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Harmonic Cinema concept

By Duane McCullough

The above image is a view of a paper that I created in 1975 and mailed out to several record, film and other entertainment companies while seeking employment in the career field of film production.

Before the days of "musical videos", my proposal to create small film projects that illustrate the stories within popular songs was received by several companies as an interesting concept but they needed to see some working samples before further investment was given.

At the time I did not have the resources to create and market any samples of what I called the "Harmonic Cinema concept" -- so the concept as a working project was mothballed.

Years later, when MTV and other video music program networks were broadcasting musical videos, I was disappointed that these networks never really gave justice to the concept of filming the story within popular songs. It seemed then as it does even now that most current musical video projects were just filming the players on stage with little or no "cinema action work" in telling the story within the song.

By "cinema action work", I mean using special camera views that tell the story with action scenes that matched the words within the song.

For example, if a popular song -- say a western ballad song like "El Paso" by Marty Robbins was viewed as a short film using the "Harmonic Cinema concept", the classic old western story of how and why a cowboy who died in El Paso Texas seeking his lover, would better reveal the story experience and complement the entertainment value of the song. The sound track of the project is already done -- it just needs filming work to match the story script.

Another example of how the value of a popular song could be improved would be if a song like "Country Roads" were to be filmed in cinema using camera views of country roads in the woods of the Appalachian Mountains with old houses and farms as family homes.

In fact, if film directors of popular songs would treat the words of their songs as film scripts, short cinema projects could be created and revolutionize the music video experience.

I realize that a lot of copyright work would be needed to secure the rights to "film" popular songs for resale -- and I am also aware of that some songs could be ruined with poor interpretations by untalented directors, but in this age of computer and camera graphic possibilities, it would be a lost opportunity not to pursue this unique new medium of entertainment


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