Deaf Monkees Fans?

It actually occurred to me recently that comic books remind me of silent films. Also worth noting is that my XM radio subscription includes several TV channels (I listen to a few of these). Clearly, the idea of taking some parts of a medium and ignoring others is not something that only I do.

 

Funny, I was just reading a series of comics today that in no way, shape or form, remind me of silent films. Perhaps the aesthetic that teaches you that background music is "interfering" somehow with the film, also informs you of what graphic narrative is supposed to resemble.

In either case, do you live near New York City? If so, perhaps you should turn the television off, and head down to Central Park on weekends for the Shakespeare performances. Better yet - go for the dress rehearsals; less audience noise that way.

 

The Simpsons comic books certainly seemed like silent Simpsons episodes. The analogy of watching TV shows muted being silent films fails because the picture quality is much better and there is much more dialogue, among other things.

 

If you're going to use a Simpsons comic as a baseline for the current state of the medium, you're bound to make some pretty questionable conclusions.

I'm having trouble with your having faith in a director to lead actors around a set and shepherd them through a script...but you would question that director's responsibility to adorn the acting with appropriate music? Why is your "interpretation" (that is, removing the music from the overall production) more "correct" than the people who signed off on the production?

 

In my understanding people are allowed to question anything. Lack of direction skills is not relevant. Clearly many viewers questioned laugh tracks, which is why I believe they have become obsolete (or close at least). Incidental music does not make a film better. If you needed incidental music for Jaws (as someone mentioned) it must not have been that scary. I would prefer to decide that for myself.
Sometimes I listen to film commentaries at work. I do other things while I listen. I only remember watching an entire film commentary once. I may not have done it even the one time I am thinking of. It is hard to picture doing that. Many of commentaries make jokes about how "nobody is listening." I recall one film (I can't remember which one) saying that writers generally don't like the incidental music because it gets in the way of the scripts they have written despite what a previous poster wrote.

It seems very straightforward to me. The 3 Stooges didn't do much of it. Those remain among the very funniest American films, even though the pre-shark films are now all over 60 years old. Shemp Howard died in 1955.

 

Right. So I'm questioning your positions. Along with a handful of us, it appears.

You're absolutely right...said the shower scene in Psycho So, how is it that you deserve the option to get that scene without the music again? To make that "better"? Sorry Mr. Hitchcock, your lack of direction skills is not relevent.

Same argument for laugh tracks: it really isn't your call. It also wasn't your call when M*A*S*H stopped using them. That was a decision made by professionals.

Fine. Then make your own film.

Oh-no, wait, you can't...because then somebody in the audience might have some right to want your scenes shot over without the color filters on the camera, or the horse hooves in the background, or the composer you chose to produce the music you chose because as a content producer, you have that right.

You know those film commentaries have nothing to do with the film itself, right? I mean, the directors and the writers and the gaffers and the producers and the actors and the composers and the foley guys all got together, decides which one was the boss, and then they made a movie.

Then, later in their lives, the director, an actor, maybe a writer, and probably not a gaffer, got together in some other studio or screening room, and watched the completed production they'd done and signed off on and cashed the check and later lost the Oscar for...anyway, they sat down with a mic recording them, and they riffed about the film they'd already made years ago, while watching said film. Then some professional is the studio where they were being recorded, edited and tidied-up that production, and they ran it alongside the film as one option in a totally different production produced for home video as opposed to The Silver Screen, and released it all on DVD/Blu-Ray as, That Old Film; the Dee-Luxe Edition (featuring director's commentary! Which was never a part of the original production, that we just slapped-together ourselves for this Totally Different Product because, well, we really think you'll buy it!).

...aaannnd, obviously there has been absolutely no improvement to filmmaking craft, style, or technology worth noting since then, right. I got it.

 

This is a weird topic.

 

I understand the necessity of sub-titles for the hearing impaired, and those who like the dialog spelled out for them, but I feel I miss more of what is going on in the video scenes when focusing on sub-titles. I enjoy the whole experience of audio/visual without the distraction of sub-titles because I am fortunate enough to be able to, for now anyway.

 

Well, just because I can't help it - just reading the thread title without reading the thread itself my first thought was "all of them, amirite"?

But on topic, I am a fan of soundies and wouldn't have it any other way.

 

Regarding "M*A*S*H", I think they stopped using the laugh track because, quite frankly, the show wasn't "funny" anymore... It devolved from a comedy into a melodrama/"dramedy"... That said, in later seasons, they still did use an occasional "chuckle track' (just light, sporadic, laughing), but that was pretty rare and may have been completely phased out by the end.

 

Point being, they did not stop using them because some guy on the innernetz thought elements the producers selected to put into the production, should be taken out of the production.

 

I didn't say that and would never say that. There have been many improvements in those areas and also complexity, a reduction in censorship, more diversity in casting, a greater variety of subject matter.

I can assure you that the Internet has been very influential in regard to US television content. The TV & Movie people read what people on the Internet write and decide accordingly.

 

I don't know what I did wrong on my last comment but it got mixed in with Dillydipper's comments.
To respond further to Dillydipper. DVD players have fast forward, rewind, repeat, a-b repeat buttons. What does (s)he think they are for? They are for people to make personal choices for viewing the DVDs. CD players have programming capabilities. Believe or not, if you only want to hear tracks 4,8, 12, and 17 of a 20 track CD track CD, you can do this without Dillydipper's permission. CD players also often have a random/shuffle feature. Yes, you can choose to play your CDs in random order, even though the musicians preferred the order they released the CD in.

 

Ummm...ya know what? I give up. Please, enjoy your discussion.

 

I disagree entirely: You cannot have Mel Brook's "Silent Movie" without the music! Not to mention the one line of dialogue in the movie.

 

I have to agree with @Vidiot. Films are all about manipulation to get the viewer to feel--or connect with--something. Well-made films utilize lighting, color, editing, pacing, etc. to affect a viewer's emotions. Music is just another tool in that toolbox. Of course films can connect without music--and some films with music use the absence of music for effect--but the fact that music can trigger emotions without visuals makes it an especially powerful tool when combined with images.

 

I agree that laugh tracks are annoying, but for the rest...if you don't like 75% of a tv show, maybe you just don't like that show.

 

I don't understand the 75% figure. In the early days of TV, it was take it or leave it. Now you can manipulate it to suit your needs. Whether or not this is worthwhile is up to the individual viewer.

 

I think almost all modern comedies have gotten away from laugh tracks. Now, the only time I ever hear laughs in a TV show is if it's actually performed in front of a live audience (as with, say, Big Bang Theory). There are modern comedies -- I would put Silicon Valley and Veep on that list -- where I laugh so hard, I have to pause the DVR just to recover because otherwise I'd miss some of the show.

The art of the sound mix -- combining dialogue, sound effects, and music together to form a cohesive whole -- is really complicated and requires a lot of subtle judgements. I think there's a way to do it so well, you don't really notice the individual pieces at all, and you wind up just reacting to the story and character.

 

I'm still parsing the continued assertion that televisions manufactured before a certain time didn't have the ability to turn the sound down to zero.

this idea seems counterintuitive when taking into account the way potentiometers work--there are a couple ways to add one that doesn't open at 0 volts, but all of those would require including additional components. it's difficult to imagine manufacturers increasing the parts and labor cost of a television set in order to prevent users from turning the volume down entirely.

also, I think these examples are more recent than the sets being discussed, but I own two portable CRTs from the 70s and remember well my grandparents' ancient console television. each featured volume control potentiometers that went fully down to zero.

 

I can kind of see where you're coming from, as someone who has remixed and re-edited music, and as someone who has advocated a fan cut of the three Hobbit films into one 3.5 hour movie. However, I think there's a point for me where if I have to go in and tinker with something too much to "suit my needs," then maybe that particular work isn't to my taste and I should move on. To each his own.

 

As I've said before, originally TVs were literally "turned on" and "turned off." Power and volume were connected. You had to readjust the volume every time you turned your set on. As soon as you turned the "off/on/volume" dial, there would be sound. You could have moved to a place far enough away from the set not to hear it (and possibly not even to see it), but that still wouldn't change the fact that sound was coming out of the TV. Even an RCA 19 in. TV my parents got in 1996, which had a remote with a mute button could not be on without volume. If you were watching the Andy Griffith Show, you could clearly hear the theme song with the TV on mute, even from at least 10 feet away.
Yes, you can certainly watch a TV with no sound in 2017. I would think this possibility began whenever remote controls were first introduced, although I am sure they were very rare before the 1970s and probably not common until the 1980s.

 

Comic books-words and pictures
TV show muted with closed captioning on-words and pictures.

There is the connection. It would be interesting to see a TV show with the captioning set in word bubbles like a comic book, but apparently that is too distracting.