End Game !

Taking it seriously isn't on the table, don't worry . I'm fascinated by your experience, and it got me thinking is all. Some of Silvestri's early scores are lovely, but I can't pick him out from the crowd anymore.

 

I should say it wasn't nearly the euphoric experience described. I can't get lost in things like this anymore. It's more just that it elevates football to something "fun" vs. "fall asleep to". I like the strategic angle, and playing it, but watching sports is something I've never been interested in.

I completely agree. That said, a few things I've noticed that fill the void:
1. Music. Music still does this for me. Finding new music that does can be tricky, but the music I already love does this pretty consistently. I cherish the involuntarily and frequent emotional reactions I have to music. It's a smaller fraction of this pool, but there's some music that immerses me in such a profound way I find it hard to put into words. I'll feel a deep connection and sense of longing connected to very raw childhood emotions, and it will completely change what I'm thinking about and my outlook. I heard an album a few years ago that quite literally changed my life, and was a significant healing experience. Music colours my life's experiences -- I genuinely feel like no life experience is remotely as significant if not associated with music in some way (I do this deliberately because of this).

2. Kids. Having a child, and getting to experience things vicariously through her is arguably better than the immersion I used to experience. Which ties into:

3. Creation. Creating music/art/stories/experiences/whatever that brings people into this sense of immersion is IMO even more satisfying than being immersed. I do find I need to be "filled" in order for this to flow properly, which is why seeking out/listening to music and new artistic experiences is so vital. For games, it's usually densely atmospheric indie games that will do it for me, especially since they tend to be focused and short. I can't play through a 30 hour game anymore, because that initial impression wears off quickly via gameplay. Often soundtracks from a game I haven't played are more immersive than simply playing the game.

Makes sense. You start perceiving the intra-media patterns a little too closely and it becomes quite difficult to find something that breaks the mold. I've found delving into "classics" has solved this problem with literature, music, games, etc. Those gems get curated for you by virtue of their continued legacy, and the pattern perception works in your favour as you become more full able to appreciate why it is they're so wonderful. I also find paying attention to elements of structure to be more interesting, now that I understand them better, i.e. cinematography, underlying themes, etc. Classics also tend to fill the emotional void somewhat, since their grand, transcendental narratives and larger themes present me with denser "food" to digest, rather than purely an emotional experience. I do miss that experience of being immersed more often, although delving into the Ghibli series has been a wonderful experience -- I feel nostalgically attached to them, despite not seeing them as a child.

 

Well, enjoy it while it lasts I guess!

A friend of mine said almost the exact same thing, yet for me it seems to be the other way around. I can rarely get into indie games anymore. Either I manage to get sucked into a game and hope it's gonna last 50+ hours before I burn out on it, or I barely touch it.
It's probably a big factor that you guys have kids and just don't have the same time and freedom to binge on games as I can still do. Subnautica worked really well for me, and even did so for that friend of mine. He once had his daughter draw maps of the areas he explored and she helped him memorize the components he needed for crafting items. So if you're looking for another indie game to dive (no pun intended) into, maybe give that a go.

There's a soundtrack I wanna get some opinions on from you guys, but I'll save that for another time. It changed my perspective on being gripped by a soundtrack that you don't know the source material to. So I can finally see where you're coming from with this.

That's a good idea. I lately feel a growing desire to watch or rewatch 20+ year old movies instead of modern productions. Their CGI effects might not have aged well, but when I see movie sets that they actually built, somehow that's much more impressive and immersive to me nowadays than seeing modern top-notch digital VFX work. Maybe I need to lean into that a little more, now that Netflix is starting to add more old classics to their selection.

 

The better I get, the more immersive playing and creating is, even if I don't intend to ever show it to anyone. I sure hope this lasts.

Thanks, I'll try it out. Have had it recommended to me.
That's interesting. It's not purely having kids that makes me disinterested in video games, it's that I get a lot more fulfillment out of creating experiences now. I do need creative input to output, but I find all I really need from a game in that regard is one or two hours every few weeks.
I think games that encourage creativity and engagement are even better, really, but there just came an age for me when long games didn't feel fulfilling, or even enjoyable. Exploring more tangible mediums have become a lot more fulfilling over the last decade. I'd still play FFVII or Ocarina of Time again though.

Interested in hearing it!

Heck, the Thing still looks fantastic even now, and far less outdated than CGI-dense films from 5 years ago. After a while, you stop caring that the pizza has a lot of toppings and care more about the quality of the pizza itself.
VFX work is like production in music -- it sounds nice, but production doth not a good song make.


@Alexander Schiborr : Holy cow, I didn't realize there were that many. Also, I'd wager that most of the films that have been churned out won't be remembered or cared about that much in 15 years, whether as a byproduct of Marvel never letting their franchise die and constantly reinventing the characters, or because most of the films are incredibly formulaic. Ditto Star Wars, but such is the case with any film franchise that cares more about longevity and making money than story. Disney isn't going to quit churning those out after spending $4 billion on the franchise. None of this is a secret here, obviously, but I kind of want to try the 6-hour thing Doug talked about. I have a feeling it might have the opposite effect on me however.

 

That's cool! For me it's the opposite

Building your own underwater base is one of the major appeals in Subnautica and you get quite a bit of freedom there.

Not to mention that in 15 years they might have knocked out another 30 or so new Marvel movies by then...

I don't think I've ever watched that, but I think I've already put it on "the list".

 

@Doug Gibson That's a really interesting way of looking at it. From a "zoomed out" perspective there are certainly redeemable story qualities, as you mention. Have yet to see it, but what you've pulled out of it is probably something I would have been too distracted to do (then again, you're obviously quite proficient at breaking down and explaining concepts in such a manner). I can understand the emotional investment, certainly. A film like "Taken" isn't precisely innovative, or even really that interesting overall, but you really want to see Liam Neeson shoot sex traffickers and the emotional investment supersedes broader storytelling in this regard. I really don't think this is a bad thing. I'd love to hear your take on Sonata form in this regard -- do you mean it simply mirrors it, in a simple way? I can see the important classical archetypes and contrast in your scene descriptions. I may just watch it after all.

That said, I would hope the culmination of nearly 2 dozen films is something with redeemable qualities. I'm sure certain Marvel films will last a while, but there are some people have already just about forgotten about, despite being less than 5 years old. Really the end goal of most of those films was the build up to these last two.

@Alexander Schiborr

Yeah, it's a case of taking a closed story and trying to make more money off it, more than anything. The films get more nonsensical as they go along.
Ironically, this can be a huge detriment to the originals. Look at Dracula -- Dracula is the personification of evil, who is charismatic, tempting and irredeemable. He's an allegory of sorts for evil -- how it ensnares and ultimately destroys. Dracula becoming a "sexy, misunderstood guy" both makes zero sense (contradicting the well-established and already interesting ideas about undead and cultural conceptions of vampires) and makes the character incredibly boring. Misunderstood villains can be interesting, but the "pure evil" archetype melding into the "misunderstood human" archetype is never interesting.
Furthermore, if you start trying to add to an already complete storyline (i.e. Star Wars) the result is usually convoluting and never interesting. Ditto all the new Harry Potter screenplays coming out as books. They're terrible. An exception is Tolkien's world, but that's because he created a language, world and history before creating stories within. He was an adept scholar too.

Like Mike always says, intent and control. I don't mind terrible films as much as mediocre films.

This is so true. The volume is so staggeringly high. What could be interesting is if the spinoff films felt more believably stand-alone, i.e. if the Black Widow film actually played out like a Soviet-era espionage film and had a self-contained story, rather than just feeling like a build up to a sequel. I think "Logan" was a good example of this, that was a decent superhero film, albeit really dark.

Like you said -- all polish, no substance. All topping, no pizza. It's alarming how little the average person has experienced when it comes to actual masterworks of literature and the like, compared to how much time they spend on facebook. I've also never seen Game of Thrones, for the record. There's something about HBO's edgy-teenager obsession with trying to push controversial content, coupled with American shows typically needing to go 9 seasons to give any semblance of conclusion to a series. I'd rather be looking at ants, too -- there's a lot more to learn from them.
Like @Martin Hoffmann and I were talking about -- there comes a point where it's too easy to see through the veneer, and you begin realizing why classics are what they are. You begin craving substance, and that's where they're found.

Martin: Thankfully, when creativity doesn't work, music still does. Does music not feel immersive for you anymore?
I will say that sitting in a room, staring at a screen and listening feels a lot different than sitting in a forest and listening to Daphnis and Chloe, or the Rite of Spring. Ditto hearing The Nutcracker while being performed as a ballet, or lying under stars and listening to The Planets. It's worth the effort, I've found.

 

I think that's sort of the essence of what a broadly palatable, accessible superhero movie should do, really -- cover that basic contrast of good vs. evil, selfishness vs. selflessness, virtue vs. vice, etc.

Another discussion entirely, but I think Stravinsky's reductionism is a byproduct of his metaphysical assumptions (those of his era). He seems to contradict himself elsewhere by expressing the idea of music's intrinsic, transcendental value (though he doesn't precisely use these terms). Perhaps I'm missing something.

Thanks again for sharing another fantastic lesson, that was a really practical approach. Going to sit and work at this concept for a bit. Have been doing theme and variation but in a less structured manner.

(I wonder if this is like getting guitar students who want to learn how to "djent" or "shred")

Again, thanks for sharing, I'll have a go at doing theme and variation like this. Really quite convincing rendition by the way, although I think I personally liked the secondary dominants version (beside the point, of course). I'd love to hear your take on a cohesive journey.

As an aside, do you have your recorded works available for streaming anywhere in particular?

 

I don't remember much, but I think I enjoyed the first Sharknado. Sharktopus was a bit disappointing though.

A piano can't do all the sounddesign stuff, which is why you shouldn't try to do the same thing on a piano imho. There's some cool music with only drums and drony noises, how's that gonna sound as piano reduction? I think putting things on piano or similar is a wonderful tool to put someones nose into shortcomings in musical development, but if you apply it to everything and anything it risks becoming a meme imho.

Lol, just found this:

I thought about this since you wrote it, but I can not answer this question, I just don't know. I tried and failed, but I don't want to say "no" either.

 

One thing I have noticed about good composers that do sound design pieces is that they still make it focused, musically, even if incredibly simple. It may not be amazingly interesting as a reduced piano piece, but there's still music there. I think the issue with a lot of sound design in films is that it's just that -- sound design. There's no sense of music or storytelling. It's kind of just mickey-mousing, but with sound design.

An example is this score. Not lauded or any major musical achievement, but it's highly effective in context. It's just a handful of chords and some extensions (that 9th always gets me), but it works as a motif throughout the entirety of the game. It would have been far less effective if it was just drones and sounds.

PS -- All this Marvel talk reminded me of this clip (granted it was before the culmination of everything that is now the Avengers):

 

Good point and good example! I'll keep an ear out for those aspects the next time I hear something of the drony variety.