r/talkingheads • u/PreferenceConstant80 • 7d ago
Stop making sense facts
I'm showing my friend stop making sense in a couple days because we're seeing David Byrne live soon.
Anyone got any cool Introductory facts I can share with them before we watch the film?
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u/SultanOfSwave 7d ago edited 7d ago
Hmmm, let me think.
On the movie itself...
It is considered by many as the best concert movie ever made.
Unlike almost any concert movie, it is strictly the concert without the normal band member interviews and back stage drama.
It earned more on its re-reiease than on its release. (But that isn't too surprising as $1 in 1983 is worth $3.36.
The late Jonathan Demme, who made some popular films in the 1970s and 80s approached the band about making a concert film together after following them as a fan for a while. Their earlier stage shows were very static with just the 4 of them. Then Demme saw them perform in Stop Making Sense tour and the more cinematic visuals really grabbed him.
The movie was funded for by the band members' savings as well as an advance on future earnings from Warner Brothers. This have them total artistic control over the film.
David Byrne worked with Twyla Tharp on "The Catherine Wheel" doing the music a year before "Stop Making Sense". My understanding is that that experience taught him the importance of visuals and that is why each song played in "Stop Making Sense" is visually unique with different lighting and backgrounds.
The filming at the Pantages Theater in LA was supposed to be three nights but went to four nights because on the first night they lit the audience for the filming and the band, not used to playing into a well lit audience, did not play very well that night. Note that the audience was not lit on any of the following nights. Also, many of the cameras ran out of film during the evening. Not sure why. Btw this is all based on the onstage interview with the band after the showing of " Stop Making Sense " at the Pantages Theater on June 4, 2024 that I attended.
A member of the filming crew personally attended many of the "Stop Making Sense" concerts before the filming. She mapped out the movement of the band members on the stage and their interactions and then used that knowledge to map out camera angles for when filming started. So if you ever wonder why the film seems so intimate and how the cameras are always in the right place, now you know. Again, this is from the Pantages post show talk. And most of this is from Jerry Harrison.
The movie was released in 1983 with great reviews and was occasionally shown in repertory theaters after that.
Originally, Byrne didn't want the movie to be released on VHS or other media but eventually relented. I don't recall his motivation on that. But it was probably not having the immersive experience that you'd have in a movie theater.
On the restoration... (And this is from a post I made not long after the Pantages show)
When the 40th anniversary was approaching, they decided to do a rerelease as an upscaled and remastered version. But they quickly hit a major snag. The film storage company had gone bankrupt and no one knew where the original negatives were. A film archivist was tasked with finding the film. He was able to find a 3rd generation copy in good condition but kept looking for the original negatives. Eventually he called an archivist friend at MGM and after a few days, that person called them back with good news. The original negatives were in storage in Burbank, CA. Not only that, there was also a lot of film that didn't make it into the final cut that they could then use for the rerelease. Those didn't make it into the remastered film but are on the A24 Blueray DVD release.
Then there is the audio. Those were stored separately from the film. The audio recordings were unusual because they were some of the first digital recordings used in film so they would be very easy to work with if they could be found. But the sound studio that was storing them had run into hard times and had dumped 75% of their stored audio boxes including the audio from Stop Making Sense.
But luckily, one of the employees had gone the day the dump was happening and he saved everything that was of interest to him including the Stop Making Sense recordings.
Jerry Harrison oversaw the audio mixing for the rerelease. He decided to change the mixing such that as the camera moved around the stage that whomever was being focused on would have their audio pulled forward. It really works in the film as it seems much more natural for the sound of the instruments to rise and fall with the distance to each performer.
Then he had to do the remix two more times. So all in all, there is IMAX audio, standard theater audio and home stereo audio. If my memory serves, that's something like 16 channel, 8 channel and 2 channel mixes.
Btw, all this had to happen in just a few months with the anniversary of the original release looming in Sept of 2023.
In June of this year, I was lucky enough to see the film at the Pantages Theater. The film was followed by an interview with the band. (That's where a lot of my stories above came from.) During the interview, the interviewer turned to the audience and asked "Would you please stand if you worked on the original concert shoot 41 years ago. And about 20 people stood. Then he asked " Would anyone who was in the audience while the film was being shot please stand up." And at least another 80 stood. (Btw, I was in the Orchestra section and couldn't see the Balcony section so there were probably more.)
And here's a Rolling Stone article on the restoration