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When I was a kid I was really scared of horror movies. I couldn't watch them and my mom would not allow me to watch them because I would have bad dreams about them for weeks. But there was this one stretch of time when me and my boy Greg Prescott would sit down in his basement and watch all the classic horror movies on afternoon t.v.; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, The Creature From the Black Lagoon and so on. I think I was able to watch those ones without being completely scared senseless because they were in black and white and so they were removed from reality enough for me to stomach it. I have not re-watched any of those movies since that time in Greg's basement and I doubt I will watch them again. It is because I am very peculiar when it comes to black and white movies. I realize that there are true classics, and arguably the greatest movies of all time, all shot in black and white, but I find them to be less powerful than movies in color. I think it has something to do with the extra step away from reality, but I also don't like the way the actors in black and white movies act.
I understand that this view is broad and that there are exceptions to the rule, but I am speaking here in generalizations. I find that the actors are overacting and speak with an unbelievable affected accent. I can't imagine that is how people actually talked. However, there is one woman who comes into the restaurant who might just prove me wrong. Her name is Sheila and she must be 85 years old, minimum. She is amazing. Sheila comes in every Sunday after going to, fittingly, the movies. She wears a hat with a hat pin and always has a Dewar's on the rocks in a stem glass and then a light dinner with some Sauvignon Blanc. She is a dear old lady and is always going to see weird movies. I want to write a spin-off blog called "What did Sheila Watch This Week?" and have it just be a list of all the things Sheila watched. We've gotten to the point where we ask her what she watched and her opinion on it. For instance, she went to see "22" a couple months ago, only because she had never heard of it and thought it might be interesting. She had no idea she was in for Jonah Hill and Tatum Channing putzing around for an hour and a half. So we asked her what she thought of it, and naturally she said, "It was awful!" Now we are getting to the part where Sheila just might convince me that people talked weird back in the early days of film. Sheila has a way of speaking that very few people possess today and can really only be explained by harkening back to old films. She might be from England, giving her an undistinguishable English accent. Or maybe it's not an English accent, but upper crust American accent, which I am guessing was once an upper crust English accent that has been passed down a couple generations in America. To give you an example, you'll have to use your imagination and speak out loud, so if you are in a coffee shop or other public place, you might get some weird looks, but it'll be worth it. One day, Sheila beckoned Tim over to her table. He bent down to hear what she had to say, and with a big grin on her face, she said the following. This is where you have to speak out loud, as an 85+ year old woman with maybe an English accent. If you can't say it out loud, come by the restaurant and ask Tim and I to say it for you, it's one of our favorite sayings. So, ok, back to what she said. She leans in and says to Tim, "You know that waiter that I don't like? He touched my hat! Can you believe that?" I am laughing just typing that, but I am also laughing picturing all 8 of you devoted readers saying this out loud in your homes and/or offices. The point is, Sheila is the closest I have ever come to believing that people in old movies weren't just making up some accent because of a cycle perpetrated by the movies themselves.
I am no linguist, and so this theory is all assumption, and I would gladly listen to how I am completely wrong I am and learn the real reason that movie stars of yore talk in this slightly affected language. And I am only talking about white actors. Don't even get me started about black people being portrayed in black and white films.
Instead, I will just say that this drawing was a fun exercise in coloring in a monochrome palette on the computer. I had never colored a drawing in with a monochrome palette in Photoshop before. On the one hand I liked it because it made my job a lot easier because I didn't have to think about what color was going to look good where. This one also took significantly less time to color than the one that are "in color." Those ones take me an average of 6 hours to color, especially these days when the color is very detailed. This one took less time than that, although it was still pretty time consuming. It remains the only T&J colored in "black & white" so it will always stand out because of that. I think Greg Prescott would approve.
When I was a kid I was really scared of horror movies. I couldn't watch them and my mom would not allow me to watch them because I would have bad dreams about them for weeks. But there was this one stretch of time when me and my boy Greg Prescott would sit down in his basement and watch all the classic horror movies on afternoon t.v.; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, The Creature From the Black Lagoon and so on. I think I was able to watch those ones without being completely scared senseless because they were in black and white and so they were removed from reality enough for me to stomach it. I have not re-watched any of those movies since that time in Greg's basement and I doubt I will watch them again. It is because I am very peculiar when it comes to black and white movies. I realize that there are true classics, and arguably the greatest movies of all time, all shot in black and white, but I find them to be less powerful than movies in color. I think it has something to do with the extra step away from reality, but I also don't like the way the actors in black and white movies act.
I understand that this view is broad and that there are exceptions to the rule, but I am speaking here in generalizations. I find that the actors are overacting and speak with an unbelievable affected accent. I can't imagine that is how people actually talked. However, there is one woman who comes into the restaurant who might just prove me wrong. Her name is Sheila and she must be 85 years old, minimum. She is amazing. Sheila comes in every Sunday after going to, fittingly, the movies. She wears a hat with a hat pin and always has a Dewar's on the rocks in a stem glass and then a light dinner with some Sauvignon Blanc. She is a dear old lady and is always going to see weird movies. I want to write a spin-off blog called "What did Sheila Watch This Week?" and have it just be a list of all the things Sheila watched. We've gotten to the point where we ask her what she watched and her opinion on it. For instance, she went to see "22" a couple months ago, only because she had never heard of it and thought it might be interesting. She had no idea she was in for Jonah Hill and Tatum Channing putzing around for an hour and a half. So we asked her what she thought of it, and naturally she said, "It was awful!" Now we are getting to the part where Sheila just might convince me that people talked weird back in the early days of film. Sheila has a way of speaking that very few people possess today and can really only be explained by harkening back to old films. She might be from England, giving her an undistinguishable English accent. Or maybe it's not an English accent, but upper crust American accent, which I am guessing was once an upper crust English accent that has been passed down a couple generations in America. To give you an example, you'll have to use your imagination and speak out loud, so if you are in a coffee shop or other public place, you might get some weird looks, but it'll be worth it. One day, Sheila beckoned Tim over to her table. He bent down to hear what she had to say, and with a big grin on her face, she said the following. This is where you have to speak out loud, as an 85+ year old woman with maybe an English accent. If you can't say it out loud, come by the restaurant and ask Tim and I to say it for you, it's one of our favorite sayings. So, ok, back to what she said. She leans in and says to Tim, "You know that waiter that I don't like? He touched my hat! Can you believe that?" I am laughing just typing that, but I am also laughing picturing all 8 of you devoted readers saying this out loud in your homes and/or offices. The point is, Sheila is the closest I have ever come to believing that people in old movies weren't just making up some accent because of a cycle perpetrated by the movies themselves.
I am no linguist, and so this theory is all assumption, and I would gladly listen to how I am completely wrong I am and learn the real reason that movie stars of yore talk in this slightly affected language. And I am only talking about white actors. Don't even get me started about black people being portrayed in black and white films.
Instead, I will just say that this drawing was a fun exercise in coloring in a monochrome palette on the computer. I had never colored a drawing in with a monochrome palette in Photoshop before. On the one hand I liked it because it made my job a lot easier because I didn't have to think about what color was going to look good where. This one also took significantly less time to color than the one that are "in color." Those ones take me an average of 6 hours to color, especially these days when the color is very detailed. This one took less time than that, although it was still pretty time consuming. It remains the only T&J colored in "black & white" so it will always stand out because of that. I think Greg Prescott would approve.
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