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Production values: "When it was good" vs Now


hallicks

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7 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

It has a unique venue that defines the entire visual style of the show. It may be a little hokey to dress everyone up in togas, or to stick the announcers in chaps and cowboy hats every time they run Texas, or dressed as spooky ghosts for Halloween, but it makes each show stand out. Running different buildings, with different sets, different visual styles, meant the shows felt varied, they felt interesting, and it didn't feel like you'd seen it all before.

And don't you just know the 'E currently reckon they're probably doing the best job ever of that.

"But we've got Hell in a Cell, pal! It's the show with the devil's playground, and all the screens are all red!"

To be honest, I watch NXT and I still find it too slick. I theorised on here before and I'll repeat it again: I have a sneaky suspicion that a part of wrestling was lost from me forever when it went HD. It's a combination of an almost insurmountable nostalgia for all the old stuff, and a fundamental reckoning that people clubbing each other about in weird fucking clothes looks much more agreeable in standard definition. It went HD, character importance went down, the cameras went mental and the style got a lot more fast paced all around the same time. It just largely became a slick, high energy stunt show that was a token part of nerd culture to me, then. Just nothing subversive about it. Even at its height it felt a bit dirty and weird. Now it's just another fandom. It's got a universe. It's got a subreddit. 

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Imagine Brock, Braun and Roman pelting down that aisle with decent storylines and a hot crowd. You'd happily take the trade off of those *1/4 hoss stylings that most Attitude Era undercards consisted of. 

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echoing what Fook is saying about HD, i feel exactly the same way about live music footage. Have you seen a HD live concert with full home video production value? its painfully clean and sucks any kind of grimey, live feel away from it.

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21 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

 

Although speaking of production, there is a vignette/promo video for Berlyn that has to be seen to be believed. It's easily amongst the worst three things I've seen on a wrestling show. Pretty sure a GCSE student could have drawn something using stop-motion and done a better job.

 

Did it take your breath away?

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The licensed PPV themes deserve a trashing, too. Whilst the superstar themes for the last few years have been generally strong, the tunes they get elsewhere are dog rough. It's all this weird, genre hybrid stuff that sounds like it was crowdfunded to be the most dangerous sounding music at the least dangerous sounding festival. It's all nondescript and anaemic sounding. I know the nu-metal stuff is roundly shat on, but at least it fit the product at the time. It doesn't have to be rock or metal music with a punch, just music with a punch. Wrestling has punch. Even at its most sanitised I've always more or less seen it as an extreme form of entertainment, and the music - being part of the production - should reflect that. 

You don't always have to license themes either. Some of the old, in house PPV music fit the tone of their shows so well. Imagine Hell In A Cell opening with some crazy style Terminator 2 theme. It'd be awesome. Oldies nearly always work where they can be employed. Big Time, anybody? 

The lyrics to every tune they've used for the past ten years can be more or less boiled down to "they won't trample on us, oh no, we're going to rise up and fight tonight!" It's the dregs. 

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4 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said:

The licensed PPV themes deserve a trashing, too. Whilst the superstar themes for the last few years have been generally strong, the tunes they get elsewhere are dog rough. It's all this weird, genre hybrid stuff that sounds like it was crowdfunded to be the most dangerous sounding music at the least dangerous sounding festival. It's all nondescript and anaemic sounding. I know the nu-metal stuff is roundly shat on, but at least it fit the product at the time. It doesn't have to be rock or metal music with a punch, just music with a punch. Wrestling has punch. Even at its most sanitised I've always more or less seen it as an extreme form of entertainment, and the music - being part of the production - should reflect that. 

You don't always have to license themes either. Some of the old, in house PPV music fit the tone of their shows so well. Imagine Hell In A Cell opening with some crazy style Terminator 2 theme. It'd be awesome. Oldies nearly always work where they can be employed. Big Time, anybody? 

The lyrics to every tune they've used for the past ten years can be more or less boiled down to "they won't trample on us, oh no, we're going to rise up and fight tonight!" It's the dregs. 

My favourite licenced theme ever was Peter Gabriel's Big Time for WM23. Completely out of left-field given how old a track it is, but very welcome on my part - Gabriel's one of my favourite musicians ever. And it fit the event perfectly.

EDIT: There was also that use of Written In The Stars - although they clearly were using it for the Eric Turner piano/singing bit, and weren't bothering all that much with Tinie Tempah.

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