Use of Well Known Songs

I was walking back to the top of campus alone from the TV studio. I was scanning the campus in an almost paranoid fashion. It was cold, there was no one outside, and I could almost merge into the quiet, it was surreal.

The Simon and Garfunkel song "Sound of Silence" came into my head. But like I often find myself doing I was free styling it after the first two lines and the song transformed. It became darker, more creepy, and could fit into a trailer for a horror story. I see how the song would be mixed in my head and it would be awesome.

Anyways I started thinking about this and how movies have done this before and how effective it can be. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo directed by David Fincher used a creepy remix of "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin in the movie trailer and set a mood prior to even watching the movie. Horror movies often use nursery rhymes or innocent sounding or popular songs to creep out the audience.

I found this to be really cool because it's such a simple concept. I also found it to be rather funny because I am using this idea in the "Happy Birthday" short with the song Happy Birthday.

Productions

Productions aren’t always fun, nor are they easy. This is fully hitting me during this one. Aside from going to bed at 1:30AM, waking up at 3:30, and going into the city at 5AM there have been some challenges along the way. The biggest one was getting into character. Forcing myself to get depressed is harder than I think, it’s pretty easy to do naturally, but when it’s needed, it doesn’t come. For two days I listened to the most hope sapping song I knew and tried to be in the dark as much as possible, and eat little, but I was so over joyed and excited about this project. So I probably wont be acting much anymore. Not that I can’t, but chances are I’d be acting my own projects and regardless I’d be overcritical of my work.

Day 2. Today finished the toughest part of the piece, I’m emotionally drained and can’t wait to get back to school and sleep late on Monday, if I sleep through class I’m sorry. While it was initially tough getting into character, it was rather easy getting into another one. I wasn’t too great at getting into depressed, but I was able to pull off annoyed/having a lot on the mind I’m sure. At least I know that is what I was feeling. This has been the roughest production on my body, mind and spirit yet and I would not be able to do this multiple times. Anyways I haven’t looked at the footage yet since we are still shooting, but I’m fairly confident that this will turn out to be a great piece. “Happy Birthday”