One thing that occurs to me that I might’ve done with FBN and which I most definitely want to do with this new project is to get rid of these ridiculously long end credits. In fact, I want to put the entire credits at the start of the film and then only have one or two black title cards at the end of the film for copyright purposes or whatever, but beyond that I just want the film to have a “common end.” Most films these days simply don’t end properly, they kind of “blur” out in most people minds. Now I’m not saying that end credits are bad or improperly placed; what I suggest, rather, is that during the credits half the audience is leaving the theater, a few are staying in for the long haul and the rest are just confused as to what to do. Then in a home setup, have you ever been to someone’s house and the credits music is blaring admirably, reaching that crescendo, “da-DUMMM”-CLICK, he turns it off, flashing dvd screen. No fade-out or anything, just a sudden, sharp CUT which has always annoyed me. I always wished that DVD players could somehow fade the ac3 output so that wouldn’t happen, because I think it’s a crappy way to end any movie. I understand the concept of credits and soundtrack to kind of DJ the audience out of the theater but in practice it rarely works out. There’s a real simplicity to a film reaching a big emotional crescendo and then just ending with minimal credits, and it’s a shame with modern film that we have so many regulations that you probably couldn’t cut the end credits by much do to unions. Isn’t it odd that only a few decades ago the exact opposite was true, and that film credits were loaded at the beginning? Of course I’m ignoring the complex reasons for this shift because that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m only concerned with the emotional impact of these “blurry” endings. At least the end credits on FBN are relatively short, as short as I could get them to be, anyway.
I guess it’s just a little bit of this “Todd Rundgren Syndrome” I have, remember when Todd said that early in his career if he could’ve gone into every record buyer’s house to adjust their stereo system to properly play his album he would’ve? Well sometimes I think that dedication isn’t exactly a negative thing.