Well, we’re one month away from the Eurovision song contest, so I thought I’d use that as an excuse to listen to some music and then tell the internet what I thought of it. I’ll be going through all the entrants in more detail nearer the time, but for now I’d like to focus on the six countries already confirmed to be competing: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and of course the hosts, Azerbaijan. Let us eschew all forms of cultural and national bias and begin with my home country, Great Britain, being represented by Engelbert Humperdinck.
Engelbert Humperdinck - Love Will Set You Free
I confess, I had never heard of Mr. dinck before, so you can imagine my anxiety upon hearing the news that after the humiliation of last year’s teeth-pullingly bad entrant “I Can”, Britain would be represented by a man who’s last name is shared by a prince in “The Princess Bride”. My mixed feelings were completely washed away upon hearing what is, in my humble opinion, the best Eurovision entrant Britain has had in many a year. The song opens with some smooth, lonely guitar chords, perhaps partially influenced by Spanish flamenco, before Humperdinck comes in with some incredibly velvety crooning, showing no trace of his borderline 76 years. It’s a very welcome pegging back of the usually over-the-top production that Eurovision has become known for in recent years, there’s little else but Humperdinck and a guitar, and that’s all the song needed. Humperdinck’s… experience, shall we put it politely, ultimately works to his advantage, because when he’s singing what are simplistic but effective lyrics, he actually has the air of someone who really has been through what he’s singing about, unlike the vast majority of pop “sensation” 20 year olds singing about love as though they have any idea what it is, (Disclaimer: I’m 19, I just hate my generation) Humperdinck is actually (incidentally I’m also not gay) believable when he sings about missing the woman who is the subject of the song forever. The song finishes with a beautiful high note that I hope for Britain’s sake Humperdinck is able to pull off live on the night, but in terms of the song, it’s a great finish to this quiet, brilliant ballad. If I had to levy one criticism at it, I would say that, while the lyrics do work, they are occasionally a little too simplistic, particularly a chorus totally void of rhyme which undoes some perfectly solid and occasionally pretty good verses. But ultimately, the lyrics aren’t much of an issue, the certainly never stopped me singing along, and they aren’t going to stop Humperdinck from having one of the best songs of the show, in spite of how the politically skewed voting goes.
Tomorrow, we’ll be taking a look at the hosts and defending champions, Azerbaijan.
28 April, 2012
07 April, 2012
The Role Motive Plays in Ethics
I’d like to present a thought on morality, I don’t for a moment claim that it’s original to me, but it did occur to me one night about a week ago, and it’s the role of motive when making moral judgements. I think motivation is the most important ingredient when it comes to judging whether an action is moral or immoral, much more important than even the act its self. Let me provide a quick example. If someone stabs someone with a knife in cold blood out on the street, there are very few people I know who would class that act as anything other than immoral. However, if someone were to break into your house, and you grabbed a knife to protect yourself and your family, and you killed the intruder, perhaps the issue is a little more grey, but I would class that as a moral action, you have defended yourself and your family from someone who themselves was committing a crime in the first place. Notice that in both these situations, the action is exactly the same, namely, person a has stabbed person b with a knife. What’s the difference? The motive. The motive in these cases is everything. This is why adhering to a strict, unalterable moral code will never provide an adequate path to acceptable ethics. Morality must be flexible for it to be worth anything, it must be contingent on the circumstances and the people involved in any given scenario.
I’ve been extremely busy with irl stuff, work mainly, but I will return to morality in due time, I’ll flesh this thought out a little more and talk about some other things over the next week or so. Just thought I’d share this with you as some food for thought.
I’ve been extremely busy with irl stuff, work mainly, but I will return to morality in due time, I’ll flesh this thought out a little more and talk about some other things over the next week or so. Just thought I’d share this with you as some food for thought.
23 March, 2012
A Scary Thought
Recently I saw a film called The Woman in Black. My opinions of it aside, I was intrigued by people who seemed to think that it was some sort of throwback to the days when horror was about more than gore and violence and loud noises intended to cause the audience to jump. It’s true, the gore and violence might not have been there, but the gore is a much less important issue, in my view, then the ever pervasive “jump-scare”.
The Jump-scare was exercised throughout the woman in black, and it completely ruined any chance the film had at creating a psychological and gripping atmosphere. As an example of this, I’d like to turn to the gaming world, and one of the finest pieces of art it has ever produced: The Silent Hill series. More specifically, Silent Hills 2 and 3.
What Silent Hill does, better than any other game/film/book etc. that I have ever experienced is create a thick, inescapable atmosphere, which I’ll get to in a moment, but the key thing is that Silent Hill is almost scarier when the monsters aren’t there than when they are. How does it manage this?
Turning back to The Woman in Black, the scare formula that it sticks to like glue is suspense, then jump-scare, then downtime, repeat. There are two inherent problems with this. Firstly, the jump-scare is cathartic. When the flashing image pops up supported by a loud instrumental flourish, and your brain’s defence mechanisms create a sudden rush of adrenaline and causes you to jump, the tension completely evaporates. This should be avoided. If you want to scare your audience, what you need to do is keep the tension utterly palpable, so thick you could cut it with a goddamn chainsaw.
Let’s break it down into stages. Stage one: The main character is in a state of tension, usually through a fear of danger. Two: The character notices a monster, and begins preparing to deal with the encounter, either through combat or fleeing. Three: The character fights the threat or flees from it. Now, what I think is the crux of the matter is that a lot of modern horror films leave out step two and put too much emphasis on step three. We go strait from a state of tension to a state of alertness. It’s a very jarring experience, that’s why we jump, because step 3 comes out of nowhere. This is what happens in The Woman in Black.
Now, let’s contrast that with Silent Hill. In the beginning of Silent Hill 2, it takes about half an hour of gameplay before you see the first monster. During this time, the game creates a thick, engulfing, almost oppressive atmosphere. This is an atmosphere that survives and thrives precisely because the threat of danger is always there. It’s not the danger its self that causes us to be afraid, it’s the threat of it. Silent Hill realises this, and you can spend long sections of the game without seeing a monster. The effects of these sections are twofold. Firstly, the thought in the back of your mind that you might be attacked at any moment is allowed time to really be planted and gradually develop and ferment in your mind. And two, it creates a crushing feeling of loneliness, which isn’t of particular note in this blog but it’s use in the games is very effective. What we are more interested in is the first effect.
Everything in Silent Hill is gradual. The small seed planted in your mind gradually becomes a constant thought, you can’t turn a corner without being terrified of the possibility of what’s behind it, you can’t open a door without taking a breath, steadying yourself for what’s might lurk behind it. That, ladies and gentlemen… is fear. That is horror. We’ll call this particular effect the tension effect.
And when you are eventually confronted with a monster, the game holds it’s tension brilliantly. The transition from stage one to stage two is also gradual. When a monster is close, your radio slowly crackles into life, the now iconic sound of static hitting your ears, the static eventually establishing its self as the most dreaded sound in the game. Because so much of the game is in darkness, you also almost always hear the monster before you see it. It’s important to remember when it comes to this process that it’s the opposite of what you might traditionally think. Stage three is the least important phase, it’s stage one that should be focused on, it’s stage one that achieves the tension effect, not stage 3.
Now admittedly, Silent Hill is a game, and The Woman in Black is a film. I think Horror comes more naturally to a game than a film, because gaming is naturally more immersive, being interactive vs. a non interactive medium such as film. However, the lessons we can learn from Silent Hill can be extrapolated. If we want films that generally scare us, as opposed to just disgusting us with gore or making us jump, then we need to go back to basics and take a good hard look at the horror formula, and I think we can look at things like Silent Hill and say “what did they get right, what is it about this that scares us, and how can we learn from it”. If not, then the bland wasteland that is modern horror may endure for sometime. And that is indeed a very, very scary thought.
The Jump-scare was exercised throughout the woman in black, and it completely ruined any chance the film had at creating a psychological and gripping atmosphere. As an example of this, I’d like to turn to the gaming world, and one of the finest pieces of art it has ever produced: The Silent Hill series. More specifically, Silent Hills 2 and 3.
What Silent Hill does, better than any other game/film/book etc. that I have ever experienced is create a thick, inescapable atmosphere, which I’ll get to in a moment, but the key thing is that Silent Hill is almost scarier when the monsters aren’t there than when they are. How does it manage this?
Turning back to The Woman in Black, the scare formula that it sticks to like glue is suspense, then jump-scare, then downtime, repeat. There are two inherent problems with this. Firstly, the jump-scare is cathartic. When the flashing image pops up supported by a loud instrumental flourish, and your brain’s defence mechanisms create a sudden rush of adrenaline and causes you to jump, the tension completely evaporates. This should be avoided. If you want to scare your audience, what you need to do is keep the tension utterly palpable, so thick you could cut it with a goddamn chainsaw.
Let’s break it down into stages. Stage one: The main character is in a state of tension, usually through a fear of danger. Two: The character notices a monster, and begins preparing to deal with the encounter, either through combat or fleeing. Three: The character fights the threat or flees from it. Now, what I think is the crux of the matter is that a lot of modern horror films leave out step two and put too much emphasis on step three. We go strait from a state of tension to a state of alertness. It’s a very jarring experience, that’s why we jump, because step 3 comes out of nowhere. This is what happens in The Woman in Black.
Now, let’s contrast that with Silent Hill. In the beginning of Silent Hill 2, it takes about half an hour of gameplay before you see the first monster. During this time, the game creates a thick, engulfing, almost oppressive atmosphere. This is an atmosphere that survives and thrives precisely because the threat of danger is always there. It’s not the danger its self that causes us to be afraid, it’s the threat of it. Silent Hill realises this, and you can spend long sections of the game without seeing a monster. The effects of these sections are twofold. Firstly, the thought in the back of your mind that you might be attacked at any moment is allowed time to really be planted and gradually develop and ferment in your mind. And two, it creates a crushing feeling of loneliness, which isn’t of particular note in this blog but it’s use in the games is very effective. What we are more interested in is the first effect.
Everything in Silent Hill is gradual. The small seed planted in your mind gradually becomes a constant thought, you can’t turn a corner without being terrified of the possibility of what’s behind it, you can’t open a door without taking a breath, steadying yourself for what’s might lurk behind it. That, ladies and gentlemen… is fear. That is horror. We’ll call this particular effect the tension effect.
And when you are eventually confronted with a monster, the game holds it’s tension brilliantly. The transition from stage one to stage two is also gradual. When a monster is close, your radio slowly crackles into life, the now iconic sound of static hitting your ears, the static eventually establishing its self as the most dreaded sound in the game. Because so much of the game is in darkness, you also almost always hear the monster before you see it. It’s important to remember when it comes to this process that it’s the opposite of what you might traditionally think. Stage three is the least important phase, it’s stage one that should be focused on, it’s stage one that achieves the tension effect, not stage 3.
Now admittedly, Silent Hill is a game, and The Woman in Black is a film. I think Horror comes more naturally to a game than a film, because gaming is naturally more immersive, being interactive vs. a non interactive medium such as film. However, the lessons we can learn from Silent Hill can be extrapolated. If we want films that generally scare us, as opposed to just disgusting us with gore or making us jump, then we need to go back to basics and take a good hard look at the horror formula, and I think we can look at things like Silent Hill and say “what did they get right, what is it about this that scares us, and how can we learn from it”. If not, then the bland wasteland that is modern horror may endure for sometime. And that is indeed a very, very scary thought.
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