop song with a wash of fuzzy guitars.

The only thing I really flat-out changed in the song is the chorus. My version has a completely different chord progression and I changed the melody. But the vast majority of the song - that is the basic chord pattern, melody and words - is his. I just produced it differently.

For geeks wondering how it’s done, my friend used real instruments for his original version along with real people playing them, like a real-live drummer. For mine, it’s all computer, including the guitars you’ll hear at the end. They’re not real. Neither is the piano. I sang all the parts but processed my voice beyond recognition and layered six different takes. This was all done at my house with a 5 year-old desktop mac.

I can’t say who’s is better. It’s really just a question of taste. I’m not sure who’s version you should listen to first, but here they are:

Imitator - Before (original version)

Imitator - After (my version)

Yesterday in Kansas City my bank’s thermometer read 108 degrees the one time I ventured out of the house. The rest of the time I spent inside, in the air conditioning, reading this novel. I consumed the entire thing in a little over twelve hours, partly because it was too hot to do anything else, but also because I could not put the book down. A book that wraps you up so completely you don’t want to step away from it is, I guess, a sign of a good book, right? So why do I feel like I wasted one of my rare days off reading it?

At heart, The Virgin of Small Plains is a murder mystery set in the rural Flint Hills community of Small Plains, Kansas. On a snowy night in 1987 a rancher and his two sons, Rex and Patrick, find the frozen body of a naked, young and beautiful girl. The rancher takes the girl’s body to the town doctor where the doctor, unknowingly witnessed by 18 year old Mitch, beats in the girl’s face so that she is unidentifiable. Mitch runs home and tells his father what he has seen. The next morning, Mitch is driven out of town by his father and told he must cut off all contact with anyone he knows in Small Plains because the rancher and doctor are threatening to accuse Mitch himself of murdering the young girl. Left behind in Small Plains is Mitch’s devastated and confused girlfriend, Abby.

Jump forward seventeen years and the murder of the young girl has remained unsolved. The town named her “the Virgin” and buried her, unnamed, in a grave which, over time, has developed its own mythology. The Virgin is said to be responsible for several “miracle” healings and townspeople and tourists alike visit her grave to request her aid. Rex, Patrick, Mitch, Abby, the rancher, the doctor, and their families all seem to have been scarred by the Virgin’s murder and its aftermath. When Mitch finally returns to Small Plains after his seventeen year absence those scars are reopened and the push to solve the Virgin’s murder is renewed.

There’s no doubt that Pickard can write a good plot. Virgin’s plot barrels forward so relentlessly you’re afraid that it will continue on without you if you put the book down. And yet, for the rapid pace, you never feel rushed as a reader. The characters, on the other hand, are pretty flat. That leaves the reader setting. Throughout the book Pickard accurately uses Kansas’ unpredictable weather to mirror and further her plot. Like the characters in the book, I grew up in a rural community in Kansas and this use of Kansas weather seemed predictable. Perhaps it’s my own damned fault for reading a book set in Kansas; but when I read a novel I want to feel like I’ve gone somewhere or met someone new when I’ve finished the book. Instead, when I finished Virgin, I felt like I had sat on my couch all day.

Cera and his buddy, Clark Duke, have created 10 short gems of comic understatement. These two have amazing chemistry and I predict big things for them, including lunchboxes and sweatbands. Below is the hilarious Clark and Michael webisode “The Lunch.” ]]> http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/08/14/clark-and-michael/feed/ http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/08/14/video-of-the-day-dan-deacon/ http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/08/14/video-of-the-day-dan-deacon/#comments Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:49:57 +0000 Robin Hilton http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/08/14/video-of-the-day-dan-deacon/ People much cooler and more inside than I have known about Baltimore artist Dan Deacon since he began appearing at local clubs around 2003 or so, but he's relatively new to me. Deacon has been described as an "absurdist" electronic musician for his goofy sense of style and flipped out, high-octane live performances. ]]> People much cooler and more inside than I have known about Baltimore artist Dan Deacon since he began appearing at local clubs around 2003 or so, but he’s relatively new to me. Deacon has been described as an “absurdist” electronic musician for his goofy sense of style and flipped out, high-octane live performances. It might be a spectacle of hipster irony. Or perhaps Deacon is just a socially retarded nut bag. But I chose to believe he’s the real deal: an inspired uber-geek lost in the swirling soundscape of his own blissful mind, high on the trippy casiotone beats that infect an audience and get them jumping up and down. This video is for his song, “Crystal Cat.” ]]> http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/08/14/video-of-the-day-dan-deacon/feed/ http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/08/09/file-under-i-am-not-making-this-up/ http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/08/09/file-under-i-am-not-making-this-up/#comments Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:33:30 +0000 Robin Hilton http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/08/09/file-under-i-am-not-making-this-up/ The news that President George W. Bush has been suffering from Lyme Disease for more than a year really caught the attention of Daryl Hall, one-half of the world's biggest-selling music duo of all time Daryl Hall & John Oates.]]>

OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM DARYL HALL ABOUT GEORGE BUSH AND LYME DISEASE

Los Angeles, CA - August 9, 2007 - The news that President George W. Bush has been suffering from Lyme Disease for more than a year really caught the attention of Daryl Hall, one-half of the world’s biggest-selling music duo of all time Daryl Hall & John Oates, and someone who was also diagnosed with the illness over two years ago.

Hall is hoping the President’s admission will focus more attention on the causes and antidotes of the little-known malady: “While I’m sorry when anyone gets Lyme Disease, maybe it takes a person in power to draw attention to what all of us who have the disease, are going through. The withholding of information for a year points out the confusing politics of the disease. Now, George Bush can feel our pain.”

Caused by a bite from an infected blacklegged tick often found on a deer, Lyme Disease symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue and a characteristic skin rash. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart and the nervous system. Most cases of Lyme disease can be treated successfully with a few weeks of antibiotics. Steps to prevent Lyme disease include using insect repellent, removing ticks promptly, landscaping and integrated pest management. The ticks that transmit Lyme disease can occasionally transmit other tick-borne diseases as well.

Download a zipped file of the mix

Neil Young: “Don’t Let it Bring You Down” from After the Gold Rush

Neil Young: “Don’t Let it Bring You Down” from After the Gold Rush

Listen to “Don’t Let it Bring You Down”

Oh thank you iPod. What a wonderful start to the mix. The thing about Neil Young is he’s got just an awful, screeching, warbly voice. But his songs are so perfectly crafted and poetic and pure that his otherwise imperfect voice sounds utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful. You either get Neil Young or you don’t. I didn’t really start to enjoy his music until my late 20s when I first heard the album Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, followed by this album. I have no idea what this particular song is about. Maybe something about how overwhelming life can be and how we should just roll with it. I don’t know. But it still resonates. For me, this is when great art works best: when I can’t explain what it means even when it makes me feel something on a deeper level than anything else.

Grandaddy: “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot” from Sophtware Slump

Grandaddy: “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot” from The Sophtware Slump

Listen to “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot”

Grandaddy was a really sharp art-pop, ambient, melancholy pseudo-psychedelic rock band from California that had a run from the early ’90s to around 2006. They put out some great albums and built a sizable audience, as far as this kind of music goes. But they eventually called it quits because they were tired of being broke all the time. I was really bummed when I read that. You want to believe that great musicians, artists, etc. are at least making a living. I’m not sure, but I kind of assume this song, “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot” — which came out on the 2000 album Sophtware Slump — is all about President Bush. I’m a sucker for repeated melodic patterns that remain the same while the chords or keys change under them. This is what happens on this track with the line “Are you giving in 2000 man?” I’m also sucker for a tastefully placed choir, which enters the piece toward the end.

The National: “Fake Empire” from The Boxer

The National: “Fake Empire” from The Boxer

Listen to “Fake Empire”

If you own an iPod and put it on random play, you might have noticed how it almost always plays a track or album you’ve just loaded on it. I loaded on this new album from The National and it fed me one of the cuts from it almost immediately. I guess it assumes if you loaded it up, you must really want to hear something from it right away. Anyway, this song is pretty cool because it lays a 4/4 pattern against a 3/4 pattern. Try tapping your foot or counting to the upper piano part. Then try do to the same with the lower bass line. The bass line is in three and the upper piano part is in four. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you. Or maybe you don’t care. But trust me, it’s cool… and really hard to play.

Aram Khachaturian: “Adagio” from Gayne Ballet

Aram Khachaturian: “Adagio” from Gayne Ballet

Listen to “Adagio”

This fairly haunting track is from a ballet written in the early 1940s by the Russian composer Aram Khachaturian. It was first performed for Stalin, was moderately successful and has since seen only limited release outside of the former Soviet Union. I had to look all this up. I only know the song from hearing it used in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey. This is the scene where Dr. Frank Poole is jogging… in a circle, upside down inside the space station. It apparently was used in several other films, including Alien (don’t remember hearing it in that movie), Patriot Games and Ice Age 2. Hm… this makes me want to watch 2001.

Emily Haines: “Dr. Blind” from Knives Don’t Have Your Back

Emily Haines: “Dr. Blind” from Knives Don’t Have Your Back.

Listen to “Dr. Blind”

Oh, I love this song. Emily Haines, apart from being incredibly beautiful, makes horribly depressing music that still manages to be catchy. This song has one of the most ridiculously infectious melodies I’ve ever heard, even though the overall tone is very bleak. I always wonder if artists know they’ve hit on something when they come up with a line like the one that runs throughout this track. Do they hear it, play it for the first time and think “Damn. That’s good!” Or do they think it’s just another song like any of the others they’ve ever written? Like Don Maclean and “American Pie.” Not the greatest song ever and certainly not the greatest song writer. But he had a moment with that one. Did he know it? Anyway… Emily Haines. She’s awesome.

Elbow: “Station Approach” from Leaders of the Free World

Elbow: “Station Approach” from Leaders of the Free World

Listen to “Station Approach”

When you hear a song (that is, the time in your life you hear it) is just as important as the song itself. I audition a lot of albums for my job and some days I’ll tear through a whole mail bin full of CDs and hate all of them. Invariably it’s because I’m just in a bad mood and not in the right frame of mind to listen. I’ll give it a rest, come back to the same pile and end up finding real gems. I’ve always been a little suspicious of this song from the British art-rock band Elbow. Is it really brilliant? Or did I just hear it at the right time, so it resonated with me? I don’t know. But I remember driving home late one frozen winter night and hearing, for the first time, the words “…But coming home I feel like I / Designed these buildings I walk by” and it really captured somehow the way I was feeling at the time: like I lived in an imaginary world where I’ve invented or created everything around me. And then… THEN… this song just gets f’ing huge. I recommend listening to it on 10.

Eluvium: “Prelude for Time Feelers” from Copia

Eluvium: “Prelude for Time Feelers” from Copia

Listen to “Prelude for Time Feelers”

Eluvium is just one dude, this guy named Matt Cooper, who lives in Portland, Oregon. He’s one of a billion solo electronic artists in the world with a Mac, a keyboard (midi controller) and some over-the-counter programs to make music. It’s a crowded field and most of what’s being produced is mostly forgettable. I’m not sure why Eluvium stands out for me, but I think this guy knows when to push, when to pull, when to sit still and let things breathe. He uses electronics tastefully without going over the top and sinking into digital excess. (Think of nearly everything produced for the Windham Hill label in the ’80s). His melodies are tasteful — lovely, really — and he mixes just enough standard instrumentation in with the electronics to give them warmth and life and a nice organic feel. This song has a nice cinematic quality to it, like a heart-thumping story is being told, though I have no idea what that story is.

Lightning Dust: “Listened On” from Lightning Dust

Lightning Dust: “Listened On” from Lightning Dust

Listen to “Listened On”

I discovered this album while going through one of those mail bins at work, filled with CDs. I’ll listen to everything that comes in. But there are always a handful of discs I’ll set aside to give special attention to simply because I like the cover art. The cover for this album isn’t particularly brilliant or eye-catching. There was just an aesthetic to it that made me think this was probably something I’d like. I was right. I love how spare everything is, with the simple strum of the guitar, backing electric piano and the harmonies entering on each line. The lyrics are ambiguous enough to keep it interesting and the melody appropriately gray. I’ve heard people complain that bands today lack the sense and mastery of melody in the way that the Beatles or the Zombies or other early rock bands had. That’s largely true. But you don’t always have to jump all over the scale to get someone’s attention.

Lifestyles and Vistas: “Go to the Crossroads” from Mews Too, an Asthmatic Kitty Compilation

Lifestyles and Vistas: “Go to the Crossroads” from Mews Too, an Asthmatic Kitty Compilation

Listen to “Go to the Crossroads”

Man, I don’t know a thing about this band and haven’t had much luck finding anything on the Web. I came across this song while listening to a compilation put out by the independent label Asthmatic Kitty. The label site says this band is “Melissa Herwaldt Riches, wife to Aaron Riches (Royal City), a woman of ideas, poet, Catholic social activist, old friend.” But really, just listen to the song. It’s sooooo catchy and bouncy. It feels like a group of friends sitting around in someone’s living room just making up melodies and words together, rollicking around in a world where every day is sunny and filled with joy.

The Dream Academy: “Life in a Northern Town” from The Dream Academy

The Dream Academy: “Life in a Northern Town” from The Dream Academy

Listen to “Life in a Northern Town”

Well… this is embarrassing. But I can explain. Anyone who knows me, knows that I loathe ’80s pop music. I once wrote a piece arguing that the ’80s was the worst decade ever for popular music. I got death threats from readers who were not amused. (Cyndi Lauper fans were the worst). I still maintain it was the worst decade, but I’ll admit there were a handful of songs I secretly loved. Really, really embarrassing ones, too. I would usually roll up all the car windows and crank the volume whenever “The Never Ending Story” by Kajagoogoo’s Limahl or Taco’s “Puttin’ On the Ritz” came on. I also really loved this song by The Dream Academy. It has a nice, sentimental feel that I’ve been known to fall for.

Low: “Breaker” from Drums and Guns

Low: “Breaker” from Drums and Guns

Listen to “Breaker”

I love Low, but lord is this a depressing song. “Our bodies break and the blood just spills and spills.” Nice opening. This song is a masterful exercise in minimalism. A few hand claps, a little drum loop and an organ. The harmonies are really tightly knit on every line and that acts to make the overall mix feel a lot fuller. I saw them perform this live and it was pretty much just as you hear it. They started a drum loop, one person clapped while the other played an organ. This is a husband-wife duo, currently on tour with their kids in tow. Amazing. There’s an awesome video for this song you can see on Youtube.

Loney, Dear: “I Am John” from Loney Noir

Loney, Dear: “I Am John” from Loney Noir

Listen to “I Am John”

Loney, Dear is one of several great new bands to emerge from Sweden in recent years. I don’t what’s going on over there, but the Norse are turning out a disproportionately large number of great artists. The current surge is a lot like those scenes that came out of places like Athens, Georgia and Seattle in the ’80s and ’90s or the early British invasion. In the last couple of years Sweden has given us The Shout Out Louds, The Concretes, Peter, Bjorn and John, Jose Gonzales and several others I’m forgetting. For the most part, all these Swedish groups really have a great sense of melody… and considering they live in what I’ve always assumed was a dark, cold place, the music is incredibly upbeat and full of life. Loney, Dear (not lonely, and with a comma) is the performance name for some dude named Emil Svanangen.

mewithoutYou: “Messes of Men” from Brother, Sister

mewithoutYou: “Messes of Men” from Brother, Sister

Listen to “Messes of Men”

This song starts off feeling all lonely on a cold, rainy night, then suddenly erupts with explosive power. I’ve read that this Philadelphia-based band is “religious” and that their songs have Biblical allusions. But I don’t really hear it. If it’s there, it’s totally lost on me… and doesn’t matter because the music is so good. This is yet another CD I just happened to come across while picking through a huge stack one afternoon at work. The vocals are more spoken than sung and the lyrics come at you relentlessly. I always marvel at musicians who have so much to say.

mewithoutYou: “The Dryness and the Rain” from Brother, Sister

mewithoutYou: “The Dryness & the Rain” from Brother, Sister

Listen to “The Dryness and the Rain”

Okay, this wasn’t really the next song my iPod gave me. I made an editorial decision to throw it into the mix because it fits so perfectly with the other mewithoutYou song listed above. On the actual CD the two songs run right into each other, so if you burn this mix to disc, be sure to put 0 seconds of space between these two tracks. I love the gothic, god-like sound the band captures on this track, with a medieval-sounding choir chanting in some strange language.

Milosh: “It’s Over” from Meme

Milosh: “It’s Over” from Meme

Listen to “It’s Over”

The first time I listened to this album by the Canadian electronic artist Mike Milosh, it didn’t really sound like much of anything. But a few weeks later a friend recommend it, so I came back to it and started hearing things I hadn’t heard before. I think the poly rhythms are the real standout on each track. I keep trying to figure out how he’s getting those sounds. Milosh says “I started playing cello at the age of three and looking back on it with these older eyes I have to admit that I have always had an intense attraction to songs that are sad, soft and beautiful.” I think that sums up nicely what his music is like.

Okkervil River: “The Latest Toughs” from Black Sheep Boy

Okkervil River: “The Latest Toughs” from Black Sheep Boy

Listen to “The Latest Toughs”

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll say that this also isn’t the actual song my iPod gave me next in the mix. It did give an Okkervil River song, but it was from their new album that hasn’t been released yet. Since I can’t give that out, I figured I’d pull something from their previous CD. (The new record is amazing, by the way). This song, “The Latest Tough,” is pretty cryptic, as is most of Okkervil River’s stuff, and I have no idea what he’s singing about. I don’t think the song really takes off and becomes something special until about :45 seconds into it. So be patient. At the top it sounds like any other dark, brooding, indie rock song. But when the choir or falsetto voices kick in singing “we were hiding from the dark,” that’s the moment it hit me.

Silversun Pickups: “Melatonin” from Silversun Pickups

Silversun Pickups: “Melatonin” from Silversun Pickups

Listen to “Melatonin”

Some friends were visiting when this song came up on my stereo. Someone said, “Smashing Pumpkins?” No… but it might as well be. If you’ve ever wondered whether the Smashing Pumkpins had much of an influence on the direction of popular music, look no further than this band. Actually, when the Pumpkins more or less reunited this year for their new album, Zeitgeist, I gave it a listen and kind of thought they should just give it up and let Silversun Pickups take over where the Pumpkins left off in the late ’90s. The Pumpkins had a great run. It should have probably ended with Adore. Anyway… Silversun Pickups is a Los Angeles band. I actually first heard them on Saturday Night Live and loved them. TV has become a pretty great place to discover music, much more so than radio. Not just on shows like Saturday Night Live (which often feature basic Top 40 stuff) but on a lot of dramas and comedies like Scrubs or Six Feet Under when it was still on. Anyway… Silversun Pickups.

Trapper’s Cabin: “Running Down the Rain” from For My Friends

Trapper’s Cabin: “Running Down the Rain” from For My Friends

Listen to “Running Down the Rain”

Trapper’s Cabin is the music of Joel Nettesheim, an art-folk singer-songwriter who lives and works in the north Georgia mountains. One of my coworkers passed this CD on to me and I loved it immediately. It’s kind of discouraging in a way to know there are people out there like this guy… people who are gifted and talented, writing great songs with a great voice, etc. And nobody knows who they are. I’d love to make music full time and make a living from it, but what hope could there possibly be for me finding an audience when people like this guy, who are way better than I’ll ever be, can’t get anyone to listen? I’m probably being overly dramatic. I don’t even know anymore. But one of the things I love about this song is that it’s actually several songs in one. It morphs over time into something that bears no resemblance to the way it began. That’s great song writing. Think of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” and the changes it goes through beginning to end.

Ed Harcourt: “Something in My Eye” from Here Be Monsters

Ed Harcourt: “Something in My Eye” from Here Be Monsters

Listen to “Something in My Eye”

I was visiting some friends in Scotland a while back and every time we were in their car, they were playing this CD. Maybe it was just the timing, being free and on vacation, etc. that made me love it. But it really is a great album, with just the right touch of glurbbles and bleeps with more standard rhythms and instrumentation. Harcourt has a solid voice. This is really just pop music done very well. Not a deeply introspective concept album or anything. I don’t think Harcourt is hugely well-known or popular in the States, but he’s a big deal in the U.K.

Lou Reed: “Street Hassle” from Street Hassle

Lou Reed: “Street Hassle” from Street Hassle

Listen to “Street Hassle”

What an odd tune to go out on. I have a love-hate affair with Lou Reed. I recognize his genius as an artist on many levels and he’s written a handful of songs I think are better than just about anything else out there. But lord has he put out some utter crap. I’m thinking specifically now of the Raven album a few years ago. This song is definitely one of his classics and features a sound no one else was exploring at the time, with these repetitive string lines and his not-really-singing singing. It doesn’t build into anything else. It ends exactly as it began. You’ve only reached the end of Reed’s narrative, which, like many of his stories, is a little creepy-icky.

The whole thing (it’s short, about 75 pages) reads like a man who is still depressed. It’s incredibly self-absorbed, a chronicle of Styron’s exclusive misery and not a single mention of what his depression did to his family, particulary his wife, Rose. She gets, I believe, two mentions in the book and neither of them illuminates how she dealt with watching her husband shrivel away. It’s disappointing that Stryon didn’t seem to think it important to go beyond descriptions of his own despair. It would have been incredibly enlightening to have some idea of the conversations he had with his wife during this time and to at least give us some sense of what she did to cope.

Finally, after months of suicidal thoughts and continuing physical decline, Styron checks himself into a hospital which, after seven weeks, he leaves, cured. But he never tells us HOW he was cured. He alludes to the idea of “giving over” to the illness and how that relieved him of the pressure of his depression. But was giving over the cure? He mocks the therapy he received in the hospital (group and art) as infantile and he doesn’t even mention if he was given drugs, although he talks a lot about the drugs he took before he went to the hospital and how ineffective they were. Styron makes it sounds as though his darkest days–days he wanted to kill himself in violent and painful ways–were fixed by a few weeks rest. I know there is more to it than that, and I have great respect for Stryon’s struggle, but he gives no insight into how he beat back his demons.

“Darkness Visible” is considered a classic chronicle of depression but I felt shut out by Stryon as his story verged on–I’m going to say it–whiny and, at the same time, clinical. And at the end, I think I did come to understand how his wife and family felt during Styron’s worst days. ]]> http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/07/30/darkness-visible/feed/ http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/07/03/film-techniques-used-by-hitchcock/ http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/07/03/film-techniques-used-by-hitchcock/#comments Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:03:41 +0000 Steve Lickteig http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/07/03/film-techniques-used-by-hitchcock/ This is interesting because of how simple the techniques are. My favorite is point of view editing which is the technique of showing the face of a character reacting and then cut to what he's reacting to. Hitchock believes you can do this over and over to build tension and the audience will never tire of it. Click here to read all the techniques. (Via Kottke)]]> http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/07/03/film-techniques-used-by-hitchcock/feed/ http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/07/02/a-few-good-commercials/ http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/07/02/a-few-good-commercials/#comments Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:40:43 +0000 Steve Lickteig http://www.smallgoodthing.org/2007/07/02/a-few-good-commercials/ After years of cheesy recruiting commercials, the Marines have finally gotten it right. Instead of trying to convince potential recruits that they'll learn a skill or be in great physical condition, the Corps has turned to the tried and true: nostalgia. Using film of Marines storming World War II beaches could be effective in tricking some into thinking that combat in Iraq will be just as glory-filled. ]]> Granted, there is some Iraq war imagery in this Marine Corps ad, but mostly it evokes the warm fuzzies of the Last Good War. Marines haven’t stormed an actual beach in 50 years, but it’s hard not feel a spike in your testosterone levels and that strange, crazy wish that you had maybe fought in just one little battle. But you have to remember that probably half those people you see in the commercial wading ashore were either killed or wounded.

It seems like it took the Marines a long time to figure out how to make their recruiting commercials work. Often, they relied on childish medieval imagery or something “high-tech” looking that gave no sense of the Marines Corps’ history or reputation. The new commercial (you can view it below) is just quality advertising and it could be a brilliant move for Marine recruitment and it reminds me that the military is really just a business. I’m surprised it took them so long to figure out that the best way to drum up business is to tap into people’s sense of nostalgia and doing what’s “right.” It reminds of something I read about how during World War Two FDR ordered that images of dead Marines be included in newsreels. Almost immediately, war bond sales rose while Marine recruitment plunged. Note to the ad team: Marines storming beaches, never bleeding on them.