Curtains

I had never watched 'The Sound Of Music' in its entirety until earlier this year.  I had only ever saw clips of the movie and passed by when family had watched it when I was younger, I had never taken an interest in it.  Lockdown in the UK due to Covid-19 just so happened to coincide almost exactly with the launch of Disney+ and with nothing better to do I decided to scroll through the list of movies and add every single movie I took an interest in with the aim of eventually watching them all.  I've managed to watch quite a few now including some of the early works of animation which I had always wanted to explore but never had the opportunity to do so.

I watched 'The Sound Of Music' however and I quite liked it, which isn't a surprise because I had been told countless times by others that I would, but in watching it there were several moments of revelation where I would think "Oh that's where that comes from" and realise just how much the movie has been referenced by pop culture - off hand remarks like a joke about making a dress out of curtains suddenly became clear.  The thing this has made me wonder though is just how many references exist in movies and TV shows that go unnoticed.  I've always had a passing interest in the idea of "Easter Eggs" which as legend has it is a term that originated from the filming of 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' - which is legendary by the way, I have seen that and loved it from the start - the legend goes that supposedly the cast had an Easter Egg hunt but that most of the eggs were never found, and that subsequently a few made it into the background of shots in the final cut of the movie.  Whether or not this is the true origin of the term is irrelevant, I like the image this story inspires.

I've watched many movies and TV shows over the years that have made subtle references to things that I have seen and often find myself spotting them and smiling, but there doesn't exist a comprehensive catalogue of references and the likes of IMDB try as they may just don't cut it when it comes to these types of details as they rarely fit into a neat section of a bio or a profile.  Nevertheless, if you did want to learn of the origins of some of the things you see and hear of in these productions, it's more or less left to you to know in the first place what is referenced or have the resourcefulness to be able to find that information of your own accord.  Time was in the era of the DVD and to an extent the Blu-Ray era too, there would be a Director's Commentary or Alternative Commentary available for some movies where production was discussed and tidbits of information were shared.  In the era of streaming, this gold mine of information seems to have been sealed shut and that's kind of unfortunate.

I love Harry Potter as anyone who follows me on Twitter will know; in my pursuit of more and more insight into the series, one thing I did stumble across was the Leaky Cauldron podcast PotterCast which among other things produced a series of fan-made alternative commentaries for the movies, the basic idea was that you loaded up the podcast, synced up with your DVD or digital copy of the movie and pressed play when told, you then watched the movie in sync and they discussed the content.  Now of course if you just want to watch the movie this isn't for you, but the whole idea of having more than just an official commentary but having additional commentaries that you can download for free and listen to in sync with your content, this is something I think especially in the age of streaming is an untapped idea for creativity and insight.

In a similar vein, when it comes to the Eurovision Song Contest, during lockdown in the UK and in Europe in general, there is a twitter account originally started by fans called @EurovisionAgain which takes the idea to another level, offering watch-along experiences for past contests.  The idea gained such traction that the organisers of the contests the European Broadcasting Union took notice and made past concerts available to enable wider participation.  The event became a weekly occurrence, where fans watched along in sync and tweeted about the contest as if it were being broadcast on TV.  This filled the gap left by the cancellation of the 2020 contest, but it also fills the gap left by broadcast schedules in a world of streaming where you can watch wherever and whenever you want, this manages to create a shared experience.

That final point is the crux of this entire idea, what is missed when references pass by unnoticed is the shared experience of the original content that is being referenced and unless you have seen it and know what it alludes to, there's little opportunity for you to discover this for yourself.  How then do you explore the influences of a production beyond the production itself?  I understand for some people this is something they would not want to encourage, that is something that is akin to the world of influencers who want you to believe they are the font of creativity rather than admitting they were inspired to create their content by someone else for fear of you wanting to follow that person instead.  Nothing is lost from exploring the influences that inspired the creation of content however in my view it creates a deeper understanding of the content and makes the content that much more engrossing.