[Cash-and-caring] Sing Along Movies anyone try this?

[everett at everettgavel.com]

Hi,
 
It might not be what you’re thinking, but, wouldn’t just about any
musical-type movie work? Grease? Rocky Horror Picture Show? High School
Musical 1, 2, & 3? Sound of Music, Etc.?  If that’s what you’re thinking
here’s a list of movie musicals on Wikipedia.  
 
Not exactly a list, but lots of mentions to give you ideas maybe? I cut out
much of the excess that wasn’t relevant, IMO. There’s at least a handful of
ideas below which were pretty popular and I’d think would have a bit of a
following. Though few have the status among singalongs like Rocky Horror.
;-) 
 
 
 
Musical films 
Musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are
interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. 
The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in
some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate
"production numbers." 
The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the
emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference
between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and
locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films
characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often
treat their song and dance numbers as if a live audience were watching. In a
sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks
directly into the camera and performs to it. 
 
1.2.1 The 1960s musical
1.2.2 1970s
1.2.3 1980s to 1990s
1.2.4 21st century musicals
 
 
The 1960s musical
 
In the 1960s, the critical and box-office success of the films West Side
Story, Gypsy, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music,
The Jungle Book, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Oliver!, and Funny Girl suggested
that the traditional musical was in good health.  ... 
However popular musical tastes were being heavily affected by rock and roll
and the freedom and youth associated with it, and indeed Elvis Presley made
a few films that have been equated with the old musicals in terms of form.
Most of the musical films of the 1950s and 1960s such as Oklahoma! and The
Sound of Music were straightforward adaptations or restagings of successful
stage productions. The most successful musicals of the 1960s created
specifically for film were Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book, two of Disney's
biggest hits of all time. 
The phenomenal box-office performance of The Sound of Music gave the major
Hollywood studios more confidence to produce lengthy, large-budget musicals.
Despite the resounding success of some of these films, Hollywood also
produced a large number of musical flops in the late 1960s and early 1970s
which appeared to seriously misjudge public taste. The commercially and/or
critically unsuccessful films included Camelot, Finian's Rainbow, Hello
Dolly!, Sweet Charity, Doctor Dolittle, Star!, Darling Lili, Goodbye, Mr.
Chips, Paint Your Wagon, Song of Norway, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,
Man of La Mancha, Lost Horizon, and Mame. Collectively and individually
these failures crippled several of the major studios. 
 
1970s
 
By the mid-1970s, filmmakers avoided the genre in favor of using music by
popular rock or pop bands as background music, partly in hope of selling a
soundtrack album to fans. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was originally
released in 1975 and was a critical failure until it started midnight
screenings in the 1980s where it achieved cult status.  ... 
The 1978 film version of Grease was a smash hit; its songs were original
compositions done in a 1950s pop style. However, the sequel Grease 2
(released in 1982) bombed at the box-office. 
 
A number of film musicals were still being made that were financially and
critically less successful than in the musical's heyday. They include The
Wiz, At Long Last Love, Mame, Man of La Mancha, Lost Horizon, Godspell,
Phantom of the Paradise, Funny Lady (Barbra Streisand's sequel to Funny
Girl), A Little Night Music, and Hair amongst others. The critical wrath
against At Long Last Love, in particular, was so strong that it was never
released on home video. Fantasy musical films Scrooge, The Blue Bird, The
Little Prince, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Pete's Dragon, and
Disney's Bedknobs & Broomsticks were also released in the 1970s, the latter
winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. 
 
1980s to 1990s
 
By the 1980s, financiers grew increasingly confident in the musical genre,
partly buoyed by the relative health of the musical on Broadway and London's
West End. Productions of the 1980s and 1990s included The Apple, Xanadu, The
Blues Brothers, Annie, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, The Best Little
Whorehouse in Texas, Victor Victoria, Footloose, Fast Forward, A Chorus
Line, Little Shop of Horrors, Forbidden Zone, Absolute Beginners, Labyrinth,
Evita, and Everyone Says I Love You. However, Can't Stop the Music, starring
the Village People, was a calamitous attempt to resurrect the old-style
musical and was released to audience indifference in 1980. Little Shop of
Horrors was based on an off-Broadway musical adaptation of a 1960 Roger
Corman film, a precursor of later film-to-stage-to-film adaptations,
including The Producers. 
Many animated films of the period – predominately from Disney – included
traditional musical numbers. Howard Ashman, Alan Menken, and Stephen
Schwartz had previous musical theatre experience and wrote songs for
animated films during this time, supplanting Disney workhorses the Sherman
Brothers. Starting with 1989's The Little Mermaid, the Disney Renaissance
gave new life to the musical film. Other successful animated musicals
included Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Pocahontas from Disney
proper, The Nightmare Before Christmas from Disney division Touchstone
Pictures, The Prince of Egypt from DreamWorks, Anastasia from Fox and Don
Bluth, and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut from Paramount. (Beauty and
the Beast and The Lion King were adapted for the stage after their
blockbuster success.) 
 
21st century musicals
 
In the 21st century, movie musicals were reborn with darker musicals, epic
drama musicals and comedy-drama musicals such as Moulin Rouge!, Chicago,
Dreamgirls, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Les Misérables,
and La La Land all of which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion
Picture – Musical or Comedy in their respective years, while such films as
The Phantom of the Opera, Hairspray, Mamma Mia!, Nine, Into the Woods, and
The Greatest Showman were only nominated. Chicago was also the first musical
since Oliver! to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. 
 
Examples of Broadway-based jukebox musical films included Mamma Mia! (ABBA),
Rock of Ages, and Sunshine on Leith (The Proclaimers). Original ones
included Across the Universe (The Beatles), Moulin Rouge! (various pop
hits), and  Idlewild (Outkast). 
Disney also returned to musicals with Enchanted, The Princess and the Frog,
Tangled, Winnie the Pooh, The Muppets, Frozen, Muppets Most Wanted, Into the
Woods, and Moana. Following a string of successes with live action fantasy
adaptations of several of their animated features, Disney produced a live
action version of Beauty and the Beast, the first of this live action
fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical, and features new songs as
well as new lyrics to both the Gaston number and the reprise of the title
song. Pixar also produced Coco, the very first computer-animated musical
film by the company. 
Other animated musical films include Rio, Trolls, and Sing.
 
 
 
 
Do you have any idea of what per centage the movie gave of its take for the
fundraiser? Do you know if any other movies are produced in such a way that
they could be sing-along movies?
 
 
----- original message ----- 
     A while back, I attended a fund raiser for a local choir. It was a Sing
Along movie. The movie in question was Grease. The movie was shown and
played normally until a song was sung. Then the lyrics appeared on the
screen. The audience then sang along with the film. One problem with this
particular movie was that there were only two songs in Grease that had
lyrics. The audience seemed to enjoy the film. The theater gave the choir
part of the gate. Anyone try this?
Regards,
Robert
 
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/cash-and-caring_nfbnet.org/attachments/20180812/b99d9b62/attachment.html>