«Сияние» directed by American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, was released in May 1980. It is a horror film based on the book by Stephen King of the same name. The wife of the film’s main character, a housewife named Wendy, was played by Shelley Duvall, a successful and in-demand American actress at the time of filming. Prior to “The Shining,” Duvall had worked with renowned directors such as Robert Altman and Woody Allen. However, due to her work with Stanley Kubrick, the actress almost lost her sanity, which greatly affected her subsequent career.
Shelley Duvall in the baseball bat scene in The Shining
In cinema circles, Stanley Kubrick had a reputation as a neurotic perfectionist. “The Shining” even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the project with the most retakes of a single scene – there were 148. Shelley Duvall could not escape the director’s strict demands. The scene in which Wendy confronts her deranged husband with a baseball bat was shot only 127 times. Due to several hours of continuous holding of the bat and crying, the actress’s hands were torn and bloodied, her voice hoarse, and her eyes swollen from tears. On that day of filming, Duvall left the set completely exhausted and dehydrated. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actress revealed that to maintain the constant heightened emotional state required by her role, she listened to sad music and recalled sad moments from her life. This helped Duvall cry more, which was necessary for the script. “But after a while your body rebels. It says, ‘Stop doing this to me. I don’t want to cry every day.’ And sometimes just that thought made me cry,” the actress described her experience.
In the most famous scene of “The Shining,” the main character breaks down the door with an ax to reach his wife. In order to make Duvall show real fear, Kubrick did not tell her that the door would be broken down by an ax. In the shots that made it into the final version of the film, the actress is not acting, but truly terrified by what is happening.
Shelley Duvall in The Shining
In the documentary film “Making of The Shining,” Vivian Kubrick shows Shelley Duvall lying on the floor surrounded by pillows. These were shots of the aftermath of a panic attack that occurred during filming. Duvall confirmed what happened in an interview with Comingsoon.net. She said that a typical day on set lasted 15-16 hours, and the lack of rest made her feel exhausted. “I got to the point where I just couldn’t take it anymore; I needed a break, but breaks cost money, and people needed to keep filming, so I had a nervous breakdown,” the actress explained.
In 2016, 36 years after the release of the movie, Shelley Duvall visited the American talk show “Doctor Phil”. During the interview, it became evident that her mental health had significantly deteriorated. The actress spoke incoherently and produced an inadequate impression. When asked about her health, she replied, “If I say I’m healthy, the first thing they’ll do is hurt me tonight.” When asked who she was talking about, Duvall replied, “Whoever was in security… or in a bank… working night shifts… Sheriff Nottingham hunted me down, and a spinning disk was implanted in my knee.” She also remembered her colleague from the movie “Popeye,” Robin Williams, who passed away in 2014. Duvall insisted that Williams was alive and simply “constantly changing his appearance.”
Shelley Duvall in the early 80s (left); Shelley Duvall interviewed on Dr. Phil in 2016 (right)
In the same interview, Shelley Duvall stated that it was the most challenging role she has ever played, and the shooting process left a strong impression on her life. After the interview aired, “The Actors Fund,” a charitable organization concerned about the actress’s condition, offered Duvall financial assistance for treatment.
Soundtracks have become such an interesting newspaper topic that even the composers are awarded an Oscar for their products. Of these, video game tunes get less attention, although they mainly do contribute to the game’s immersiveness1.
Background
Pong – the first successful game with sound, 1972
In the 1950s, programmer Jeff Hill created digital music recorded on the CSIRAC computer2. Released in 1972, Pong was the first arcade game with sound t a commercial success. In 1979, the first-ever digital audio disc was presented. This phenomenon was noted “chiptune” since the soundtrack was created by an audio chip, usually inside a game console. The first such devices had the very limited sound processors. It was most commonly made with 8-bit music. This 8-bit processor created the melody in real time. In the early 1980s, the IBM personal computer appeared, and a couple of years later, sound cards and synthesizer modules came out. Each module has its own function: some generate sound, others act as a sequencer, others are various sound effects that played and created music in several channels.
In the 1950s, programmer Jeff Hill created digital music recorded on the CSIRAC computer3. Released in 1972, Pong was the first arcade game with sound turned into a commercial success. In 1979, the first-ever digital audio disc was presented. This phenomenon was noted as “chiptune”, since the soundtrack was created via an audio chip, usually inside a game console. The first such devices had very limited sound processors. It was most commonly made with 8-bit4 music. This 8-bit processor created the melody in real time. In the early 1980s, the IBM personal computer appeared, and a couple of years later, sound cards5 and synthesizer modules[/A synthesizer module is an electronic instrument divided into separate components (modules, blocks)] came out. Each module has its own function: some generate sound, others act as a sequencer6, others are various sound effects that play and create music on several channels.
In 1999, when the first music cartridge7 for the Game Boy was released, an updated genre of 8-bit music appeared – post-chiptune. It sounded less monotonous and simple, but technically differed little from the first experiments with digital music. Today, 8-bit is a separate genre that exists at the center of the subculture. Thanks to some bands, such as Crystal Castles, this music got a second chance in the 2000s. The creators of such tracks use special programs – trackers. They imitate the sound of chips from old set-top boxes. And 8-bit styled music can be made using modern synthesizers and sequencers.
Sequencer
The monotonous sound did not clash with the simple pixelated graphics of the first Dendy and SEGA games. The monotonous melody was quickly remembered and made the game recognizable. For example, the theme from the Guinness World Records best-selling game, Super Mario, becamea symbol of the first console games8 of the 1980s. The same thing happened with the Tetris melody, which evokes nostalgia for those born in the 1990s. It is noteworthy that the Russian folk song “Peddlers” was used as the basis for the soundtrack for Tetris, but it became known abroad only in the context of the game as “music from Tetris”.
Super Mario Bros
When discs appeared, the CD partially displaced audio chips, as it allowed tracks to be recorded and transmitted in advance. Sound designers had control over the process, as they could evaluate the finished compositions before they were combined with the game. The track was played directly from the disc, so the limited amount of memory on the set-top box itself is not a problem. Initially, the creators could use well-known songs. By the time, the stricter the licensing became, the stronger the power of composers in the game industry got.
Details
During game development[9, it was difficult to turn music into an accompaniment to the player during a chase, gunfight, or secret mission. The sound design also includes background sounds that accompany the action, the audio interface (e.g. in the main menu or when in danger), and character voices.
Music has a particularly important role in evoking emotion for game players. Hence, it must be more adaptable than the soundtracks. The theme of the game should not only set the mood, it must match exactly with the pace of the gameplay10. You can go through the same episode at different speeds, so writing a finished album from finished tracks will not work. And then the musical units accompanied by games are smaller, which means they better adapt to each player.
The hero of the game Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart in the club
Most games are unlikely to have time for slow and harmonious scenes and soundtrack transitions. The transitions from one rhythm to another must be done in a couple of seconds, depending on the user. For balanced transitions between episodes of the game, there is a horizontal and vertical convergence. The first occurs quite abruptly, for example, changing the research theme of the battle. The second involves modifying one main theme by speeding it up or slowing it down, increasing or decreasing the volume, and adding instruments. This is more often used not for abrupt movement between locations or tasks, but, for example, as a hint on the way. So, as you approach the nightclub in the game Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, the sound of dance beats will increase, new parties are added.
Composer Gustavo Santaolalla in The Last of Us II cameo
Since the game requires dynamic adaptation, the amount of material that the composer needs to write also increases. If this is about 50-70 minutes in the film industry, that is, half of the total running time11, then the duration of the passage of the game varies more, and the amount of sound accompaniment changes along with it. Hence, for The Last of Us II, composer Gustavo Santaolalla wrote about three hours of tracks.
Process
Music for a film or game is more frequently perceived as an accompaniment or an additional design element. Consequently, it seems paradoxical that work on soundtracks begins even before filming, at the stage of the script, or after the creation of a storyboard by game designers.
Once the composers have become familiar with the concept and the intended atmosphere of the game, they choose the direction in which they will develop the sound design. If this is vertical mixing, then you need to set triggers by two properties: at what parameter does the music change and how it changes. It can be affected by location, weather, time of day, level of fatigue or health of the character. Individual musical phrases in vertical mixing, on the other hand, are highly simplified, lack structure, and are sometimes too chaotic. However, this mixing variant, which is most similar to the ambient music genre, is well suited for travel, occasionally interrupted by short fights or tasks. With horizontal mixing, the composer and editors already work with whole compositions, which are divided into several scenes and alternate with each other. As a rule, their triggers are associated with an emotion or a central event in a game sequence. This is a less harmonious way of mixing, since the transitions between musical phrases can be sharp, and the melodies themselves are too long.
Sometimes the game’s sound design also uses stingers – stand-alone compositions that can appear in the middle of vertical mixing. They emphasize important player actions and evoke emotions quickly. Often, they come with replicas of the heroes with commentary on what’s going on.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Nowadays, it is not necessary to specify the time of the next knock of the wheel or the bell of the blade, or the place where the character will hear whispers or birdsong. To do this, there is procedural generation – an artificial intelligence system developed to generate a unique soundtrack for each game from a database of samples12 created by the composers.
Sounds are selected depending on the scene, location and pace of the game, as well as the state of the character. For example, Rise of the Tomb Raider used Intelligent Music Systems’ dynamic percussion13 system for sound design. And in the game No Man’s Sky, for which the band 65 Days of Static wrote a track for 50 minutes, this composition is used as a dataset for artificial intelligence, which selects pieces from there to create a unique track.
Forms
Lyra of the Winds in Genshin Impact
In addition to background accompaniment, music can become part of the gameplay. For example, in Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, the character can play the instrument to advance to the next level. Buttons with notes on the screen have become a direct element of the game mechanics. In Genshin Impact, which became popular last year, players also have the opportunity to play the Lyre of the Winds by pressing the note symbols. Here, a musical instrument is not needed to complete missions, but serves as an addition to the main gameplay. Sometimes you can not play the music with the character’s hands, but just listen to it. For example, in the arcade14 game Gris, where the heroine begins to sing at the player’s click, accompanied by an ambient melody.
Going beyond life-skills, cooking could be perceived as a source of pleasure and well-being. However, it can be complicated to master such a craft. We’ve put together a selection of movies for those who are still Googling how to cook pasta, but are desperate to develop their culinary skills.
1. Julie and Julia: Cooking Happiness by Recipe (2009)
Frame from the film “Julie and Julia: Cooking Happiness by Recipe”
The film revolves around an aspiring writer, Julie Powell, who works as a call center operator, and Julia Child, author of the cult book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. At the same time, the viewer can watch how the career of Mrs. Child herself begins in the 1940s and 1950s. It becomes obvious that the stories of the two women are similar not only in their love of cooking, but also in their attitude to difficulties and even to their own marriage.
2. Spices and Passions (2014)
Frame from the film “Spices and Passions”
A family of Indian immigrants, who live on wheels, decides to open a small oriental restaurant in the French province. However, the building where the restaurant is planned to be located is directly opposite the Weeping Willow restaurant, a Michelin-starred restaurant that regularly hosts the President of France himself for dinner. A cold but exciting war breaks out between the owners of the two restaurants. For guests, food and, to some extent, even for love.
3. Toast (2010)
Frame from the film “Toast”
A family of Indian immigrants, who live on wheels, decides to open a small oriental restaurant in the French province. However, the building where the restaurant is planned to be located is directly opposite the Weeping Willow restaurant, a Michelin-starred restaurant that regularly hosts the President of France himself for dinner. A cold but exciting war breaks out between the owners of the two restaurants. For guests, food and, to some extent, even for love.
4. Chief Adam Jones (2015)
Frame from the film “Chief Adam Jones”
A few years ago, Adams Jones worked as a chef in a first-rate restaurant in Paris, but drug abuse forced him to resign. Now he works in a small bar in the U.S., where his main duty is to pull oysters out of the sink. Tired of the meaninglessness of life, Adam decides to return to Europe and conquer the culinary world of London. From there he gets his 3 Michelin stars all at once.
5. Chocolat (2000)
Frame from the film “Chocolat”
This is an adaptation of the novel by British writer Joanne Haris. A young woman named Vianne Rocher arrives in a provincial French town. The appearance of new people in the city already excites the inhabitants, and when Vianne opens his own chocolate shop, they are completely lost in guessing what kind of strange guest has come to their city. Together with his daughter Anouk, the pastry chef is trying to establish a life in a new place, and at the same time introduce the locals to the exquisite taste of chocolate.
We have always watched the same New Year’s films every year. However, sometimes it is necessary to put DVCs of “Irony of Fate” and “Home Alone” on the shelf and find something new. Here is a list of films in the New Year’s Eve and Christmas mood, which you might not notice when scrolling through the thematic collections.
1. “Trapped in Paradise”, 1994. Director: George Gallo
A scene from the film “Trapped in Paradise”
Bill Firpo arrives in the provincial town of Paradise on Christmas Eve. He’s an honest restaurant manager, but the brothers whom Bill picks up from prison on Christmas Eve morning aren’t. Convicts Dave and Alvin Firpo tricks Bill into robbing a bank. In the absence of an alarm and the ever-sleeping guard doing their job the crime can be committed successfully. But a problem immediately arises: how to leave a small town with a huge amount of money, if a snowstorm is raging on the street, and the police are already seeking after robbers?
2. “Klaus”, 2019. Director: Sergio Pablos
A scene from the film “Klaus”
To educate a lazy and spoiled son, the owner of the postal empire sends him to Smirensburg, located in the far north. Jesper is instructed to set up a postal service in the city and process at least 6,000 letters a year to prove his independence to his father and return home. However, the city does not accept the new postman very cordially, and it seems that no one has heard of sending letters there. But everything changes when Jesper meets a mysterious lone lumberjack named Klaus. Who, as it turns out, keeps a lot of old toys at home and is willing to handing them out to the bored children of Smeerensburg.
3. “The Apartment”, 1960. Director: Billy Wilder
A scene from the film “The Apartment”
Baxter is a humble employee of an insurance company. To speed up his career progression, he lends the keys of his apartment to colleagues and even his boss to retire with their mistresses. Baxter’s plan works until he meets Fran, his boss’s secret lover. A new feeling is born between the characters, and Christmas night puts everything in its place.
4. A Very Murray Christmas, 2015. Director: Sofia Coppola
A scene from the film “A Very Murray Christmas”
Bill Murray is planning a brilliant TV show for Christmas, with celebrity guests and a packed program. But the plans are thwarted by an unexpected snowstorm which led to the absence of the eminent guests. However, in the snow-covered New York hotel where the show is scheduled and where Bill is so unsuccessfully stuck, there are a lot of random people. And Bill still manages to throw a party, just for a different audience and with new entertainment.
5. “8 Women”, 2001. Director: Francois Ozon
A scene from the film “8 Women”
The family gathers at an estate in the French outback to celebrate Christmas. But upon arrival, the guests find the owner of the house murdered in his bedroom. 8 women, each of whom is somehow connected with a dead man, begin their investigation. At the same time, they are all under suspicion, because each had the motive to commit a brutal murder. The darkest family secrets begin to unfold in the house, and the identity of the killer becomes the main Christmas entertainment.
Wednesday premiered on Netflix on October 23, 2022. In the first week, he broke the English-language viewing hours record. Took away the championship from Stranger Things (season 4), Wednesday became the absolute leader of the platform. Many viewers and critics noted that Jenna Ortega (main role) played a key role in such a bright start. Her Wednesday Addams turned out to be a deep and atmospheric character, the personification of a mixture between canonical and modern image.
But what is this “canonical image”? And how much has it changed since the first appearance of the Gothic Addams family? Let’s figure it out.
First appearance
Fragment of the original comic by Charles Addams
The Addams are a fictional family conceived and drawn in 1938 by American artist Charles Addams for The New Yorker magazine, which is still popular to this day. Addams’s idea was to portray a “perfect” American family through the lens of satire and black humor, which resonated with the magazine’s readers. Wednesday, who is the daughter of Morticia and Gomez Addams, is obsessed with causing pain to others and surprisingly serious for her age.
In the original version of Charles Addams, Wednesday has not acquire her pigtails for a modern audience, and her famous school dress is completely pink. However, such an atypically “bright” image for a member of the Addams family began to crumble very quickly. The catalyst was the emergence of a television series.
First film adaptation: “The Addams Family”
Wednesday in the series “The Addams Family” 60s
The comic about Addams family was first adapted for television in 1964, then began airing regularly on ABC. Here Wednesday already acquired characteristic and recognizable features – two pigtails in the middle, a strict black school dress, and a heavy look from underneath. We heard the name “Wednesday” for the first time – Charles Addams picked up the name of his little heroine only when he received an offer to make a family TV show. As it turned out, the name was derived from an old English nursery rhyme “Monday’s Child”:
Monday’s child is fair of face
Tuesday’s child is full of grace
Wednesday’s child is full of woe
Thursday’s child has far to go
Friday’s child is loving and giving
Saturday’s child works hard for his living
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
Since grief and misfortune are exactly what pleases the artsy American family, it was decided to name the girl Wednesday.
Cultural Phenomenon: The 1991 Addams Family Movie
Wednesday performed by Christina Ricci
The film “The Addams Family”, which released in 1991, gave the world the most famous image of Wednesday Addams performed by Christina Ricci. It’s an image about the girl look from a strange family, making two black pigtails and a black school dress with a high white collar one of the most popular Halloween costumes of the 90s. In the New Yorker comic and the 1960s sitcom, although Tuesday dressed in dark colors and had strange and characteristic Addams hobbies, she was essentially an adorable child, the standard image of a little girl in a family television series. Whereas 1991’s Wednesday is a heroine with a high intellect followed by a serious and sometimes stern demeanor, and all lines are delivered in a monotonous voice with a deadpan expression on her face. In the film, the character of Wednesday was revealed the most, she ceased to be “one of the two children” of the Addams couple and became an independent and bright character – with a memorable gloominess and cruelty.
Christina Ricci’s performance did not change much but finalized the canonical image of Wednesday Addams. Subsequently, the authors of all subsequent adaptations began to rely on it. This is because Wednesday of 1991 has become not just a minor character, but the main character in the eyes of the audience. Her feminist statements and honesty added depth to the heroine, and the external image became more in line with modern cinema than the version of the girl from the 60s.
Conquest of the world of animation
The image of Wednesday from the cartoon
In 2019, the feature-length cartoon The Addams Family was released on the big screens. The animation exaggerated the image of Wednesday, adding to her pale, the ability to move silently (thus frightening unprepared characters), and the lack of a smile throughout the cartoon. Wednesday was voiced by American actress Chloe Grace Moretz, who did not look like her heroine in appearance, but talentedly conveyed the girl’s lack of emotions and gloominess verbally.
Wednesday from the animated film is naturally based on the image that the audience loves, embodied by Christina Ricci, so there were no significant changes in it.
The hit of autumn-winter 2022: A series on Netflix
Wednesday performed by Jenna Ortega
The final stage of character development to date is Wednesday Addams, played by Jenna Ortega, in the Netflix series. What immediately catches your eye is the appearance of bangs on the heroine. In an interview, Jenna admitted that she and the director of the project, Tim Burton, wanted to add something new to the famous image that could distinguish it from previous versions. The outfits for Wednesday have also changed. The classic school uniform was replaced by a black zip-hoodie, striped long sleeves, and rough black platform boots. But most of all, the attention of the audience was attracted by the dress that Wednesday wears to the school prom – yes, everything is just as frilly but elegant and not typical of previous generations of Wednesday.
Dress Wednesday in one of the episodes of the series
In addition, the series also changes the age of the heroine. In the Netflix hit, she becomes a teenager, which, although done rather develop the plot, nevertheless gives a look at the heroine from a new, previously unknown side.
One thing is for sure – a heavy look and love for black remain the eternal companions of the heroine. For more than 80 years, Wednesday has changed significantly on the outside, but inside she always remains a gloomy and mysterious girl, as Charles Addams intended.
During the three-month period, the streaming giant laid off around 450 employees due to a loss of a raft of subscribers. According to the statistics provided by Macrotrends, from 2014 to 2019, the loss of Netflix has only increased, although the situation was rectified in 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic, which brought in a profit of almost two billion USD, 2021 again ended with negative indicators for the platform. Many experts attribute this situation in the market to the economic model in which the platform operates.
THE BIRTH OF STREAMING AND THE DEATH OF CABLE
In 1999, Netflix started as a DVD rental service, offering customers an unlimited monthly cassette subscription, as well as a personalized movie recommendation system. To create a large movie library, the company purchased the rights and licenses to a wide variety of content, part of an online cinema portfolio that still includes these acquisitions.
A decade later, Netflix pioneered the Internet streaming market, while other media giants offer cable TV subscriptions for $100, Netflix only requires its subscribers from 8 up to 15 dollars. In addition to the pricing policy, viewers are bribed by other factors: multiple people can use the same account from different devices, favorite shows can be viewed at any time, and the library constantly being replenished with hit shows that Netflix buys the rights to and content of its own production.
All this caused consumers to abandon cable subscriptions in favor of streaming, and movie and TV series creators not to release their products on TV, simply because Netflix and its similar companies offered more money than cable channels that were losing money. According to Bloomberg’s statistics in 2018, 6 people give up cable TV every minute, of which in return, many people subscribe to online services.
THE FLYWHEEL MODEL
Flywheel model for Netflix
Despite the removal of these competitors, Netflix is still operating at a loss. This is largely due to their economic policy, known as the “flywheel method”. It works like this: the service takes money from a user’s subscription and spends it on content creation, content distribution and creating a pleasant user experience, which forces the user to renew the subscription theirs and everything went back to the way it was. The problem is that Netflix spends more than $500 per user while it only brings the company about $10. This difference is covered by the new viewer’s subscription, i.e. your payment for one subscription offsets the cost spent by the user who purchased it before you and the amount the next subscriber will reimburse you.
The problems of this plan will become apparent once Netflix hits the subscription threshold – there will simply be no potential buyers left in the US and the world able to cover these losses with their own money. Analysts estimate that the maximum number of Netflix subscribers in the US is 60-90 million and around 200 million in the rest of the world, while in the first quarter of 2022 there were around 80 million people in North America and about 150 million people in the rest of the world.
Simultaneously, due to the peculiarities of the market, a subscriber outside the United States brings the company much less money than an American: for example, the cost of a subscription in India at the start was only $3 – three times less than in the company’s homeland.
By way of explanation, in order for the flywheel to continue working, Netflix is forced to look for new subscribers outside the United States, in the face of the fact that local markets cannot offer a profit comparable to the United States, as well as to raise prices in richer and more developed countries, which already leads to an outflow of subscribers.
COMPETITORS AND WOLVES OF WALL STREET
For Netflix, the situation is compounded by increased competition: almost every major corporation has already launched or is preparing to launch its streaming service. Coincidently, knowing the need for their competitor to raise prices, other streaming services deliberately underestimate the cost of a subscription: Disney+ asked for only $ 7 at the beginning, while providing exclusive and discussed content like the new parts of Star Wars and the Mandalorian series, as well as absorbing another online movie theater Hulu. In other words, purchasing Disney+ for a price half the price of a subscription to Netflix, the user received two streaming services at once.
Netflix official account tweet saying “Love is password sharing”
Simultaneously, Netflix itself is also forced to take not very pleasant measures for users, along with the mentioned price increase, the company also wants to ban users from sharing passwords with loved ones, and about 1/4 numbers all subscribers do this, although the company previously considered this function as one of the important being.
This policy affects the number of people who unsubscribe. Users are also canceling subscriptions due to the lifting of quarantine restrictions in many countries: people work, study, travel, and less sit at home in front of computers and TVs. As a result, in the second quarter of 2022, one million people canceled their Netflix subscription, and a similar number of unsubscribes is expected before the end of the year.
Netflix’s largest shareholder Bill Ackman
This situation in the market also affects the investment attractiveness of the company: in the past year, the value of shares has decreased by more than 60%, in such a crash, one of the company’s largest shareholders lost more than a billion dollars, and then sold his entire three million shares.
Despite the unfavorable economic situation and loss, Netflix is unlikely to stop, in a letter to shareholders the company assured that canceling family subscriptions will only lead to new users. Streaming and the loss of subscribers are also tied to macroeconomic factors: the consequences of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory. In addition, the company will not reduce its content costs: in 2021, online cinemas have spent 17 billion dollars on it.
