Monday, December 27, 2004

Team Work

The folks behind SaveDisney.com periodically send out e-mails with little quotes from Walt Disney. I just received this one...

"No one person can take credit for the success of a motion picture. It's strictly a team effort. From the time the story is written to the time the final release print comes off the printer, hundreds of people are involved — each one doing a job — each job contributing to the final product. And — if the picture wins an award, the feeling of satisfaction...can rightfully be shared by each and everyone."

Nice quote, quite true in some sense...but it does set you to wondering. Mr. Disney was not exactly lavish with the promotion of any name but his own. After he passed, his studio kept up and probably intensified the notion that it was the studio, not any human beings in particular, that made the magic. You can take the above remarks at face value to say that everyone contributes...or you can take it as a way of trivializing the individual contribution of each participant. If no one who works on a Walt Disney picture can be singled-out, then the only name that can garner any credit for the film is Walt Disney.

Last evening at a party, I was chatting with Richard Sherman, who among his (and his brother's) many credits are all the songs and even some story input to Mary Poppins, a movie has endured beyond all expectations. There's a new, very fine DVD out (order it here) with a great transfer...but the main reason to buy it is that it has several superb featurettes and "making of" glimpses, including a terrific segment where Sherman sits around the piano and discusses the score with Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews. The extras document a lot of the individual contributions that went into that "team effort" and remind you that it wasn't the studio that made that movie. It was human beings.

Two of those human beings, of course, were the Sherman Brothers...and they're sure having quite a season. Right now on London's West End, you can see hit stage musicals based on two of their movies — Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The latter is soon to open on Broadway in this country with the former sure to follow. Like a lot of you, I grew up on Sherman Brothers music. Nice to think that another generation is getting that opportunity.

(Before I forget: Jim Hill has two terrific articles about Mary Poppins — and plans for a sequel that never happened — over at his site. Read this one first, then read this one.)

• Posted at 11:43 PM · LINK

Ta-Ta, Trio!

As we reported here, it looks like the Trio cable channel is disappearing from DirecTV on the last day of this year. DirecTV is running an occasional crawl on that channel announcing this, and they've put out a press release and there's a statement on all the bills that are now arriving. They've told everyone except the TiVo folks, whose program listings still display Trio information on DirecTV channel 315 well into 2005 and will allow you to program to record shows on that channel you won't be receiving then. (I assume this is because there will still be some local cable companies carrying Trio, so not every TiVo owner will lose it. But it won't be on Channel 315 much longer.)

If you're a DirecTV subscriber, you might want to record one last show on Trio before it goes away. At 6 AM (West Coast time) on 12/31, they're running Final Cut: The Making of Heaven's Gate, the documentary I recommended in the above-linked news item. I assume it will surface elsewhere but it might be a while.

No word yet on whether this means the end of Trio but if you have 20 million subscribers and you suddenly lose 12 million of them, it will probably have some impact.

• Posted at 10:34 AM · LINK