Showing posts with label stage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stage. Show all posts

Saturday, 18 April 2009

All the diffferent songs in a musical

A musical consists of many different songs. And these songs are divided into different categories. So here, courtesy of TVTropes are those song types and our

  • Angry Mob Song- The angry mob song is a song which is sung by an angry mob- usually sung right before they decide to chase after the monster.
  • Busby Berkeley Number- a showstopping number with showgirls and the like. It's like an over-the-top homage to Busby Berkeley, most notable example of this song is Be Our Guest from Beauty And The Beast.
  • Cut Song- a song which isn't included in the actual movie but appears in the stage version and the soundtrack. Human Again wasn't included in the original theatricial release of Beauty And The Beast but was in the stage versions after that, the soundtrack and later appeared in the special edition dvd.
  • Crowd Song - this song is usually sung by a big crowd of people. Usually happens at the begining of the film or at the end.
  • Dark Reprise- a rather grim reprise of an earlier song, is usually sung by someone else other than the character who sang the earlier song.
  • Epic Song- this song is the one that makes the film an instant hit. This is a HUGE number that just screams "awesome".
  • Fanfare- this particular kind of song is used to mark the entrance of an extremely important character, usually some kind of nobleman.
  • Final Love Duet- this song is sung by the main character and his/her love interest. This is to express their love for the very last time.
  • I Am Song- this song is song by the main character, it's usually about what he/she is like and what makes him/her so special. It's usually one of the first songs in the film.
  • I Want Song- another song sung by the main character, the main character sings about his/her hopes, dreams and desires and what he/she wants out of life.
  • Medley- a mixture of all the different songs combined. Usually appears at the end of the movie.
  • Movie Bonus Song - a song that never appears in the original theatricial version of the film but appears in the special edition as a "bonus song". Is also featured on the soundtrack.
  • Opening Chorus- this is the big chorus number that is played at the begining of the movie and reprised at the end a little as well.
  • Solo Duet- this song is a duet version of a solo. Usually done by two characters.
  • Villain Love Song- this is one of the two songs sung by the villain of the piece. For this one the villain/villainess sings about his/her obsession over the hero/heroine and how much they want him/her to be theirs.
  • Villain Song- this is the second one and the one villains are famous for. The Villain Song is where the villain sings all about him/herself and what their evil plans are, if it's in a cartoon- expect plenty of pyrotechnics and the like. Notable examples include Gaston, Be Prepared, Toxic Love, In The Dark Of The Night, Don't Make Me Laugh, and Oogie Boogie Song.
  • The Villain Sucks Song- A song sung by another character about how terrible the villain is. The character singing it describes the villain/villainess's villainous personality and other wicked traits for theirs. Notable examples include Hitler Only Has One Ball, You're A Mean One Mr Grinch and Cruella De Vil.

Our good friend Tyrone The Terrible is an expert when it comes to Villain Songs in general. His whole gimick is based on the art of being evil. He's a supervillain, a very hammy but likable supervillain to be precist. In addition to being an evil genius he is also a gifted singer and songwriter. He's a Villain With Good Publicity. He has his own evil lair, it's just three blocks away from our museum/amusement park. It's located in a big spooky looking fortress with a giant T on it. The doorbell plays the song Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears. He has two books out, one of is How To Be A Villain and the other is his autobiography The Life Of An Evil Genius. He has his own evil laugh and his own Villain Song. He has a lot of minions. In his evil lair there are various evil gadgets and weapons, there is also a dungeon where he locks up his enemies in, a torture room, and a pit full of dangerous maneating sharks/pirahnas/crocodiles. His idols include Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Tim Curry. In most of our work he writes the villain songs- he sometimes even sings them himself. One notable example of this is his work in our animated epic Fantastic Portal where he voiced the main villain a cunning spellcaster type named Simon The Evil Overlord who was modelled and based on American Idol judge Simon Cowell- he used his clever Simon Cowell impersonation when doing it, and not only did he write his character's own villain song he also sang it rather well. He also wrote the song Inconcievable a villain song for the character of Vinzini from The Princess Bride as well as numerous other villain songs including I Am Evil Jay from our hit musical Leno. He is a good friend of actor Tim Curry, it was his idea to have Tim Curry be the voice of the evil dropbear Morlock in the rock opera episode of Millitary Koalas and let me tell you it was pure genius. We enjoyed bringing the character of Morlock to life. It was even more enjoyable when we did it for the movie. Like us, Tyrone The Terrible also is an inventor and has made several toys, most of which were made for evil purposes.

Saturday, 7 March 2009

Leno- Now on dvd and vhs.

Hi, Nathan "Dr Music" Forester here. Back in summer 2007 me and my brother premiered our hit musical Leno on broadway. A musical autobiopic look into the life of Tonight Show host Jay Leno. I played the part of Jay Leno and his various characters from his tonight show sketches- It was a little rough getting through the makeup proccess but it was worth it. Here's a list of "tropes" asscioated with the production courtesy of our good friends at tvtropes (which is the best site ever):
  • Cut Song (we originally had a song titled "You Don't Stand A Chance" it was supposed to be Letterman's villain song, but we decided to cut it out of the production, it's on the extended soundtrack though, also there a few lyrics cut out of Carnac's Mystic Melody)Crowd Song ("Jay", "Leno" and "We'll Miss You Johnny")
  • Dark Reprise (The Executive's "Jay" Reprise)Fanfare (Johnny Carson's numbers start with a few of these, and some of Jay's do too)
  • Final Love Duet ("Don't Leave Me" by Jay and Mavis)
  • I Am Song (Jay has a number of these including ones his tonight show sketch characters sing such as "I Am Iron Jay" "Great Beyondo" "The Amazing Mr Brain" and Evil Jay's "I am Evil Jay!", Johnny Carson gets one as Carnac titled "Carnac's Mystic Melody")
  • I Want Song (Jay's I Want Song "Lights, Camera, Fame".)
  • Love Song ("Oh Lovely Mavis")Opening Chorus (The Crowd song "Jay")
  • Solo Duet (Johnny Carson has "Carnac's Mystic Melody")
  • Villain Love Song (subverted with Helen's song "Get that Boy")
  • Villain Song (Helen Kushnik has "Bad To The Bone" , the Executives have "Take No Prisoners", Evil Jay as "I am Evil Jay")
  • The Villain Sucks Song ("Cold Hearted Woman" , "Those Darn Executives")

  • The crowd song/I am song Leno is a satire of the Gaston song from Disney's Beauty And The Beast, I Am Iron Jay is a satire of Iron Man by Black Sabbath, Beyondo's I Am song is a satire of Holy Diver, Evil Jay's I am song/villain song is a satire of This Is Halloween, Billy Tuttle's is a satire of Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves. The motion picture version of this musical has "special thanks to Andria, ChuckyG, Red Ant, Guy, Annie Are You Okay, Jason and all the genius editors who've made Amright what it is today". In fact, Andria and quite a few other Amiright alumni appear in the big Crowd Song number "Jay". Also Annie Are You Okay's Nightmare Fuellerific song parody Leno was the inspiration for the character of Jay's evil twin Evil Jay, the song kind of creeped me out and it did give me nightmares but her version of Jay had enough darkness and dept to inspire the character of Jay's evil twin. We gave Jay's evil twin Evil Jay a vamprish quality and villainous Tim Curry-like charm and charisma. I wore basically the same makeup I wore to play Jay, but I had my face painted greyish, had red contact lenses and vampire teeth to make him look evil- the vampire teeth and red eyes were my brother's idea. Evil Jay's wardrobe consisted mainly of outfits that were black, blood red or purple. The special effects were done using my brother's sfx master machine (which makes extremely realistic special effects). We were originally going to make Johnny Carson a bad guy in this but it didn't work out so we made him one of the supporting characters instead. We made Helen Kushnic, David Letterman and the NBC Executives the villains of the piece. Dave originally had a villain song but we cut it out of the final product because it was too long. Our friend Sam Leno helped with the production. Me and my brother wrote and produced it, I starred in it as Jay the title character. Like my good friend Tyrone the terrible, when it comes to theatre productions i'm always cast as the bad guy. This marks as the second time i've played a non bad guy part in a production, the first was when I was Erik in my company's production of Phantom. I recently played Gaston in my company's production of beauty and the beast.

    Jay's song at the end Lead With Your Chin is a satire of True To Your Heart from Mulan and gets it's name from Jay's autobiography Leading With My Chin. This was inspired by a comment Agrimorfee said about me taking a page out of a book. He is one of the amiright alumni who make cameos during the big crowd song.