Source: Https://twitter.com/ImpPoster

Source: https://twitter.com/ImpPoster

The Lion King, again.

First off. It's not "live action". There's no live animals. It's photo realistic computer animation. Or something similar.

Second. Are they going to give CG Nala whiskers?  She doesn't have whiskers in the original because ...  Basically she "looked wierd" with them?  More sexy with no whiskers?  Because sexy lionesses were totally important to godsdamned eight-year olds? I mean?

The males had whiskers. They female didn't.

Thirdly. What about Rafiki?  Are they actually going to identify him as a Mandrill this time around?  Because 95% of the memorabilia I had called him a Baboon. Disney Adventures was all "this is Rafiki!"

"He's a baboon!!"

And I'd be like. Now. Sure. I was in middle school. I wasn't a zoologist. But when they show you a picture of a primate with a blue face, and then tell you it's a primate that does NOT have a blue face, meanwhile there's THIS guy:

Red nose? Blue cheeks? Tufty beard? That's a Mandrill.

I guess if you want to argue semantics, Wikipedia states "The mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is a primate of the Old World monkey (Cercopithecidae) family. It is one of two species assigned to the genus Mandrillus, along with the drill. Both the mandrill and the drill were once classified as baboons in the genus Papio, but they now have their own genus, Mandrillus."

It just always felt like if they'da put a litttttlle more effort into an Encarta search they could have found a picture of the animal the character actually WAS.

I guess my big question now is: The trailer showed a lot of shot for shot beats from the original film, so is it literally going to be a CG Do-Over? Or are they going to try new plot elements? Work in stuff from Lion King 1/2? They kind of milked Hamlet dry the first time around. And if they're just going to do a direct copy paste, why even recast it. The voice files are still all on record. If it's all the same shots but with different voices will it just come across as disjointed?

While I appreciate that Disney is casting much more culturally appropriate this time around, it also jars me that they're doing it on the ONE movie where you don't actually see any of that talent on screen representation. They're trying to get brownie points for a diverse black cast behind a microphone, but then they go and cast ... The Pink Ranger as Jasmine? Wiki says she's got an Indian mother and a British father but just... Why not go full out? Let the little Middle Eastern girls have their own hero! There's so few movies they can reboot that will let them have that chance and I just feel Disney could have gone a little further. Farther? Ugh. Black Panther, Shuri and Okoye did so much good for so many young black girls, I guess 'The Breadwinner' is Middle Eastern but it would be nice to show them something that isn't based on the terrible bullshit wars. Or maybe I'm just being offended on behalf of people who aren't offended. That's also very possible. Like all those people going off on Scarlett Johansson being cast as the Major when the Japanese consensus seemed to be "So? It's Hollywood." Maybe the fact they're making a live action Aladdin at all is 'good enough'.

And they never wear what they wore in sound check. Now one guy has a white sweat shirt on and he's shining like a solar beam.

It’s a Professional High School.

So I’m working at a decent venue tonight, just a one night gig for some band double bill tour.

This sort of thing usually goes along the lines of:

Band shows up early afternoon. Band sets up instruments. Band does sound check. Band plays a few songs. Band leaves. Supper. Audience is let in. Band plays. Audience leaves. Stuff band back into truck.

Notice there’s nothing in that list about lighting.

So what you have to do if you’re called in as a lighting person is help the audio crew load in the band, sometimes including running mic cables and amp lines. At some point you need to find time to tear yourself away and go see what mess the last technician left the hang in, because you’re never in back-to-back. There has always been at least eight other people, and at least twenty different stage configurations from the last time you worked here two months ago.

So you go to the lighting board and turn it on and bring everything up and see what you can use and what you can adapt and what’s terrible. Then you go fix what you can and make a new magic sheet on the fly and wait for the band to actually get to playing so you can give them all focused specials and pray they stay in that same spot during the show later (they never do).

And then the best (worst) part is you’ve probably never heard this group before so you don’t know their songs. So while everyone in the audience has memorized every lyric on all three albums and all agree that THIS song MOST DEFINITELY should have a BLUE light to suit the mood… you put on a red light and. Oh shoot this one is sad… uh… crossfade blue up…?

If your venue has smart lighting, LEDs and movers and stuff, you can fudge it by making them move around and change color or gobo. Look at the shiney. Please don’t notice it means nothing.

But when the venue you’re in just has some old Par 64s, Cantata zooms, and six Source 4s?

And the tour technician walks up to you and says “You’re lights? It’s a rock show! Go nuts!” Sometimes freedom is worse. If you’re lucky you get a set list with “blue” “flashy” “slow, sad” beside the tracks to give you a heads up how they might Feel, how you might choose to light that song. If you’re lucky. Not lucky this show.

And I look at him and grimace because there’s high schools with better lighting rigs, except the high schools aren’t charging $40 a head.

At least I was able to borrow a hazer.

Devil's Punch Bowl, Stoney Creek, Ontario

5pm, Tues Oct 16, 2018

So we watched the Silent Hill movie the other night, filmed around this region. Stopped by the giant pit at the start and went down in the culvert, turns out a bunch of the grafitti is still there.

GMC and 'Cheryl and Wolf' notably.