Hacker Cinema
Whiplash
2014 · Film · 107 min
Directed by Damien Chazelle
Under the direction of a ruthless instructor, a talented young drummer begins to pursue perfection at any cost, even his humanity.
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48 comments on Hacker News
"Whiplash" uses jazz music as a plot device - it has about as much to do with it as "Hackers" does with computers. I've never even played jazz (let alone at the level depicted in the film) and every five or ten minutes of watching it I found myself exclaiming incredulously at the seemingly ridiculous bullshit I was bearing witness to. My instincts were correct; the internet is rife with actual jazz musicians talking about this film's numerous creative liberties taken in service of its plot derivative of a sports flick.
Any opinion of actual jazz musicians formed on the basis of this film can be safely disregarded ab initio. Music snobs exist, but that movie is full of strawmen. A real shame as it was otherwise very well-executed but stuff like the finger-bleeding scene ripped straight from a Bryan Adams song does it no favors.
Vivek Ramaswamy recently said that we need "more movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of Friends."
He (and presumably Musk) think that a society of Terence Fletcher overlords and Andrew Neiman whipping boys is an ideal to strive for, not a cautionary tale.
This is what happens when you don't get any exposure to the liberal arts.
> Not sure why you jumped there.
No jump.
Your original claim: "Submit a whole script the way a writer delivers a movie to a director. The (automated) director/DP/editor could maintain internal visual coherence, while the script drives the story coherence."
Two comments later it's this: "We can already get detailed style guidance into picture generation. Declaring you want Picasso cubist, Warner brothers cartoon, or hyper realistic works today. So does lighting instructions, color palettes, on and on."
I just re-wrote this with respect to movies.
> I was thinking more like ‘make it look like Bladerunner if Kurosawa directed it, with a score like Zimmer.’
Because, as we all know, every single movie by Kurosawa is the same, as is every single score by Hans Zimmer, so it's ridiculously easy to recreate any movie in that style, with that music.
> You’re really failing to let go of the idea that you need to prescribe every little thing. Like Midjourney today, you’ll be able to give general guidance.
Yes, and Midjounrey today really sucks at:
- being consistent
- creating proper consistent details
A general prompt will give you a general result that is usually very far from what you actually have in mind.
And yes, you will have to prescribe a lot of small things if you want your movie to be consistent. And for your movie to make any sense.
Again, tell me how exactly your amazing magical AI director will know which wardrobe to chose, which camera angles to setup, which typography to use, which sound effects to make just from the script you hand in?
you can start ,with a very simple scene I referenced in my original reply: two people talking at the table in Whiplash.
> But paint by numbers stuff like many movies already are? A Hallmark Channel weepy? I bet we will.
Even those movies have more details and more care than you can get out of AIs (now, or in foreseeable future)
You should watch how movies are made sometime. How a script is developed. How changes to it are made. How storyboards are created. How actors are screened for roles. How locations are scouted, booked, and changed. How the gazillion of different departments end up affecting how a movie looks, is produced, made, and in which direction it goes (the wardrobe alone, and its availability and deadlines will have a huge impact on the movie).
What does "EXT. NIGHT" mean in a script? Is it cloudy? Rainy? Well lit? What are camera locations? Is the scene important for the context of the movie? What are characters wearing? What are they looking at?
What do actors actually do? How do they actually behave?
Here are a few examples of script vs. screen.
Here's a well described script of Whiplash. Tell me the one hundred million things happening on screen that are not in the script: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kunUvYIJtHM
Or here's Joker interrogation from The Dark Night Rises. Same million different things, including actors (or the director) ignoring instructions in the script: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqQdEh0hUsc
Here's A Few Good Men: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hv7U7XhDdI&list=PLxtbRuSKCCyu4oRuZFrsj1Jw8hlXFWAFL&index=10
and so on
---
Edit. Here's Annie Atkins on visual design in movies, including Grand Budapest Hotel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzGvEYSzHf4. And here's a small article summarizing some of it: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/annie-atkins-grand-budapest-hotel
Good luck finding any of these details in any of the scripts. See minute 14:16 where she goes through the script
Edit 2: do watch The Kerning chapter at 22:35 to see what it actually takes to create something :)
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. HN is a hellscape of insane nerds on the spectrum with no EQ.
Do you actually think rudeness directly correlates to code quality? Like, the more of a dick you are, the better your code gets? What kind of sadistic computer science class were you subjected to? Did you watch the movie "whiplash" and take it as a truism?
Curated list of favorite underrated movies:
#1 pick for HN Crowd: The Man From Earth // must see, especially if you like philosophical movies (don't recommend the sequel by the way)
Runner's Up:
Being There // absolute classic and must see for every person, at least once
Peaceful Warrior
The Lion In Winter // one of the best dramas ever made, and unbeatable cast with young Anthony Hopkins
Predestination // incredible drama about time travel paradoxes
The Interview // Hugo Weaving
Vitus // amazing story about a piano prodigy who fakes losing his talents to have a normal life
The Perverts Guide to Cinema // documentary, Slavoj Zizek's tour de force psychoanalysis of cinema as an art form; addressing the philosophical and psychological question of whether cinema (and other art forms) fulfil your desires, or rather teach/train you both to desire (and what you should desire), thus the sensationalistic and polemical invocation of it as "perverted"
Le Professionnel (French film, not to be confused with the one with Natalie Portman)
Revolver // Guy Ritchie's quote "It took me three years to write this film whereas Snatch took me three months". It is a masterwork metaphor about the ego, ego death, consciousness, meditation, spirituality, and the nature of reality. Recommend reading an interpretation of the film either before or after viewing to better appreciate what is happening in the story as it is most metaphorical.
Rest of the List: The Big Kahuna, Tao of Steve, Crazy Stupid Love, Megamind, Eyes Wide Shut, Dead Poet's Society, Before Sunset, Gambit, Five Minutes of Heaven, Temple Grandin, Croupier, The Good Guy, 3 Idiots, Limitless, Drive, Whiplash
This comment reminded me so much of the movie Whiplash. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch, given your history.
This reminds me of the lines said by Fletcher in the movie Whiplash when he and Andrew are talking in the nightclub. He said something like “the worst phrase in English is ‘good job.’”
My top top pick is actually a youtube channel that does movie essays: https://www.youtube.com/@filmjoy
They are terrifically well researched with a bunch of easter eggs and production backstory and are put together in a high production value, thoughtful way.
They really made me love and appreciate film much more.
I think it's the same way as musicians appreciating music, right?
Non-musicians might say learning more about music theory, makes some music seem less magical in a 'knowing how it was done' sort of way.
But like a musician actively listening, watching film from a more critical viewpoint/lens is really fantastic. You start to think about things like 'who was the cinematographer?', 'Who did the music and score?' and enjoying finding things like how a certain director has a certain motif.
As for the film list:
- The lord of the rings trilogy, is I assume mandatory watching for all at this point.
- The Matrix trilogy, supplemented by the movie essay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0VnYcMHuDc
- Whiplash (2014) A J.K simmons masterpiece
- Sicario (2015) Cinematographer Roger Deakins doing some amazing work alongside Denis Villeneuve.
- Blade Runner 2049 sort of an obvious choice but beautifully made, better than the original in all ways except maybe soundtrack. The original Vangelis Blade Runner music is sort of genre defining.
- Black Hawk Down (2001) Absolutely stellar cast some of whom in their first role or wouldn't have their breakout role until several movies later. Possibly one of the most well paced movies, it's extremely clear and coherent throughout. It's also tidy self and self contained, no one said lets make 10 sequels and a cinematic universe. Dealt with the morals and psychology of war that would be further touched on in Jarhead (2005) another great movie.
- The Hurt Locker (2008) If Jarhead is a claustrophobic look at how useless and powerless an average infantry soldier can feel during war, The Hurt Locker is a study of a soldier addicted to it. Through a lens of up close nihilism.
- The silence of the lambs (1991) Hannibal Lecter / Anthony Hopkins with a bunch of scenes that are so good they are studied in film schools. Genre best horror-thriller.
Well, you won’t.
Developer ≠ programmer.
Let adversity be the fuel to to you fire. Don’t let a random person like tell you it’s not gonna happen. Prove me wrong.
Learn programming (if that is what you want to be the best at. There are of course many diciplines out there where you could be no.1)
Think and reflect. Maybe try a hallucinagen at some point (that won’t make you smarter and carries its own risk, but best case scenario it will open the doors to new mental pathways for you to think and reflect internally and externally)
Learn. As much as you can. Apply that knowledge to as many things as you can. If your toolbox only has a screwdriver and nails, how do yo solve for that? Get a screwdriver, modify the hammer or create a solution to put between the screwdriver and nails? This also leads back to the think and reflect part (and is not exclusively entrepreneurial in spirit, it applies to most aspects of work and life)
Be nice and humble. You won’t get far on raw talent alone. You need people to support and challenge you.
Focus, dedication, determination. The movie Whiplash in many ways explores what it means and takes to become “the best”. Watch it.
For some reason, this bit of the movie Whiplash came to mind:
Terence Fletcher: Really? Adjusting the seat, really? That's been your problem the whole fucking time, the seat height? So now you have it, right? Go!
[Ryan starts playing]
Terence Fletcher: Bullshit! Fuck you!
The movie Whiplash looks into this question. It goes to the extreme, and while I never had anything like abuse in my school music career there were a few spots that made me think back.
It is an intense movie, but I think well done.
Charlie Banacos is at the opposite end of the pedagogical spectrum from the abusive sociopath portrayed in the (rather excellent but deeply disturbing) 2014 film "Whiplash", which I watched last night. Thank you for the remedy.
This paper is linked from Banacos' Wikipedia page.
Reminds of this exchange from the movie Whiplash:
Andrew Neyman: But is there a line? You know, maybe you go too far and discourage the next Charlie Parker from ever becoming Charlie Parker?
Terence Fletcher: No, man, no. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged.
I am convinced Fletcher's attitude is not only morally right, but factually correct. The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire.
Plenty of recent movies do that. Sorting by release date: The Father, Joker, Parasite, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Hacksaw Ridge, Room, Gone Girl, Whiplash, Prisoners, 12 Years a Slave, Django Unchained.
* https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/?sort=us,desc
And that's just going back ten years.
Movies: - 12 angry men - Whiplash - Prestige - American Beauty - The Thing - V for Vendetta - The Grand Budapest Hotel - Gone Girl - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Parasite - ... Tarantino or Scorsese movies
Anime: - Howl's Moving Castle - Spirited Away
Not a movie but both great series: - Love, Death & Robots - Black Mirror
Excellent point! There has often been a part of me that has secretly wished for a slightly more rigorous schooling, even if that would have meant some pain and sacrifice. There is so much that can be accomplished when one is young that can't be made up for later on (languages in particular). The movie "Whiplash" is thematically relevant--an emotionally abusive director of an elite music school orchestra, when confronted by the student he has been targeting, explains that he treats his pupils so poorly because he thinks that all of the pain is worth it if even one of them goes on to become a truly great musician.
To this day, the movie Whiplash is one of the greatest illustrations of how a demanding mentor can produce tremendous results.
There is something about the vocal rejection of mediocrity and bad work that creates some great things. It also attracts young naive geniuses who want to be abused but create greatness. I’ve seen the same in the contemporary art world.
From Gordon Ramsey to Steve Jobs to the film whiplash. People who are very vocal about wanting the best can get it.
And don’t forget. Literally anyone who decides to work with Gordon Ramsey or Steve Jobs knows what they are like. They did it willingly. They aren’t abusing random innocent souls. They are expecting the best from people who decided to work with them.
When you absolutely need to make a change the way i handle it is to think of the worst thing that will happen. Generally the worst isn't that bad so it makes the critical decision much easier to make.
I quit my FAANG job with no backup in place during the pandemic and so far have done a bit of traveling. No one blames me. It's 2021, the year of the burnout. For me the breaking point was watching the movie Whiplash where everything is given for the career and thinking it all seemed reasonable. The movie wasn't intended to be perfectly reasonable at all.
I've lined up another job already but will still be a little while before i start that. I was never that bothered by unemployment at any point except that i may have had to move back to my home country if i didn't line up the next job within the visa grace period. But that's not as much of problem as a mental break. One of the nice things about having some savings is that you can prioritize your mental health now even if it cuts into your early retirement plans.
Maybe you don't get another job for a while but if you are on track for early retirement being unemployed in 2021 isn't going to break you.
You're burnt out in 2021 after the chaos of a pandemic. Completely understandable. Do what you have to do.
For example the crash is typically used in pop and rock on the first time, and in metal instead of the hi hat for heavy parts. For the ride you can watch some clips from the film Whiplash maybe.
Edit: also I can think of one album (the first one of The Glitch Mob) that doesn’t have any cymbals (not even hi hats) if I remember well.
I think we had a few copies of this in my high school's jazz band (the director of the movie Whiplash was from the same band). I played the flute so had inch thick folders of handwritten music transposed from the tenor sax or trumpet parts.
'Success' and 'Happiness' may be conflated, depending on how Success is defined.
I think it's interesting to focus on Success, and then consider two types: a) Success for personal benefit, b) success achieving a higher purpose.
(Intentionally referencing film characters)
Success for personal benefit may be illustrated by Jordan Belfort in Wolf of Wall Street. He succeeded in becoming, for a while, the type of wealthy person he imagined as a young man that he wanted to become.
Success achieving a higher purpose may be illustrated by Terence Fletcher from Whiplash. He succeeded in turning musicians with talent into accomplished performers.
Both personalities could be considered 'dark'. One succeeded by being a charming pathological liar. The other by dismissing any sense of empathy and driving others with severe, manipulative criticism.
But in the end, it was type a) that eventually flamed out and type b) that had an enduring impact on his profession.
I think the notion of 'how to get the most out of people' actually depends on the people you are trying to get the most out of. Many musicians quit under Terence because the achievement was not worth the suffering along the way. Others were motivated to excellence by his style, and he didn't care that they hated him for it.
I re-watched Whiplash recently. It is a marvelous movie for many reasons, but I always wondered how accurate its depiction of a competitive Jazz band really is.
Fight Club, Interstellar and Whiplash would be my vote.
I made a letterboxd list with some of the movies mentioned here. https://letterboxd.com/whygodwhy/list/hn-films-that-made-you-see-the-world-differently/
I studied music from 10 to 12, I left this world for two reasons: one, I was pragmatic enough to see that it would not make money - best pupils were from rich families, as the article described. Second: the kind of craziness musicians display was not 'my' kind. The children-students and even some teachers were pure envy and jealousness, pretty much like Whiplash movie displayed them. OTOH I really liked the computer 'crazies' which generally loved to collaborate and respected each others' talents.
About "Humility and Empathy"... why not to try Whiplash(2014) movie teaching method?
I'm going to go off on a tangent here, and I want to make it clear that I am not railing against karmakaze or suggesting they implied things they didn't say. It is just that in a more general sense I wish this notion of "suffering for art" would die, and this is just me venting my frustration with this meme (in the original sense of the word). Because I think it applies to the tech industry just as much.
Hannah Gadsby's put it into words better than I can in "Nanette", but sadly I can't link to a 1-hour Netflix special so my own angry take on this will have to do.
Yes, some art, specifically art about suffering, benefits from people who experienced suffering. Otto Dix is brilliant because he shows us the horrors of war he experienced[0][1]. And there is such a thing as posttraumatic growth[2], so sure, overcoming "suffering" can have benefits in general. Emphasis overcoming, though!
Other than that it's romantic nonsense that has been debunked by psychology time and time again. And it's dangerous nonsense too, because it leads to movies like Whiplash.
Don't get me wrong: it's a brilliant film, but because it's so dazzling I don't think people criticize the issues it has enough. Think about it: two of the most privileged white dudes in the world complain that Jazz is dying, and our main antagonist spends the entire film bullying, tormenting, sometimes flat-out gaslighting his students because he somehow believes that traumatizing them will make them as good as some of the worlds greatest musicians. Of course, he is being completely ignorant of the context that the latter lived in, of their personal histories. Suffering in itself does not inspire greatness, dammit.
Perhaps Whiplash's underlying thesis is that this is not true, nor justifyiable, but if so it's just like anti-war movies that end up glorifying war.
Because it ends with giving Terence Fletcher a moment to tell "his side" of the story. He shows no regret for bullying one of his students into suicide, "because a real Charlie Parker would have been able to take [my abuse]."
Holy freaking self-serving cherry picking survivor bias, Batman! First of all, we don't know if Charlie Parker would have been any less brilliant if he had had proper therapy for his inner demons. Perhaps he would have been more brilliant, ever considered that? Young John Coltrane suffered from heroine and alcohol addictions, but he wrote "A Love Supreme" after he had a religious experience and overcame those addictions. Not to mention the fact that we are ignoring countless of brilliant artist who are not suffering, which you don't hear about because it's not a juicy story.
So at the end of the movie the main characters are just as horrible, misguided and unaware of their own institutional whiteness and privileges as before, and haven't really learned anything. Then they give a dazzling performance that seems to suggest to us that yes, all of this was justified to give us this. It's ignorant, insulting and wrong.
Believing that suffering for art is necessary is a misguided, romantic and outdated and dangerous view of genius and I can't wait for it to die. No matter what field we are talking about.
[0] https://www.ottodix.org
[1] The appreciation of "ugly" art is actually a very interesting topic, I recommend Talk about a Painting: A Cognitive Developmental Analysis as a nice starting point.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_growth
This has turned into a discussion about First Man rather than the article, so I may as well contribute:
I think Damien Chazelle intended to frame the movie as a war movie, even toeing towards a parallel between the Apollo missions and the Vietnam War. The idea that we actively gambled with these men's lives, somehow collectively desensitized ourselves to human loss, that we are all boys pretending to have protocol- obvious parallels to war, in that a bureaucratic borg overlooks human lives in a competition the borg itself created.
But the thing is- its pretty hard to not lean into the inherent heroism of landing on the moon, especially since the studio clearly gave Chazelle a blank check to recreate the moon landing as immaculately as possible.
So its a little hard to parse the final message. The movie is the inverse of Apollo 13, pessimistic where 13 is optimistic, even though First Man is about the successful one. To some extent, Mission Control are the villains in this movie.
It isn't not going be a loved movie, like his last two (Whiplash and La La Land.) The characters are constantly aware of their mortal peril, which in turn makes them coarse and hard to like. But its such an interesting take on the Moon missions.
> If someone with authority over you isn't willing to take "no" for an answer, they're not going to take "no, you idiot" either.
They might! An insult is like a splash of cold water to the face, it's a wake up call. When used surgically, it can push people to do great things. The BA was so, so grossly wrong about what the right click menu does and how websites work that maybe an insult would have caused him to go back and google a few things.
Have you ever seen the movie Whiplash? Without the anguish caused by the conductor, do you think our drummer would have pushed himself to become a better drummer?
Reminds me of the movie Whiplash (“Were you rushing or were you dragging?”).
Reaction time is irrelevant here, because you're anticipating a response to your input, not triggering the stopwatch in response to unexpected events. Human sensitivity to timing is much better. Great drummers can hit the beat to within a few milliseconds. If you've watched the movie "Whiplash", think of the "rushing or dragging" scene.
See http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127902
To me, it's just reminiscent of the movie Whiplash. Sometimes it helps to lash (excuse the pun) out.
In every possible instance, anything but La La Land.
I tip my hat to the genius of Damien Chazelle. Not for La La Land, it's a horrible movie, but for his decision and ability to make it now. Apparently, he wanted to make La La Land for some time and using his Whiplash leverage now was probably his best chance to get it made. He proved that everyone who told him, "No," was right, but kudos to him for getting it done.
Agreed.
I don't think there's any CGI in Pulp Fiction (1994) and it cost around $9 million to make in 1994 dollars. It made around $200 million worldwide. Whiplash (2014) , a more recent movie with little to no CGI, cost $3.3 million to make and made around $49 million worldwide.
The point is that people want interesting, well written movies with great stories. If that warrants CGI sure, but it's not a requirement.
A boring movie is not good. But a boring and expensive movie is terrible and that's what's mainly being put out: boring and expensive movies.
As far as movies with huge production budgets for every great movie with a justified fair amount of CGI there's tens of crappy ones many that break even or don't make their money back.
Creatively speaking there's probably never been a worse time for big Hollyood movies.
I can't endorse the movie "Whiplash" because it is so crass, but it takes an interesting look at what it takes to be truly great. I don't think we "miss" people like Lin and Zhang because they make themselves. Intelligence and skill really make a small part of the overall requirement for success. Hard work, perseverance, preparation, and choosing the right problems to work on are really more important.
There's over a century of international cinema available to enjoy; no need to get hung up on the latest releases. While I see current movies and even really enjoy them sometimes (I loved Whiplash, La La Land looks fun, and I always enjoy films by Koreeda), I mainly watch films from the 1930s to the late 1960s. There are so many great works that I'll never be able to watch them all, just as with books. If Ingmar Bergman isn't your thing, maybe Gene Kelly is, or Hitchcock, or Kurosawa, or Fellini, or Argento.
Really nice.
- Nice UI
- Really easy to rate stuff
- Good recommendations
- Great progression, the profile completeness with % makes me want to keep going and I signed up to save it.
Suggestions after playing some more.
- Sometimes it was confusing when the lists have a "main" movie like "80s movies" has the top one on the left side with the score at the bottom. Then the next one is at the top of the list. So the second one looked like the best match.
- Same with the top matches, I thought the list on the right was the top ones.
- I'd like to see the summary on the popup to jog my memory instead of opening a new page, kinda breaks the flow.
- The filters, I tapped like 10 of them but no results. I wanted to see movies with the filters, not all movies with all selected filters.
- Saving from the popup was bit hard to see.
- I'd like to see the genre in the movie view.
- Suggestion reasoning would be nice. For example my top suggestion is "whiplash" which I think is a drama, but I haven't really liked any drama ones. So it would be nice to see if it is or isn't. That being said - I have been planning to see it for a long time, so I guess the recommendation is valid - I would still love to know /why/.
That something usually less genius and more a grain of inspiration followed by a love of the process, followed by a ton of hard work to get to a point that the instrument is an extension of the musician's soul.
I will concede that this may not always be the case. Of course, there are a thousand Salieris for every Mozart. But when you set out, you don't set out to become Salieri. When you play in an orchestra, you don't spend your life striving to play second fiddle and you certainly don't just get to sit down in the principal violin spot because you're a genius. You work for it, just like the guy who earned his right to be on that podium leading the orchestra.
For everything that's wrong with the movie Whiplash, there is a lot of nuance that it captures really well regarding the personalities in orchestras and what it really takes to get to the top of your game.
Interesting question, just ran a quick analysis for all movies rated 4.5+ star
Highest Consensus:
1. Whiplash
2. 12 Angry Men
3. Se7en
Most Controversial:
1. Birdman
2. Citizen Kane
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
Have you seen the movie Whiplash from 2014?
fyi: Whiplash was originally shot as a 20min short (different lead actor) which then got it's budget expanded so they could re-shoot and go for a full length movie. Annoyingly don't have details to hand.
Personally I was absolutely blown away by it...
One of the problems is that the article ascribes a lot of decisions to the editor that were actually made by the writer or the director. Which is weird, because something can't be an editing decision if it had to be shot a certain way, because editing comes all the way at the end after everything's been shot.
Of course, writing about film is hard, because it's such a collaborative medium. It's hard to attribute a decision to a single person, when in actuality it was probably hinted at in the script, then improved from the director talking to the actor, or the DP suggesting an experimental camera angle, or the editor finding an accidental shot that just happens to work for the scene.
So let's look at whether some of these decisions were born in "writer," "director", or "editor" land. I'll pretend that Whiplash wasn't written and directed by the same guy.
However, after rushing to get to the studio, he realizes that he is early — by 3 hours. He was manipulated, leading him, and us, to question: should he trust Fletcher’s version of “time?”
This series of cause-and-effect events is the story, which is the purview of the writer.
Andrew re-enters the rehearsal space in slow-motion. He gets behind the drums, also shot in slow-motion, until Fletcher re-enters the room, which resets the film into normal motion.
Again, if you had to shoot it in slomo, it wasn't the editor's decision. It's hard to say if this would come from writing or directing. The script could say "he approaches the bench in slow motion," or it could say "he approaches the bench" and the director intuits that the film should ratchet up the tension.
It’s interesting to note that while his drumming is off, the editor chooses to place cuts of Andrew placing band-aids on his hand that are in perfect rhythm with the timing of the ride cymbal –-
This does sound like an editing decision. But again, the script could easily say "He band-aids his hand in rhythm with the cymbals."
If you want to read more about some actual decisions an editor goes through, I highly recomment In The Blink Of An Eye, written by sound and film editor Walter Murch. Tony Zhou's Vimeo series Every Frame A Painting is great too, although it focuses more on directing and cinematography.
Oh I think it amounts to the same thing. Automation can help but it's fundamentally painstaking stuff. As a general example, imagine someone walking down the street, but you don't like the original recording for some reason and decide to replace it. All the footsteps have to be matched up and that's tedious. There are plugins that will match the peak sounds of one recording to another to save you aligning every footstep (or word if you're replacing dialog) but you often end up having to do things by hand. Then if it's one person alone the footsteps may sound too simple so you need to add some fabric swish for their clothes. Or if it's two people, you need to have two different sets of footsteps which is really really annoying. Three people walking is fine because nobody can keep up with that so you can completely fudge the timing and nobody will notice.
The big challenge in movie sound is not to distract from what's going on in the story, which often means throwing away sounds that are present in the real environment but with are excluded by the picture frame, and whose presence thus becomes confusing to the audience because they don't know where the sound is coming from. I hate shooting in restaurants for example, because most restaurants have very loud refrigerators and of course most of them can't be switched off for food safety reasons. When you eat dinner don't notice this because there's music, other diners, maybe the person(s) you went to have dinner with, and the sound of your own body chewing and swallowing - so your brain just filters all the background noise away and lets you focus on the conversation or whatever. But when you watch the same thing on a screen, your brain is like 'what's that big machine noise? why does the lead actress sound like a farm animal? why is it all so echoey?' Total nightmare :-)
I haven't seen Whiplash yet but I'm looking forward to it.
> For those who haven't seen it, Whiplash is my favorite movie of the past several years. The "third act" is probably the most intense finale I've seen in quite some time as well.
Totally agree. I watched it during a flight totally randomly. I didn't expect much but it was a great surprise. The finale was so intense I had to watch it a second time.
Sorry to be pedantic, but Whiplash won the Academy award for best sound mixing; the award for best sound editing went to American Sniper. Mixing involves the spatial and tonal quality of the sound; editing the temporal and semantic quality.
But either way yes, it is very meticulous, and I think you'd be even more shocked to look at the project files, because each individual sound you hear in a film often involves multiple layers of sound or multiple treatments of a single source sound through different mix busses. As a rule of thumb there are bout 10 edits on the sound track for every cut you see on screen. Thankfully there are some tools available to partially automate the process, but in the it requires a huge amount of work and near-endless reserves of patience.
Source: movie sound is what I (mostly) do for a living, though I haven't won an Acamdemy award for it.
Interesting article - I am always curious how the psychology behind the edits subconsciously plays into my understanding of, and feelings toward, character dynamics.
For those who haven't seen it, Whiplash is my favorite movie of the past several years. The "third act" is probably the most intense finale I've seen in quite some time as well.
Highly recommended to anyone, musical background or not.
I loved this movie, and immediately commented to a few movie-buff friends of mine that I was certain that they'd get an oscar for the sound editing. The actual movie edit was artful and amazing, but the sound edit.. talk about meticulous.. every single drum hit?! Called it! http://www.nabshow.com/thought-gallery/oscar-winner-ben-wilkins-whiplash%E2%80%99s-audio-mix-edit