As
fun as it is to watch "The Naked Gun", there must have been
a much better experience behind the scenes. This kind of film lives
on the amount of laughs it can deliver, so to that end, they had to
create a lot of jokes. It's probably a safe bet, to say they went
beyond what was already written and that plenty of meetings were
held, by a dry erase board. All we are left with is the finished
product, but the real laughs are in the moments we'll never get
to see.
Classic
Movie Trailers - The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad (1988)
What
if you could spend a few weeks out on the road, with your favorite
band? That would mean backstage access, a nearby hotel room and a
chair to sit in, for every jam and recording session. If that sounds
like fun to you I'm sure that it would be, but you might also find it
to be incredibly frustrating. You see, in that particular scenario,
you're getting to experience the music that will never reach the
outside world.
Let's
say that one day, in the very early morning, the lead guitarist gets
up and plucks away at his strings. This could be something he does
often, to loosen up for a later event, but during this time he could
stumble upon a masterpiece. While listening for a few seconds, you
hear the dollar signs between the notes, but after a minute or so he
moves on, to a completely different melody. Maybe if you leap out of
bed and burst into the room, you'll be able to get him to preserve
something, that would have been forgotten and lost.
Even
if you are that fortunate, the chances are against that work ever
seeing the light of day. Maybe it doesn't fit into the album that
they're working on. Maybe the melody is right, but they just can't
find the words. Maybe the song is deemed better for a future
project, but that project is never released.
Like
music, comedy is contextual. You could come up with the funniest
moment in film history, but if it doesn't fit the story it'll be cut.
There might be something left to salvage on the editing room floor,
but you could lose all of the effectiveness, when you try to use it
elsewhere. I've yet to see a joke book make the best seller's list
and that's possibly because they lack the context, that made the
jokes funny to begin with.
Sometimes,
you just have to be there. When that scene wasn't working and the
director called for a meeting, you had to be the one to slip into the
room, with the writers and the cast. When Leslie Nielsen woke up from
his nap between shoots, you needed to be that fly on the wall, to see
what escaped his golden pen. I'm willing to bet, that the funniest
moments during production were at supper time, when the cameras were
off.
Like
music, comedy is art without boundaries. It isn't chained down by
logic or reason, like many other genres. While brainstorming and
trying to find the most hilarious thing possible, an idea can turn
into a riot, if it's bounced off someone that can think outside the
box. I can't imagine a more creative environment than that and I
doubt there's a group of people, that we should envy more.
After
all, they can only convey so much. We'll be able to enjoy some of the
work, but the rest will be lost to time. The only thing we can do
now, is preserve as much as we can and I think the best way to do
that, is to find a local record store. Obviously today that's a much
harder task, but if you go to the flea markets, the swap meets and
the garage sales, you can get your hands on vinyl.
You'll
want to sift through as many boxes as you can. In between the
releases from Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones and the like, you're
going to find a few album covers with Richard Pryor on them. If you
keep looking, you'll see names like Eddie Murphy, Bobcat Goldthwait,
George Carlin, Sam Kinison and Redd Foxx. Those are priceless pieces
of material, that you should buy and store immediately.
Be
careful not to settle for streaming these performances, or waiting
for them to appear on cable TV. If everyone did that, imagine what
we'd lose. Servers go down all the time and companies are only
concerned about what products will make them the most. We're already
losing millions of pieces of art every day; if some of them are
recorded, we should hoard them like no tomorrow.
-------------------------------------
@ChannelSeals
See
"The Naked Gun" on Netflix!
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