Synoiz Music Blog
Synoiz music blog.
Posted 6th January 2012
Bit of an odd blog this time, hope you had a good new year and have not yet broken ALL of your resolutions. I just thought I'd take a moment to write a film review as I've just got back from the cinema.
The Iron Lady
I have to say I wasn't totally sure what I expected of this film. On principle I don't pay attention to reviews from people I don't know and it looks like I'm the first one of my friends to see this.
Personally I am unsure of my opinion of ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, I grew up with adults around me still seething about her, still hating her even though she was out of office. But for me, to make that much of an impression on a country, on a world, makes me wonder if I should respect her for simply DOING things and having the nerve to simply make decisions that people wouldn't be happy with. I guess I've grown up during the period in Britain where nobody does anything cos they're scared of upsetting someone or messing up the balance. 
For instance, the only reason I can remember who John Major was (the guy who followed Thatcher as Prime Minster) is because of his caricature in Spitting Image (left)! No idea what he did for the country.
Anyway, the film. Straight to the point, it's not a brilliant film. It's a film that quite simply stumbles along and flutters about as though it's a wall of post-it notes and the window is open. The story and flow just don't work for me, there are times when it genuinely feels like an unbiased documentary about a woman's life taking you through her highs and lows, her triumphs and her mistakes, and then it will suddenly cut to a total propaganda section punching you in the face to feel sympathy for her.
It feels as though there was a script, then someone with a red pen got to it and put "this bit may stop people liking her, do something like this instead", the same way that Michael Bay (of Transformers infamy) might go "this bit is too slow, we need to put an explosion or a car chase in".
The "plot" follows Lady Thatcher (Meryl Streep) near to present day as she lives coping with dementia and being an old biddy being old, imagining her dead husband Dennis (Jim Broadbent) is still talking to her and alive. The film works like an edition of Tales From The Crypt with old-Thatcher as the crypt keeper having trips down memory lane and reminiscing or weeping over flashbacks of her life. In places this works, in others it doesn't. The sections with Young Thatcher are cringeworthy, with Dennis proposing to her only for Thatcher to go into a speech about how she refuses to be a house wife and she'll never be the sort of woman to wash dishes as the stirring music rises beneath her words.
I think I just heard a suffragette clapping from the 1930s.
Just one.
Often in The Iron Lady it's not what's BEING said, it's the way it's said. It feels like the film has no idea how to lead its audience and the music and words are expecting the audience to feel something while they're actually feeling the total opposite.
HOWEVER...
...it is impossible not to say that Meryl Streep is amazing. It feels weird saying this but it's great to see real acting again. Throughout the film she IS Thatcher, from mannerisms down to speech and you get a constant feel for her and what she's thinking and what she must be going through. One of those roles where you forget that it's a person you've seen in plenty of other films, you ALMOST even forget sodding Mamma Mia.
When myself and Ian Lawlor (from 12 Ft Beast Productions) went to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (awesome film, bleak but amazing) I remember him saying that Dragon Tattoo will probably miss out on all the awards and fame because of films like The Iron Lady. All honesty, if there's any justice in the world that won't happen, however Streep does deserve the Best Actress award for The Iron Lady even if it winning Best Film would whiff of money changing hands.
The simple fact is that no matter how good Streep's performance is, even she can't save the film from itself and the heavy handed script. I have to say there are times when the Britishness of everything she does and her tone of voice got to me, but that is what Thatcher was like as Prime Minister.
All in all I give the film a score of 4/10, mainly for Streep's performance and the way that some dark events weren't skimmed over as I expected them to be.
In the end I left feeling sympathy for Thatcher, not because the film depicts her as a poor defenceless old widow who just did what she felt she needed to do and everyone ended up hating her for it, but because the film shows a flicker, a hint of a great life and story that still needs to be told by better writers. It might not be a happy story, it might be about a woman who did damage the country in some people's eyes, but it's an important part of British history that needs to be told well.
Posted 31st December 2011
Well I was going to write a big blog about everything that happened in 2011 and what was good, what was bad, and I just gave up. I didn't enjoy 2011 much at all so I'm glad to turn my back on it and work for the best from 2012. I hope you all have a great time next year and that things go well with all of your endeavours (oh and that the world doesn't end).
I'm very much looking forward to 2012 as there's lots of nice Synoiz projects on the go, including:
- Darkling album (Finally!)
- Darkling music video
- New collaboration album from Shaun L'Orange & Synoiz (no name yet)
- New Synoiz album
Posted 18th December 2011
Ohohohoho it's getting close to Christmas, and we all know what that means! The horrible and tragic realisation that you don't truly know or understand the people you're trying to buy presents for. Maybe I have a very pessismistic view of the Christmas season but for me it's just cold, ice, social expectations and sodding Wham! on the radio every ten minutes. Still I suppose it's nice for getting a bit of chill time to, say, update this blog and finally say hello to the nice new followers on Twitter.
The main thing I want to say now I've got a moment is thank you to everyone who came along to the first ever Synoiz live performance in November as part of the Cutting Edge Film Festival in Newcastle. The whole day was awesome once I'd stopped stressing about things and just decided to have a good time!
Hilariously the performance was a bit of a shambles as lots of things went wrong and meant that neither the backing videos that myself and 12 Foot Beast Productions had spent most of the previous week filming nor the right channel of most tracks worked at all. Two of the more important tracks had to be skipped because of a bizarre and unforeseen bass limiter on the venue's mixing desk (meaning that the main parts of Getting Safer and Ever Emptiness were totally cut off)!
Still even if I see the gig as a disaster a lot of the audience still said they enjoyed themselves and it gave me a great opportunity to get used to playing in front of people and being the centre of attention (which I've never liked the idea of), I had a lot of fun with the audience, joking on about the technical issues, even attempting with Alex (after someone shouted it out) to do an a cappella version of Getting Safer that was both hilarious and a disaster.
Setlist:
- The Open Sky
- Andromeda
- Long Lost...
- Ever Emptiness1
- Getting Safer1
- Of Rolling Hills
- Darkling
1 These were the tracks that had to be skipped due to technical issues.
Thanks to everyone who came down and who requested songs to be played, Andromeda and Of Rolling Hills were the fan chosen tracks and went down a treat I think. Thanks also to Alex Campbell for pulling through for me and helping me out with additional keyboards and banter for a few of the tracks.
All in all the Cutting Edge film festival organised by Antoni McVay of Mitsuko Studios was a big success, there were some great films being shown as well as some hilarious ones! Lots of nice compliments (ie: "that was bloody freaky") on my scores for the films Nightmares and The Dark Passenger plus, I think it got mentioned in the news section, I won the award for "Best Actor" for the stuff I did for Le Belle Dame Sans Merci and The Dark Passenger (the soundtrack of the dark passenger was cobbled together meticulously compiled, remastered and released a few weeks ago if you want to go get it by clicking here btw). We've discussed the idea of releasing the more dramatic Nightmares soundtrack too but since it was composed by both myself and Guy Newby and edited by me we'd have to work a bit more out in terms of which versions to use, whether to include unused tracks or scenes and stuff and so it's probs a "tomorrow after tomorrow" type job.
I didn't win the "Best Soundtrack" award as that was taken by Brendan Ratliff (aka @echolevel on Twitter) and his brilliant organic score for Le Belle Dame Sans Merci. I think I would have been jealous if any of the other soundtracks had beaten the three I had done for stuff in the festival but I remember hearing Brendan's first version of the score on a pre-final edit of the film and thinking that it was exactly what I had wanted to go for but didn't really know if I could achieve, his score was perfect for the film and I'm a firm believer in the importance of considering what is best for a project and not just my own portfolio.
Anyway there may be some pictures or videos of the Synoiz live performance coming at some point, I saw one or two camera phones and Ian from 12 Foot Beast was recording the whole thing from somewhere at the back so they may get added to the YouTube or news section at some point.
Hope you're all well and if you don't hear from me, have a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year!
Posted 21st November 2011
Had a sleepless night yesterday, I've been trying to get myself into a more sensible and regimented daily routine lately and my body seems to be rejecting it. Rather than the odd bed at 3am/4am, get up at 7am that I've somehow been managing over the last few months, I've been aiming for bed at 10pm and up at 6am, it's just proving harder than I thought.
I just seem to wake up sometimes, in the peaceful but deathly silence of like 2am and I'm not sure what I should do. Do I close my eyes, push all thoughts out my mind and try to get to sleep for another 30 mins or do I get up, read or work till I feel tired again?
I've always held the belief that whenever I can't sleep that there's a reason, either a worry that needs more thought, an errand that needs to be added to tomorrow's list, or even a lavatory visit or phone that needs plugging in. Lately I can't seem to find out what that "secret concern" is. So I wonder if it's a physical thing and I'm just supposed to be weathering this until my body finally gets used to nights with more than 3 hours sleep at a time.
I suppose I have a fair few worries at the moment, my first ever live performance on Saturday is looming (1st World Problems eh?). While I'm being realistic and know that I've almost got it in hand and either way people should enjoy it, there's still that nagging doubt that Gollum-like studio dwellers like me seem to have with being "up there" and watched by people. There seems to be a few Synoiz fans in the area planning to come along as well as a few of my other friends, it should be a good time once the irrational dread and "everything will go wrong" fear fades away.
Here's hoping we all get a good night's sleep tonight! Syn.
UPDATE: Argh! Turns out I lay awake from 2am to 4am and then my alarm didn't go off so I woke up at 8am. You have to wonder sometimes...
