More on Phantom

As a follow up to my previous post, I watched the special features for Phantom. There were basically two features, one for the stage show and one for the movie. The stage stuff I had heard before, and I believe I have a book on it somewhere (odd since I've never seen it).

They mentioned some of the changes, of which there were few, but I finally realized that what troubled me was the timing of the chandelier crash, which happens near the end in the film, but at the end of the first act on stage. I suppose that's why I was disoriented given the lyric during "Masquerade" about having a new chandelier.

I also didn't know that the Phantom was played by the guy from the second Tomb Raider movie, and I was shocked that he had no significant singing experience to that point. How do you go from not being a singer to singing that show? Suddenly learning to play guitar doesn't seem so impossible to me anymore.

Emmy Rossum, who played Christine, was only 18 when the film came out, and obviously younger during shooting. That impresses me even more because I really think she was better than any other previous singer I've heard in that role. I think I like her because she was a little more contemporary and less opera, and that really works in the film version.

I also found it interesting that the film was shot outside of the studio system as an independent. That sure is an expensive film to go it alone, but it also shows that with 80 million people seeing the stage show, Andrew Lloyd Webber has clearly done OK.

You know, seeing this movie of course reinvigorates my film bug. It's funny too, how the things I'm interested in are made more actionable when I'm stimulated by things in those areas. For example, work has me wanting to write more code, talking about writing makes me want to write another book and really good films push me to make my own film. If only time and money were no object.