Hello all and welcome to my first
blog post. My name is JP and this is JPAudio by design. Today I want to talk
about a movie that I just recently watched called Birdman. You know the one movie with Michael Keaton,
Zach Galifianakis and Emma Stone.
I watch a lot of movies, mostly
ones released on Netflix and every great while I will go to a movie theater for
a big picture. I want to start this blog
off by pointing something out in the film that has never been really done
before and turned out to be pretty phenomenal and that is the drum soundtrack.
For example when Michael Keaton’s
character is upset or angry you hear a wide assortment of drums playing in the
scenes he is in. This isn’t quote
unquote something that the character hears.
There are two scenes in which you see a drummer just playing a jam. To
me the actors don’t see the drummer yet the drummer is playing the emotions of
Keaton’s character. Usually drums are
used to heighten emotions in films. Like
leading you up to something. But in this
whole movie it’s drums and percussion.
To be honest I don’t think there are any other instruments in the whole
film.
So the Director Alejandro G.Inarritu, and Sound designer Martin Hernandez got together and hired on a Jazz
drummer named Antonio Sanchez who is also a Grammy award winner. According to
Sanchez this type of drumming for film has never been done and he was up for
the challenge. At first Sanchez had to
read the script and get an idea of how the movie would play out. This is what you call your test stages of the
soundtrack. Once the movie was recorded
Sanchez could see a better picture and was able to perform some amazing works
or art.
I would recommend this film to a
friend to watch. Not just for the
amazing drum and percussion works. But
for the over all film in general. It has
been a while since the soundtrack of a film has impressed me. Normally the sound design and Foley of any
film is what I normally stick to. But I
feel that this was an amazing feat and hopefully you will agree with me or see
the film for yourself.
