Posts Tagged ‘Warner Brothers’
“Films are 50 percent visual and 50 percent sound. Sometimes sound even overplays the visual”*…
Though routinely credited, as above, as “Film Editor,” Tregoweth Edmond “Treg” Brown was the genius sound-effects wizard responsible for sound editing the Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons starting in 1936…
His musique concrète artistry worked directly in conjunction with Carl Stalling‘s hyper-active left-field orchestral scores to create the soundtrack to generations of kids lives. So many of these sounds are completely ingrained into our collective pop-culture (un)consciousness. So much so, that reviewing some of the old Looney Tunes cartoons as an adult, you tend to ignore how utterly ridiculous the doinks and twangs are, for they sound totally natural in context—a testament to Brown’s flawless editing of sounds demanded by the images.
In addition to his incredible sound design which won him a Sound Effects Oscar in 1965 for The Great Race, Brown is also credited with giving legendary Warner Brothers’ voice actor Mel Blanc his big break…
More at “The Sound Effects Madman Behind the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Cartoons.” And much more– with wonderful examples– in this short documentary (part 2 here):
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* David Lynch
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As we perk up our ears, we might send melodic birthday greetings to Jerrald King “Jerry” Goldsmith; he was born on this date in 1929. One of film and television”s most accomplished composers and conductors, Goldsmith scored such noteworthy films as The Sand Pebbles, Logan’s Run, Planet of the Apes, Patton, Papillon, Chinatown, The Wind and the Lion, The Omen, The Boys from Brazil, Alien, Poltergeist, The Secret of NIMH, Gremlins, Hoosiers, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Rudy, Air Force One, L.A. Confidential, Mulan, The Mummy, three Rambo films, and five Star Trek films– in a career during which he was nominated for six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, and eighteen Academy Awards. In 1976, he was awarded an Oscar for The Omen.
While presenting Goldsmith with a Career Achievement Award from the Society for the Preservation of Film Music in 1993, fellow composer Henry Mancini (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Pink Panther) said of Goldsmith, “… he has instilled two things in his colleagues in this town. One thing he does, he keeps us honest. And the second one is he scares the hell out of us.”
Movies for the temporally challenged…
From MovieBarCode, every frame of a film, compressed into a single image. E.g…
The Big Lebowski (1998)
A Single Man (2009)
And from “ultraculture,” via the ever-estimable Roger Ebert, “death scenes from 36 of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, synchronized to climax in unison”…
[TotH, respectively, to Jesse Dylan and Nell Minow]
As we scale back our popcorn orders, we might recall that it was on this date in 1997 that the fledgling Warner Brothers (WB) television network aired the inaugural episode of what became its first bona-fide hit series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Buffy [when asked in their first encounter by Giles, who will become her mentor, if she knows anything about vampires]: To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It’s like a whole big sucking thing. Mostly they’re just gonna kill you. Why am I still talking to you?
There’s a throat in my frog…
Stephen Spielberg has called it “the Citizen Kane of animated films.” It has landed squarely in the Top Ten lists of both professional animators and (IMDB) fans. It has been selected for preservation by the Library of Congress… Written by Michael Maltese, directed by Chuck Jones, starring Michigan J. Frog, it’s One Froggy Evening:
As we marvel at the glorious madness of it all, we might recall that it was on this date in 1977 that Captain Stubing and his crew first sailed on ABC’s The Love Boat. A hit for 9 seasons, the series helped popularize the “multiple parallel storyline” format, via which three separate stories set on the cruise ship ran intertwined through the hour. (An unintended by-product: notorious continuity errors, most notably in social director Julie’s outfits during boarding and debarkation, which were often inconsistent between storylines.)
The perfect food, explained…
Jeff Varasano, who learned his craft in NYC, now runs a pizzeria in Atlanta– one that, your correspondent can attest, is very, very good. While that’s rare enough, what’s rarer still, is that Varasano is willing to share. And just as Jeff is generous in the preparation of his pies, so he is forthcoming– very forthcoming– in explaining how he makes “the perfect pizza.”
Readers can visit “Jeff Varasano’s Famous New York Pizza Recipe” for everything– and your correspondent does mean everything— one could possibly want to know. (The page takes a while to load, but it’s worth the wait: at the bottom is Jeff’s list of top pizzerias around the country.)
As we reach for the crushed red pepper, we might recall that it was on this date in 1938 that “Porky’s Hare Hunt” was released. The Warner Bros. cartoon was a remake by Ben “Bugs” Hardaway and Cal Dalton of a 1936 animated short by Tex Avery, “Porky’s Duck Hunt.” The earlier toon had introduced Daffy Duck; “Porky’s Hare Hunt” was the debut of (the still-unnamed) Bugs Bunny.
While Bob Clampett created the character, Hardaway’s character sheet for (visualization of) Bugs– who became Warner’s biggest star– was chosen from among several; thus, “Bugs’ Bunny”– note the possessive apostrophe… But as the rapacious rabbit became a hit, he was emancipated from his maker; the apostrophe was dropped.
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