Let me peruse it (Yellow Submarine)
Jan. 22nd, 2007 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zustiferYellow Submarine, George Dunning (talkover by a producer). Jan 21, 4pm-ish. View count: unknown. I used to watch this a lot when I was younger, and have no idea as to how often that actually was.
My DVD turned out to have some unremovable crap on it, which caused us to miss the 'When I'm 64' number as well as the one following it that I always used to go get a sandwich during when I was a kid. The one with the cubes. The other one I never cared about was 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' but I watched it this time anyway.
We watched this with the talkover on, by a producer guy whose name I've forgotten. He was very much a producer, always saying things like 'well, I think this worked out beautifully, despite the time pressure' and such. He did have some interesting things to say, though, especially regarding the voice casting for the Beatles. The originals weren't used because they were too busy to ever manage to show up to be recorded simultaneously. So everyone was cast except for George, I think, when the producer and some other guy involved with production heard a stranger talking in a pub that just happened to sound just like him. 'So we asked him would he like to come round and record some dialog for us, and he said yes.' (something like that.) There was a lot of asking people to do things and them saying yes in this guy's retelling of the events.
One of these people who was asked to do something was Heinz Edelmann, who was an artist for some german magazine. He was brought on as the art director because of his Peter Maxy sort of style, and apparently he made all the decisions that were worth making on the film, visually. He unilaterally designed the characters, he came up with the kooky places all the Beatles lived. He generally owned everything. And this is awesome, because, seriously, the look of this movie is almost all the importance of it. They didn't have a script until very late, and I'm not terribly convinced that it all makes sense when looked at narratively. This movie (and the Muppet Show) may be why I'm not that good with narratives; long-term continuity isn't that prevalent here. It's all sort of episodic. Stuff happens, they go somewhere else, some more stuff happens. I mean, there's an overarching Save Pepperland sort of impetus, but, seriously. It's not that important. I think the most relevant instance of continuity is the hole Ringo picks up in the Sea of Holes.
Visually, though! There were so many awesome visual choices made, that when they all were welded together into one piece, the density of good stuff and inventiveness of approach really is surprising. Horizontal stripes defining mountainous things! Tiny heads on big billowy bodies! Xerography! A cut-out aesthetic in a (mostly) cel-painted piece! I won't even get into the characters, which rock so hard as to defy explanation. Ah, it's good. It's gorgeous, and probably moreso now that the era that birthed (some of) the aesthetic is gone now.
Also lots of great (motivated, if only with general psychedelia) reuse of footage; apparently they had to use local art students for a night shift in order to finish on time. The whole beast was made in eleven months, including the last-minute 'Hey Bulldog' sequence (which wasn't on american cuts of the film for some reason that the producer didn't seem to know). Eleven months! It's insane. The thing has something of a low-budget feel in some areas, but I never would have guessed that it was that rushed.
It seems that the reason for this was that the higher-ups were afraid that the Beatles were going to become unpopular before they could get the movie out. Oh, teh irony.
My DVD turned out to have some unremovable crap on it, which caused us to miss the 'When I'm 64' number as well as the one following it that I always used to go get a sandwich during when I was a kid. The one with the cubes. The other one I never cared about was 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' but I watched it this time anyway.
We watched this with the talkover on, by a producer guy whose name I've forgotten. He was very much a producer, always saying things like 'well, I think this worked out beautifully, despite the time pressure' and such. He did have some interesting things to say, though, especially regarding the voice casting for the Beatles. The originals weren't used because they were too busy to ever manage to show up to be recorded simultaneously. So everyone was cast except for George, I think, when the producer and some other guy involved with production heard a stranger talking in a pub that just happened to sound just like him. 'So we asked him would he like to come round and record some dialog for us, and he said yes.' (something like that.) There was a lot of asking people to do things and them saying yes in this guy's retelling of the events.
One of these people who was asked to do something was Heinz Edelmann, who was an artist for some german magazine. He was brought on as the art director because of his Peter Maxy sort of style, and apparently he made all the decisions that were worth making on the film, visually. He unilaterally designed the characters, he came up with the kooky places all the Beatles lived. He generally owned everything. And this is awesome, because, seriously, the look of this movie is almost all the importance of it. They didn't have a script until very late, and I'm not terribly convinced that it all makes sense when looked at narratively. This movie (and the Muppet Show) may be why I'm not that good with narratives; long-term continuity isn't that prevalent here. It's all sort of episodic. Stuff happens, they go somewhere else, some more stuff happens. I mean, there's an overarching Save Pepperland sort of impetus, but, seriously. It's not that important. I think the most relevant instance of continuity is the hole Ringo picks up in the Sea of Holes.
Visually, though! There were so many awesome visual choices made, that when they all were welded together into one piece, the density of good stuff and inventiveness of approach really is surprising. Horizontal stripes defining mountainous things! Tiny heads on big billowy bodies! Xerography! A cut-out aesthetic in a (mostly) cel-painted piece! I won't even get into the characters, which rock so hard as to defy explanation. Ah, it's good. It's gorgeous, and probably moreso now that the era that birthed (some of) the aesthetic is gone now.
Also lots of great (motivated, if only with general psychedelia) reuse of footage; apparently they had to use local art students for a night shift in order to finish on time. The whole beast was made in eleven months, including the last-minute 'Hey Bulldog' sequence (which wasn't on american cuts of the film for some reason that the producer didn't seem to know). Eleven months! It's insane. The thing has something of a low-budget feel in some areas, but I never would have guessed that it was that rushed.
It seems that the reason for this was that the higher-ups were afraid that the Beatles were going to become unpopular before they could get the movie out. Oh, teh irony.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 02:01 am (UTC)The talkover guy said at one point that each Beatle came up to the sound guy one at a time and said 'Everyone sounds great except for me!'
(I think you are right.)
I am pleased to note that I have never seen Magical Mystery Tour. My entire mental folder marked 'Beatles' consists pretty much entirely of Yellow Submarine and the white album.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 05:13 am (UTC)The bit with the cubes is the visit to the Sea of Science set to George's "Only a Northern Song", actually a pretty amusing song if you pay attention, but the animation there is easily the weakest and most uninvolving in the whole movie, so it's definite get-a-sandwich time.
As Kibo once pointed out to me, the "When I'm 64" one-minute counting segment was obviously a major, major influence on the creators of Sesame Street.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 04:11 pm (UTC)