We started talking about Tom Hooper's newest film adaptation on the temp boards. Today we get a behind-the-scenes look at Les Mis and Tom Hooper's approach to making the cast all sing live. And here's a look at the first trailer:
Still a bit panicked over not even hearing a peep from Javert in that BtS thing (we got Eponine, Marius, Valjean, Cosette, Fantine)... but the part of On My Own we heard killed me.
I was hoping to hear some Javert as well. But OMG, it's to the point that I'm not sure if I'm more excited for this or for The Hobbit. And that's saying something coming from me.
You and I both... Luckily, they don't come out on the same night, so we don't have to choose which film to go see and can actually be there for both opening nights. As for Javert, I only hope that the overall quality of the cast is a good omen. I'm counting on old Rusty's perfectionist tendencies to do the rest and carry the day. Cheers, Lauré
... Unless a date's changed, they DO come out the same night. Singing it live has too many variables; the music isn't precise, the singing isn't precise (and you can't fix it in post), and it's probably a lot harder on the sound guys to record it well.
Maybe because before it would have involved technical problems (wireless microphones, etc...) that weren't quite resolved yet, ot that people weren't confident with? Hopefully this will be a breakthrough performance and give a breath of fresh air to the musical genre, so that we can see many more of those over the next years. Cheers, Lauré
As per imdb.com, The Hobbit comes out on the 14th, and Les Miz comes out on the 25th... unless in select markets they have advanced Les Miz's opening night? Cheers, Lauré
http://www.lesmiserablesfilm.com/ (CHRISTMAS) EDIT: Dammit, hit post too soon! http://www.thehobbitblog.com/ (In theaters 12/14/2012)
And per the rest of the internet, Les Mis is still opening on the 14th. Edit: Oh good. Now come on, Google, and get your stuff updated.
If this turns out as awesome as it sounds (wink wink), then I hope Hollywood remakes "Phantom of the Opera" applying this same method.
I just want Tom Hooper to tackle The Scarlet Pimpernel next. (The book, preferably, but I'll take the musical too).
Because most people sound better/passable when they get harmonised to hell by electronic editing *cough*Gerard Butler*cough* I would hate to hear Pierce Brosnan sing live, he was bad enough in Mamma Mia anyway I've heard Ewan McGregor sing live, he wasn't as good as in Moulin Rouge because his voice wasn't altered to make him sound as good. The advantage of recording this live will be that they won't have some dodgy dubbing as often happens in musical films and as they said the tempo is better. Plus they can then edit the audio in post production anyway I'm assuming that is why we haven't heard Russel Crowe yet, he will be messed about with in editing so the film people can claim what we are hearing is his real voice
Yeah I'm guessing Crowe will wind up being dubbed, at least in parts. It doesn't make me confident in his singing that we haven't heard any of it yet. I fear it's just as I thought it would be. However, everything else looks SO AWESOME.
I repeat: On My Own killed me. Especially that part of the song... and I've heard Lea Salonga do it live on stage (non-10th anniversary)...
While most of the songs in the movie version of Rent were lip-synced, Idina Menzel's performance of "Over the Moon" was live. She had to sing it seven times.
It has been done before, in a little remembered but vastly underrated Peter Bogdanovich picture called "At Long Last Love," which embraced the difficulty as making the singers shaky performances deliberately as part of its intent and charm. The reason classical musicals were dubbed is because of a)the difficulty of recording live sound (even many non-musicals feature extensive post-dubbing) b)the inconsistency of sound that would occur from shot to shot and c)the sheer elaborateness of golden age musical numbers. Watch a Busby Berkely musical and tell me how you can sing one of those numbers live on set. Or "Make 'Em Laugh" in Singin' in the Rain. You'd probably die.
Likewise, legend has it that some of Rex Harrison's work in My Fair Lady was live, simply because they couldn't reliably dub since he did the song different every take. Or something like that.
Right, and he could barely sing in the first place, so they specifically wrote his parts into talk singing (code for: speak rhythmically and then go up at the end).
Yeah he did a lot of that live for that reason. And it worked just fine, but that's partly because he was the originator of the part so it was designed with him in mind.
I so hope Javert raps. EDIT: "Stars. Uh. Dig it. Stars in their multitudes. Uh. Yeah yeah. Filling the darkness uh huh."
