I've been eating so much junk food. I had two high calorie yet absolutely delicious vanilla cappucino protein drinks, I ate cereal with whole milk, today I had a blizzard from Dairy Queen and right now I'm snacking on candy.
I can't say I'm body conscious because I'm not. But when all these things add up so quickly into two consecutive days I kinda freak a little. So it's time to start a health-kick for this week!
I cannot wait to see Finntroll tomorrow! I love metal concerts, and it looks like there are going to be two other folk-metal bands there, too!
I'm watching Life on Discovery Channel and this episode is about sea creatures. Its pretty cool, but judging from the episodes I've seen so far, the series seems a little quirky for such an expensively created and in depth documentary series. The music is sometimes a little strange and unexpected, like you're watching a Disney movie. Its also voiced by Oprah, so that adds to the quirkiness. Not because Oprah is quirky, we all know she's very intelligent and I'm sure I don't have to go on about her success. But she's narrating it in very plain dialogue. She stresses words like she's telling a story. For example, "the starfish... has met its match..". It seems like its much more of an innocently crafted series, even with all mating going on left-and-right. I could see this as the perfect visual that teachers would show in their elementary school classrooms for science, with the kids "oooh-ing" and "ahh-ing" the whole way through.
Now I'm not hating on this series, after all I'm watching it on TV right now. But lets compare it to Discovery's last Earth series, Planet Earth.
I like Planet Earth a little better. It had much more of a serious, yet completely intriguing mood, that really gave you a shock-factor feeling of all the things that go on so unknowingly throughout nature. It was narrated by Sigourney Weaver and for some reason it felt to me that Mother Nature was speaking to you herself. Along with the amazing footage (very similar, if not the same as Life), it was as though she was guiding you along the Earth on a grand tour, not just telling you about it. It was filled with "drama" if that's what I can call it. Sometimes, animals were given their own personalities and we'd watch them as they carried on throughout their day. Bad things happened to them, good things happened to them. It completely draws the viewer in to keep them wondering "What in the world is this interesting creature and what does it do?".
I think its boiled down to the narration. For those of you who have read my voice-over dream post, this is the perfect example of how a voice can change the mood of an entire series, and how I can't help but notice it the moment the first word is spoken. These two series could essentially be the same, but have become dramatically different to me based solely on the tone of the narrator. Oprah narrates with light, enthusiastic tones, whereas Sigourney Weaver brings drama and uncovers mystery as she guides you through the world.
Narration can be a powerful tool in a documentary. I just saw an ad for an upcoming series called Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, and well.... I hope he isn't narrating.
No comments:
Post a Comment