Summer is here once again, and if scientists measuring climate change have any credibility, we can expect summer days and nights to get hotter. That means staying indoors and watching more TV. And if you’re in a family with more than one member, your preference for Animal Planet or Taiwanese martial art puppetry channels will inevitably be overruled in favor of a talkshow or variety show.
What you’ll notice as you surf from a variety show to a talkshow is that there is a constant stream of live sound effects, and that they are quite interchangeable from program to program, channel to channel.
How does that work?
It’s as if there are one or two guys cornering the market with their little machines — moving from gig to gig at different studios.
Trust me, dear reader, I’ve seen one of these guys at work in my travels through the Taiwanese media dungeon, and he’s just as you imagine him. Mid-30s to mid-40s, neither handsome nor ugly, neither short nor tall, neither fat nor thin. His expression is completely blank. He doesn’t look bored, or excited, or tired, or alert. He pushes his buttons and fiddles with his knobs — and he’s impassive.
He’s a bit like the protagonist of the novel Perfume by Patrick Süskind: He has no natural bodily odor or any other remarkable feature. To notice him, you must run smack into him by accident — or trip over the wiring of his machine. Otherwise, you will never be aware of his existence except for the tddl-tddl-bhhrrr, weeeggghh-prrtzzzssss and thonkathonkathonka in your headphones.
His selection of noises and piano-type riffs follows conversation cues, and the whole process becomes obvious and predictable moments after you start listening for them. This guy does this for hours and hours a day, every day.
I never had the chance to ask the nondescript fellow I saw at one TV studio about just how one gets into the live sound effects caper. So let me speak for him: You go to the job interview and the TV executive says: “I’m going to play this video of one of our shows, and I want you to make the appropriate noises.”
After the test you find out you didn’t get the job, because when the dumb starlet made an accidentally ribald comment, you wuhp-wuhp-wuhped and tdl-tdl-tdl-ching!ed when you should have boing-boing-boinged and finished her off with a Csshhhh. Dumbass.
Because they’re so mechanical and formulaic, the sound effects tend to disappear after a while. They become part of the set design — located slightly to the side of or beneath your conscious perception.
But the noises still tend to prod you into responding in a certain way — and tend to obstruct interviewees or variety show guests if they switch off their hysteria-tainted celebrity demeanor for just a damn moment to offer a genuine emotional insight.
The worst manifestation of this is those interviews where the host milks tears out of guests over some family tragedy or nightmare divorce. Suddenly the Weeeee!! and the Dang-dang-dang are replaced by mushy, over-amplified stringed library music.
When that happens — and it happens a lot — I feel like kicking the TV in and throwing it from the roof of Neihu Towers. Hey, credulous TV show guest, the producers are taking the piss out of your hardship. Storm out of the studio or forever be held in contempt!
Oh ... you’re being paid NT$10,000 to blub on camera. And you do it every few months. Be held in contempt, then.
Where are my pills?
Anyway, I can only assume that there are youngsters all around the country who are aspiring to have clunking and whizzing noises serve as their point of entry into the industry. But with the market in the hands of a cartel of two or three professional impassives and little new investment on the horizon in these tough economic years, old Johnny suggests that we expand the reach of this media tool to normal news.
Picture it and hear it.
“Leading the bulletin today: President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in a speech on Thursday to the nation’s armed forces, urged soldiers to be fit and honest. In a likely reference to the promotion schedule of his predecessor, he said: ‘The stars on your shoulders represent your country and honor. … They cannot be illegally obtained or abused, or their radiance would become clouded.’”
Boing boing boing.
“Yesterday the president launched his campaign for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman. He will be the only contestant after a deal was struck with outgoing Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) to vacate the post. As he registered to run in the race at party headquarters, Ma said: ‘We won’t be running any profit-making businesses in future, but we will protect the rights of current employees and retired staffers. Future campaign expenses will mainly come from fundraising.’”
Eeeeeeehhhhhh?? Ferrr-krchh.
“Meanwhile, Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) told a press conference on Tuesday that educating students in moral fortitude and ‘good taste’ in a new and expensive campaign was a worthy endeavor and that a budget of millions of NT dollars for the program was justifiable. ‘It is necessary, as long as the money is well-spent,’ he said.”
Wuhp-wuhp-wuhp-wuuuuhp.
“Criticizing the campaign on Sunday, National Teachers Association president Kevin Wu (吳忠泰) said that ‘only a communist country would push such a large-scale transformation movement.’”
Foiiiish-kerching. Pttthhht.
“Also on Tuesday, over at the ROC Council for Industrial and Commercial Development, Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) turned on critics of the government’s cross-strait trade policy. ‘Taiwan’s best market opportunities are on mainland China,’ he said. ‘Why should it fear being tagged with the ‘one China’ label?’ he asked, suggesting Taiwanese should get their priorities straight.”
Brrhhsshh guk-guk-guk.
“Entertainment now, and sultry Taiwanese actress Su Chi (舒淇) has single-handedly launched interest among single women in traveling to China to snap up gormless Chinese grooms after her performance in If You Are The One, in which she romances prize doofus Ge You (葛優).”
Woooooww!!
“And to sports. Wang Chien-ming (王建民) threw another crap game, this time against the Braves, to go 0-6 for the season. New York Yankees management denied a rumor that a despairing Wang would return to Taiwan to manage Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) struggling city government baseball side.”
Weeeeeeeee!
You get the idea. I expect to see a new listing very soon on the Web site of labor broker 111111111111 Job Bank for live sound effect technicians. And if I don’t see the words “Growing industry” and “unbeatable opportunity” in flashing red capital letters, I’ll be most disappointed.
Some of you might be tempted to liken this sound effects regime to the canned-laughter tracks typical of unfunny sitcoms in the West.
This is unkind. The fact is, my sound effect-producing comrades have to work a lot harder. And they have a much more intimidating taxi cab tab.
On the other hand, there was a time when US sitcoms — such as the classic Good Times and Welcome Back, Kotter — were filmed before live studio audiences. The spontaneity and energy that this produced will never be matched by a guy with a jumped-up beatbox — or the wide-eyed blank sheets of paper that we call a studio audience in my beloved country.
Boing boing boing.
Got something to tell Johnny? Get it off your chest: Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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