Klarinet Archive - Posting 000270.txt from 2002/07

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Contrabass Clarinets? **
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 13:44:32 -0400

"Pastor Luby D. Jackson III" wrote,
>I want to know why this thing is a weapon.>

It isn't really a weapon. Someone on this list said that, in the TV
advertisements for the science fiction movie "Men in Black II," it looks as
if maybe the movie-makers used metal countrabass clarinets as raw material
for manufacturing some of the imitation guns used as props in filming the
movie. The contrabass clarinet is a long, curved tube of metal, so maybe the
cheapest, fastest way to make a convincing-looking toy weapon might be to get
an old, worn-out contrabass clarinet that can't be played any more, and then
disguise it, by taking off keys and adding a grip, a trigger, and other
things that make it look less like a musical instrument and more like a gun.

Often, people who make movie props save money by starting out with
unusual-looking objects that they hope most of us in the audience wouldn't
recognize, because when we do recognize what a prop really is, usually we
laugh. If you ever watch the earliest re-runs of the TV show, "Dr. Who,"
when the evil Daleks zoom around screaming, "Exterminate! Exterminate!" the
reason their "weapons" look so much like toilet plungers is because the prop
weapons really are made out of toilet plungers, painted with metallic paint!
The people who made the earliest episodes of "Dr. Who" back in the 1960s
could only afford very cheap props. The people who made "Men in Black" this
year had a much bigger budget, so they could afford to make an imitation gun
out of something that looks more convincing than a toilet plunger.

Probably not many people in a movie audience play the clarinet. Only a
musician who pays special attention to clarinets will know what a metal
contrabass clarinet looks like, so the manufacturer of props cabn get away
with using one as a money-saving shortcut, without everybody in the audience
recognizing it when they see it on the screen. I haven't seen the movie yet
and I don't know whether the props dept. really did use contrabass clarinets
to make their fake science fiction weapons, but it would be a clever idea!

Lelia
LeliaLoban@-----.com

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