Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2015 January 5

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January 5

Bittersweet memory

A while back (3 Nov last year, to be precise) I was looking for a song I heard in Starbucks, and couldn't find it even with some lyrics. Now it's happening again, but even worse. This one is from KFC in China. The lyrics go something like "It's a bittersweet memory (woo-oo) It's a bittersweet memory." That's the chorus/hookline and it repeats a lot. The other lyrics have stuff like "...knew this was a plan ... Instead of taking all you can." Any takers?? Bing/Yahoo haven't helped, and Google usually isn't available in China. It's kind of indie pop with a dash of alt-country, closest to The Shins or Bon Iver with a dash of Wilco. Thanks, IBE (talk) 08:58, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

It's probably not but the bittersweet part brought The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" to mind. Dismas|^(talk) 09:46, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Another possibility is "Bittersweet Memory" by Blue Merle. Dismas|^(talk) 09:54, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Definitely not the Verve, but Blue Merle came up on Bing, and I thought I had it - the sound was the same, and the melody strikingly familiar. But it's not that either. KFC China plays some old and somewhat obscure stuff, eg. Amy Grant from the 1990s ("I Will Remember You") so my guess is it's an oldie which might even pre-date the internet. If it's a forgotten classic from that time, that would explain why it's not on the net (or at least hard to retrieve, but I've scrutinised the yahoo results for about 5 or 6 pages, down to where the search terms hardly appear at all). IBE (talk) 10:55, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

If similar, but not exactly the same, as Blue Merle's song, could it be a cover of that song ? StuRat (talk) 16:05, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Nice try, but very different lyrics. IBE (talk) 08:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I suspect the song may be the most infamous abuse of copyright ever, the song "Bittersweet Symphony]" which was a number one hit that bankrupted and destroyed the 90's hit band, The Verve. μηδείς (talk)

Can't you read? Someone else already suggested that, and the OP discounted it. And the idea that the song bankrupted and destroyed the band is ridiculous, btw. --Viennese Waltz 08:29, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

O-oh ;( Let's chill a bit, VW. Medeis' comment was in perfectly good faith, and if she didn't read the other replies, we've all done that. IBE (talk) 08:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

There's a Feist tune that repeats "bittersweet melodies" in the chorus, along with "sweet memory". Haven't listened, but seems possible. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Why didn't Hollywood see the potential for a videotape market?

Resolved

 – ± Lenoxus (" *** ") 03:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

When Betamax and VHS first came out, it seems that studios like Disney and Universal only saw them as TV-recording devices and sources of piracy, going so far as to sue. In those early days, did any studio executives or entrepreneurs propose selling old movies on tape, to make money that could otherwise only be made in the occasional TV broadcast?

Were they just concerned that the first hundred buyers of, say, Citizen Kane would simply copy and resell the tapes to the next thousand, or what? And what happened to make them change their minds? I can't find any articles about the early days of the professional-video market, just a lot about the format wars (which were entirely decided on home-recording merits) and some technical stuff. ± Lenoxus (" *** ") 12:28, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

See Magnetic Video. Apparently the person who came up with the idea was Andre Blay in 1977. --Viennese Waltz 13:34, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Generals always fight the last war... is the aphorism most applicable here. Leadership is often resistant to changing environments, having gained leadership positions by coming up through the prior set of conditions. Thus, they are unprepared for rapid changes in <society/technology/business/etc.> The truism works for war, but also works for business and in this case in the entertainment industry. The leaders of that industry new the old business models (films in theaters) and thus lacked the foresight to be able to work in the new business model (home video market). This is exactly how every business works all the time, and repeats itself over and over. Rather than being an inexplicable exception, this is pretty much standard operating procedure for how long term business trends operate, and as soon as you can understand that, you can take the less on of the "Generals' preparations for the last war" to numerous situation (rise of the personal computer, internet retail, digital music, etc.) over and over again, the "old" leadership failed to adequately predict or transition into the new paradigm. It isn't an odd thing, it's exactly how it always happens. --Jayron32 18:06, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Note that this unwillingness to change their business model is a hallmark of old businesses in mature industries, one aspect of a diseconomy of scale. Startups tend to be more accepting of new technologies. StuRat (talk) 04:44, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Stories on companies which ignored the next big thing can be famous but there are probably more cases of companies which wasted resources on something new that never panned out. Predicting the future isn's as easy as it sometimes seems afterwards. And most startups fail. Big companies have invested a lot in training, development, production, marketing etc. of things which have been proven to work. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:35, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, the economies of scale mean that many small companies can't compete, but not because they lack innovation, more because they lack the billions of dollars it takes to compete, as in the case of Tesla Motors. StuRat (talk) 03:39, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

The big media companies were pushing for single-play tapes like Cartrivision. Even then there was trepidation. I can't find it at the moment, but there was once an article on Wired that mentioned that TV execs were shocked by the idea that someone could rent a movie ... and then invite as many friends over as he wanted to view it! All without paying extra for the additional viewers. 74.113.53.42 (talk) 19:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you all. It's amazing to think that Universal started its legal battle right around the same time that Fox was licensing its films to Magnetic Video, and a mere three years before Fox simply bought the company and turned a huge profit.

It's tempting to suppose that the Universal execs would have seen this, smacked their foreheads, and said "We should do that, too bad we're in a legal mess that won't get resolved until 1984 or so." But no -- it looks like they earnestly desired to kill videotaping altogether, and they really could have, by a single-justice margin. (Then again, I guess doing that would at least have hurt Fox, which could amount to the same profit for Universal, perhaps.)

I wonder if anyone has worked out what would have happened if the case had gone the other way. Would video-recording technology be essentially illegal? Would there be a massive underground American market for VCRs and tapes for the subsequent generation or two? Would TV studios eventually smell the profit potential and try somehow getting the decision reversed? Wild stuff. Thanks again, everyone. ± Lenoxus (" *** ") 03:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Stock scream sounds in lower budget horror movies

So a lot of times when I'm watching low-budget horror and thriller films (like those made by The Asylum), I'll hear these same cheesy stock screams that I know have been around since the 90's or 80's. Regrettably, I don't have videos I can link to, but if anyone knows what I'm referring to, could they give me the industry name for these? There has to be one for people to use them so often. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 14 Tevet 5775 19:53, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

@Flinders Petrie: The main subject would probably be stock sound effect. Within that, there are some that are particularly well-known like the Wilhelm scream or Goofy holler. Following the links from the former leads to a few others and I found this page at TVTropes.org dedicated to the subject. I'd love to see a site that indexes audio clips, origins, and instances if you come across one :) --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! That definitely helps. The Howie scream is another one I was thinking of. I read on a site linked at Howie Scream that it and the Wilhelm Scream are two of 15 typical scream stock effects, but most of them don't have names. Needless to say those two have more corn than the state of Iowa and are the product of in-jokes, but there's got to be a site for them, indeed. I mean where else do independent film-makers get them? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 14 Tevet 5775 20:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, the Wilhelm scream was part of the Warner Bros. sound library, so presumably a film maker would need to pay to access samples from Warner. I don't know what the sound analog to Getty images is, but there must be something like that that small film makers can buy rights from. In the internet era, sounddogs is a place that will sell rights to sound clips for commercial purposes. This search on their site lists 125 vocal screams, ranging in price from $1-6 [1]. On the free/open side, there's freesound.org [2] and public domain sounds [3]. Of course a Foley_(filmmaking) can also make up new sound effects that they own the rights to. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, the BBC some years ago issued a quite extensive series of LPs with themed sound effects, background noises, etc. One I have is called something like "More Shock and Horror, Volume 2" (being at the Office, I can't check) and has a variety of screams on it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 14:18, 6 January 2015 (UTC)