Introduction
`The Phantom of the Opera’ is a classic musical composed by Musical guru Andrew Lloyd Webber with the lyrics to the musical having been produced by Richard Stilgoe and Charles Hart. The musical is based on a novel dubbed `Le Fantome de l’Opera’ written by `Gaston Leroux’. The plot of the musical is based on a story about a chorus singer called Christine Daae who grows an obsession and for a mysterious musical genius with a disfigured face who resides in the subterranean labyrinth found under the Opera Populaire.
Suitability of The Phantom of The Opera for The Stage
The musical is designed to be performed for a live audience. The composer Lloyd Webber is known for a number of great plays. It is also based on a musical background where one of the main characters is a ghostly music genius who lives in a mythical labyrinth. The Webber composed version has more songs that are more difficult to present in a film due to the limitation of time (Homenda 286). Performers and composers also prefer stage performance to film production for a musical because a live performance is more powerful than a recorded production. This version is longer and for it to cover the musical aspect of the production it is better presented as a stage play.
The singing is also better on stage because of the movement and costumes. When presented as a stage act, the play best achieves the composer’s objective which is to create emotion. The audience has a chance to experience the emotion in the play as theatre performances are live events. For instance, the ending of the overture where Brett is seen crouched on his hands and knees crying. That moment captures the minds and emotions of the audience to the point of some shedding a few tears. The composer also intended for the piece to be a spectacle. Live performances with a blend of music and dancing and entertainment. Therefore, the musical and the music standards of the play are best suited for the stage.
The author also portrays his obsessions with gothic backgrounds for his musical plays. One can see the gothic backstage melodrama playing right in of the obsessions of the playwright. The phantom is a ghostly musical wizard who disappears into monochromatic palettes through a darked staircase to his mystical residence beneath the theatre. The theatre presentation of the `Phantom’ is also ideal as it helps the composer to be creative with his writing and organization of the story as well as a stage presentation. For instance, as the two main characters meet, there is a lightning flash that transforms the theatre from grey displaying the second empire glory of them in gold and crystal. The stage setting also allows the composer to manipulate the stage in real time in order to provide the audience with a better perspective as the stage. for instance, in the `Phantom of the Opera’, the designer covers the stage with drapes and curtains in a mix of fire curtains, Victorian theatre curtains and tussled front curtains. These are manipulated in a spectacular fashion so that the performance can be viewed from the perspective of the audience.
Creating Suspense
The Phantom uses music, sound effects and how the set is interchanged. For instance, Mr. Crawford’s appearance is highly anticipated as he is supposed to appear as this ghostly looking whose musical genius surpasses the expectations of a young singer and covers well for his ghastly disfigured face. His acting gives the character of the phantom the required emotion, due to the setting of the auditorium, his powerful expressive and booming voice is able to bring out the emotion as he expresses how he adores Christine. This is a declaration of the deep feeling of love that he has towards Christine.
It is important for the audience to experience such emotions so as to have an even deeper understanding of the play and there is no better place than at the stage. The scene where he is seen to be crestfallen and clutching to the discarded wedding veil can only be recreated on stage. The stage presentation of the story has helped it to be told for over 26 years due to the flexibility of stage presentations. For instance, the story has been able to see a transformation from earlier “parodies of buffoonish bombast” to the current representation of snippets of operas that are much better.
1. The Blade Runner
The `Blade Runner’ is a sci-fi production that was written by David Peoples and Hampton Fancher. It stars Harrison Ford, Sean Young among a cast of other actors. The movie is based on in a futuristic Los Angeles in the year 2019. The setting is based on an invasion by future synthetically manufactured human beings dubbed the `replicants' the beings are created by a powerful multi-company with interests in engineering by the name of Tyrell Corporation (Yuen 1). It happens that a group of metahumans escape from their terrestrial base and become fugitives on earth. At the time, Rick Deckard is a `burnt-out cop’ but he agrees to hunt the group down when approached though reluctantly. The movie has had great influence on the production of science fiction movies in the 20th and the 21st centuries.
Discussion
The Blade Runner is one of the best works of art of its time. Its popularity and the popular cast that was involved including Harrison Ford made the movie a household name. In essence, the demand for the production could not be met through stage productions. Stage viewing is limited by various factors such as entry fees, space, and show-time. This would have made the presentation of the piece as a stage play difficult due to high demand. In essence, `The Blade Runner’ was one of the earliest productions to be distributed through a DVD.
Suitability of `the Blade Runner’ to Film
The movie operates on both narrative and dramatic levels as well as the conventions of `film noir'. The narration by the first protagonist would not have been possible in the initial release if the performance was held in a theatre. Also, for a science fiction story it would be more difficult to recreate the city of Los Angeles with all the activities and the people. It is important that films depict a real-life situation. The characters have to seem real in their acts; the location such as a city needs to look real and the story-line must include all these elements. For a better representation, the story requires a bigger scope in terms of space and change of environment.
The movie is produced on the backdrop of a rainy Los Angeles where the streets are always deplorable with the poor walking and living in near submerged conditions. The author also intended to recreate images of great stories of the past such as the Great flood in the time of Noah to help awakes the curiosity of the audience. The Blade runner also incorporates the use of technology and innovation with a fusion of ancient religious symbolism and cultic practices. Several scenes are computer generated so as to add to make the movie look more realistic. Such effects cannot be used with a stage presentation.
The movie is reminiscent of a simplified story but one which has a deeper underlying plot that is full of intrigues and diversity main theme. The film is a myriad of ethical, philosophical and ethical concepts that would make a stage presentation to be unnecessarily long and complex due to the high number of scenes that make up the story and the transition speed between scenes to keep things interesting.
In addition, viewers want to have a copy in their custody so that they can make comparisons with other casts that are showing at the same time or acted previously or where they want to store a copy for future reference. It, therefore, makes sense to have a production in DVD than a stage presentation In addition movies cover a wider scope of the story than a stage act. The view can also be manipulated to represent a higher number of locations. For example, in the Blade Runner, the audience is taken from downtown Los Angeles to the central business district and then to the virtual world of the replicants in a flash.
The Blade runner was not just any another movie about turbo charged superhuman with aesthetics. The picture was created as a dedication to the `Film Noir’. The conversations, the theme d the movements that are required for the movie to have the desired intensity would not have been possible. For example, in a scene where Harrison Ford is approached by two agents while he is having lunch; the intensity of such a scene would be lost in a stage performance. The transition of color from bray, then brown to sepia provides the picture with a futuristic appearance that can only be achieved through film production techniques. The author also wanted to have the film transcend the characteristics on classical science fiction genre of film. The film cover of the piece is able to provoke the interest of the audience by leaving a few barbs and questions along the way. This helps to create a feeling of suspense and provides essential depth to the storyline.
Conclusion
Directors are known to be very manipulative of the elements of a piece where they deliberately target the emotions of the emotions of the audience. Some are much reserved but the fact is they want to use the camera to control what the audience sees. It is not possible to control what the audience sees since some actors get carried away and add their own moves and ideas to the composition. In addition to a picture such as a blade runner, the fast-paced action does not allow a theatre lover time to go out and engage in something different before coming back and revisit the movie.
For instance, when one is bored at the theatre it becomes a challenge to rise up and leave since it would appear rude to the actors as a show of disinterest including the disturbance it creates. This makes the film format ideal for such a literary piece. Tickets to get into theatres are also which makes people stay away from theatres. It would mean smaller publicity for a work of art that has a lot of financial resources and labor hours. Therefore, in order to cover production costs, producers have to produce film formats that will realize more sales.
Work Cited
Homenda, Wladyslaw. "Optical music recognition: the case study of pattern recognition." Computer Recognition Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2005. 835-842.
Yuen, Wong Kin. "On the Edge of Spaces:" Blade Runner"," Ghost in the Shell", and Hong Kong's Cityscape." Science Fiction Studies (2000): 1-21.