In movies, it seems there is an ideal distribution of the length of shots that most closely approximates how the human mind perceives things. The ideal distribution is known as 1/f, or pink noise. Psychologists analyzed 150 popular movies released from 1935 to 2005 for their shot patterns.
The movie that most closely approached 1/f? Back to the Future.
I received a real treat in the mail yesterday.
As some of you might know, Back to the Future is my favorite movie of all time. I fell in love with it at first sight in the movie theater in the summer of 1985. I was 11 years old and I went to see it with my best friend, and I was so tense during the climactic clocktower scene near the end of the movie that I literally chewed my plastic soda straw in two.
The film has a terrific score by Alan Silvestri, but the soundtrack album that came out in 1985 contains only two tracks of that score: the theme and an “overture,” which consists of several cues strung together to give a dramatic overview of the movie. The rest of the tracks are pop songs from the movie, like “The Power of Love.” It’s a fun album, but fans have wanted a release of the complete score for years. A bootleg of much of the score has been around for a while, but it’s of inferior quality and some things are missing.
And then a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, Intrada Records, a company specializing in movie and TV soundtracks, announced that it was releasing the complete score of the movie, made from the multi-track scoring session masters held by Universal Studios. It’s a 2-CD release: the first disc is the complete score, and the second disc is an earlier version of the score before changes were made. I ordered my copy and it arrived yesterday. In addition to the discs, it has a 24-page booklet with information about the movie, the music, and the recording, as well as several photo stills from the film.
I listened to the first disc yesterday and I was in heaven. It’s been almost a 25-year wait, and I’m so happy to have this now. Thanks, Intrada!
My previous post got me thinking about how much I love TV history.
When I was a kid growing up in the ’80s, I was really interested in old TV shows. My vision of the 1950s was filled with black-and-white nuclear families; my vision of the 1960s had Technicolor housewives with secret magic powers living in leafy suburbs. And everyone from the Cleavers to Major Nelson and his genie lived in classical American homes. There was no segregation or Cold War or Joe McCarthy, no Vietnam or civil rights marches: just tidy families resolving problems in 30 minutes or less.
One day when I was 11 or 12, I was at a shopping center with my dad. We were in one of those all-purpose stores like Wal-Mart, except we didn’t have Wal-Mart in New Jersey, so maybe it was Caldor? Channel? I was browsing through the book section when I saw an enormous paperback that caught my eye: The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh.
I was enthralled. I had no idea such a book existed! It had every show, in alphabetical order, with first and last broadcast dates, regular airtimes, cast lists, and several paragraphs describing the show. For each year it also had the prime-time fall TV schedule, top-rated shows for each year, and Emmy winners in the major categories.
I bought it right then and there. In the internet era, books like this are practically obsolete, but I still have my copy. They’re up to the ninth edition now, but I could never bear to part with my edition, for nostalgic reasons.
And if you want a great summary of TV history, here’s the introduction to the latest edition, including “The Eight Eras
of Prime Time,” and this list of the number of Westerns on TV by year:
Number of Westerns in Prime Time, by Season
1955–1956: 9
1956–1957: 11
1957–1958: 20
1958–1959: 31
1959–1960: 30
1960–1961: 26
1961–1962: 16
1962–1963: 13
1963–1964: 8
1964–1965: 7
My concept of postwar American history has become more complicated since I was a kid, but I still have a soft spot for the ’50s and ’60s and all that Atomic-Age TV stuff, and I still love TV history.
No wonder “Back to the Future” has always been my favorite movie and always will be.