The clips of the director saying "no one asked him to do it" to hugh jackman saying "he asked me to look unrecognizable" are hilariously next to each other
it honestly kinda makes everyone look SUPER suspicious at this point, i'm not gonna rule out tomothy here doing some super weird pressuring on his actors to do harmful shit (like what happened with anne hathaway's weight loss and on-camera haircut)
@@ohwellwhateverr There's nothing inherently harmful about getting a haircut, yes, you're right. Congrats. But it does make it very demanding for the sake of "realism". It's kinda degrading, lasts for (obviously) a lot longer than just doing it fake, and means you basically get one take which is a lot of pressure on everyone involved. All in all, while it's not the worst thing by a mile, it's just... not necessary?
@@Charbified fucking THANK YOU it's also on camera, meaning whatever degradation would be there is gonna be shown around in theatres and shit, it's not something you'd just *do* on a whim, and i doubt it was against her will or anything, but it really just highlights the way the producers saw their actors in that movie. Especially when beauty standards and shit in hollywood, mainstream media, etc, for women especially, and concerning their hair, i doubt it would have been all that pleasant, and there's a hundred ways to get the same effect without degrading your performers.
Maybe he could have lost some weight, jacked himself up and not dehydrated himself? Prisoners back in those days would have been drinking water. And there's a difference between the look of a bodybuilder's body and a guy who does a lot of hard labour on low rations all day, so it probably didn't even look that accurate.
When I'm doing an hour of PRACTICE I drink at least 4 bottles throughout to keep myself sounding even vaguely presentable. I also gasped and clutched my throat in solidarity
If singing for 8 hours a day can ruin your voice box, then playing a stringed instrument for the same amount every day will absolutely shred your wrists. The bass and cello players must have been on fire
I played violin from late elementary to early high school. The wrists won't just be on fire, so will the entire goddamn hands, backs, and rears. Oh and arms! Playing for 2 consecutive hours was always hard for me but I managed to push through. I can't imagine 3 without breaks in between. Those poor musicians most likely had something damaged by the end of their recording
@@sunchasericeserawings7166 The butt and back was worst for me. Literally no breaks in between playing to lay back made my back try to kill itself. Worse was we sat on those metal folding chairs so our tail bone and hips literally die inside. I think I’ll die at 30 because a clot that built up from my performances will come loose and block my heart.
@@themanwithallthewrongopini3551 oof. Yeah as I'm older with a back and tailbone injury I think those would kill me more nowadays. Good goddess... I feel so bad for all these musicians
@@sunchasericeserawings7166 I was lucky to have a front row seat to see Ben Folds performing with YMusic. The violinist played with her whole body so much so that her hair was swinging about. She must have gotten completely exhausted but she gave that violin LIFE!
Having the band going so many hours without breaks is terrifying. Ive only ever played lighter instruments (my specialties are flute and violin) and going for a few hours in band practice without breaks kills my muscles. *EIGHT HOURS* is insane I feel so bad for them especially those with heavier instruments. Their whole bodies would be in serious pain for literal days.
@@shammyturtle9741 exactly. It’s insane to imagine going for eight whole hours. Three is insanely painful. I can’t even picture how much pain those guys were in.
I have actually played for 8+ hours in high school for honor bands, but I had breaks in between. I play clarinet, and even that little thing had me in pain. My hands ached and my thumb was rubbed so raw I had to ice it on break. My lips were so damn puffy from constant playing, and my jaw was off for a week. Even my back and chest hurt. When we got the chance to get up and walk around I bolt up almost immediately. I've also sang for ridiculously long rehearsals and even that sucks. Breaks are needed if you want top quality performances.
I practice a guitar solo for 10 minutes and my fingies hurt… and these guys were playing trombones and cellos and clariners for 8 HOURS straight… God on high that’s employee abuse.
Actors are professional vocalists...and speech arts is a real discipline of study. I once saw Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen perform a play without amplification, and I could hear everything from the back row. They are pro stage actors who know how to project without injury. Similarly, Audra McDonald did a show as Billie Holliday, in vocal fry for the whole show run. No injuries. She's a master, who knows how to manage the task in a healthy way for her voice. My guess is that Anne Hathaway has this type of skill. She makes the sounds in that song without straining her voice like a layperson would...said layperson would probably do far more vocal work than was necessary to produce those sounds. Likewise, a professional pianist isn't really working all that hard, physically, because they've taught themselves a certain economy of motion while accomplishing physical tasks which amateurs haven't internalized yet and thus overdo.
@@ivorytickler7777 Audra McDonald is a _goddess!!!_ Knowing how she usually sounds, when I saw the Billie Holiday performance, I couldn't help wondering whether (metaphorically) making a clarinet sound like a muted trumpet...caused her discomfort. However, as you say, there are techniques by which professionals avoid discomfort (or damage) that laypersons might otherwise incur. Death Metal vocalists and professional voice actors would all have very short careers without such tricks of the trade. Having said that, not all professional actors are _singers_ (or dancers for that matter), especially if they have specifically focused their attention on film. (I'm lookin' at you, Russell Crowe!) There's is an added degree of difficulty in Musical Theater that most people simply don't appreciate, largely because people like Audra McDonald make it look so easy. With all this in mind, I think your final paragraph is spot-on; especially considering that Anne Hathaway nailed _I Dreamed A Dream_ on the fourth take.
the fact that this train wreck was Redmayne’s first vocal performance and years later he was cast as Emcee in Cabaret and slayed it so hard he won Olivier in Best Actor in Musical for it is mind blowing to me
He was so good that when he first appeared I was like, “Oh, finally! At least they brought *someone* in from musical theatre!” (I had never heard of him before).
I remember when it was just released people were questioning the non famous names in the cast, if they could perform. And then there was a video of just a sound of Eddie Redmayne singing Ave Maria and it was so good and people were like yup, I think he would be a good Marius. I try to search it again around here but I couldn't find it anymore.
I’m not even a vocalist, but hearing about Hugh Jackman not drinking water for 36 hours before shooting actually put me into shock! How did anyone on set let that happen? I can’t even imagine how that must have felt trying to sing with his throat being that dry!
Well the thing with specifically Jackman is that it isn’t new to him- actors playing superheroes are often asked to dehydrate for a stupid amount of time because it makes the muscles pop out better or something. Doesn’t excuse it and actually is emblematic of some bigger stuff, but for him specifically it wasn’t super new.
This director's actions were bordering on criminal. My sister's singing teacher could only speak in a whisper. His voice was completely destroyed by doing one performance with a slight cold. Damaging your voice is a real thing.
see this is what broadway does to actors too though. making them work through colds and shit because it’s tony season, it shocks me how little vocal damage has happened…
Brian Molko did this at Cardiff CIA a few years ago, tried to perform Placebo's greatest hits with essentially the middle aged man level of freshers flu. I was there. It was sad. He spent months with an ENT having surgeries afterwards... we're going back to see them again soon and hoping the battle to save his voice was worth it.
I've had my voice completely collapse during a stage performance... it turned me off of musical theatre forever honestly.... all because I was forced... FORCED into singing in a register that my voice wasn't made for at all, I'm a low tenor, higher end bass singer, they expected me to hit notes meant for a female vocalist and I did and it hurt so much that my voice died on stage, completely, in the middle of the show, couldn't make a sound, couldn't speak a word and somehow that was MY fault.
Fun Fact: Before the pandemic, I was in a lot of musicals. Most recently Grizabella in Cats. I had a hard time projecting Memories, so my vocal coach told me to practice normally, but on my back so I would get used to taking in bigger breaths of air. So when it came time to perform, I had trained myself into breathing in more air than necessary, so I was able to project better. I *highly* recommenced this technique if you're having trouble projecting.
my first voice lesson with my voice teacher back in high school consisted entirely of me doing breathing exercises on my back to get used to it. And singing on back helps immensely as well. (as long as you're straight and flat)
I play the flute and for us too hydration is important. Your playing will suck and sound horrible if your mouth is dry = not enough saliva. There is a reason why we clean our mouthpieces well.
I play the Flute and am a Soprano. I can not imagine the amount of carpal tunnel from repeated finger and wrist movements. Not to downplay the orchestra but I'm especially thinking of the piano player. I might be wrong but I don't think they used the whole orchestra for filming days because in the video it said Jackman wasn't listening to that version in his ear to time it. Which would mean the pianist played even more and for longer.
In a graham norton interview Hugh Jackman admitted that when he played Gaston on broadway he literally peed his pants live on stage so he could hit his final note. Hearing he dehydrated himself for valjean is insane. This man once valued both hydration and vocal performance so much that he PISSED HIS PANTS IN FRONT OF A LIVE AUDIENCE.
@@tose917 Who cares man? Seriously. Someone might criticize you for using emojis, and you’re out here critiquing incorrect spelling? Hypocrite; didn’t even spell “forever” right in your own name.
To me it seems his dedication is still there, it just went into prioritizing the acting visuals (often at the expense of vocal performance, as the video shows).
@@CaptPhiI yeah true, I actually think that the movie had good acting, with good facial expressions that added depth to the story. Despite that, the singing is clearly not up to standard, as are a few…other things (cough cough-Javert’s suicide-cough cough).
The way Hollywood treats its actors health and weight is DISGUSTING. The reason Jackman was so casual about literally dehydrating himself is probably because he was USED TO DOING IT in work on other movies. Any time you see an actor with razor sharp cut abs-theyre most definitely dangerously dehydrated. The body needs fat and water.
I would much rather watch a movie with blatant practical/computer effects than know the talent put themselves in serious danger to achieve a particular look, I tell you what. And Ann Hathaway immediately going on record saying "*This was not impressive, I did to look like I was dying, don't do this*" and directors still demand dangerous crap... disgusting.
I would agree but you can also give up the roles for YOUR own health. As adults we like to blame other things for issues we’ve caused for ourselves. I don’t think ANYONE should starve themselves, dehydrate themselves, harm themselves FOR ANY REASON let alone a role but if you do it anyways… knowing better… uhhhh I think both the actor and the directors are to blame, not just one. This does not go for child actors though.
@@bunniesinatrenchcoat1809 Since it's currently an industry norm, actors don't really have a choice with this. It's like poor conditions for factory workers in sweatshops or the industrial revolution, if you're unwilling to put up with this treatment someone else will be more than willing to take your place and your paycheck.
I remember watching half of the Les Mis movie on Netflix and I thought it was pretty good. A few months later I watched Les Mis at a huge theatre near me and I was blown away, I loved it and it was actually great. Then I finished the Les MIs movie and I felt disappointed because the musical was just so so good I couldn’t watch the movie and pretend it was decent. Like the musical was so good to me at the end I started clapping so hard my mom thought i was clapping for one of the hot actors. When that kid died I teared up, when the kid died in the movie I just felt nothing. The musical is 1000x better than the movie and now I understand why people trashed on the movie so much.
To this day I have never watched the full movie, even though I love Les Miserables; it was the first musical I ever saw. I read the book as well and watched the BBC film adaptation multiple times. This movie just offends my sensibilities. Of course, Samantha Barks knocks it out of the park but she is the only thing I can appreciate in this disaster.
the movie was my first exposure to Les Mis. when I saw it, my first reaction was "so this is the musical that everyone loves so much? it's kinda meh" then I went and saw a stage production at a local theater. it BLEW ME AWAY. I was so touched by the story and emotion. I cried so hard at multiple points, that after it was done, the person I saw it with had to ask if I was ok. I haven't seen the movie again since then, but I have seen this video about a dozen times, and that's about enough for me lol.
I actually watched the movie first, and was like meh about it, couldn't see why it was an award winning musical. Years later I watched the 10th anniversary theatre version and was blown. Away. It made me, an atheist, have a religious experience at the line 'to love another is to see the face of God'. And this video laid it all out so clearly why the disparity is huge! Phantom of the opera (25th anniversary) and Les Mis (10th anniversary) are now my top two musicals ❤️
Being inhumane to your cast is not a ‘sacrifice for the art’ it doesn’t matter if you pay them 500 million dollars, it’s abuse from an employer. The oscars awarding this is so repulsive it makes my skin crawl.
Right?! It's this behaviour that led to Leonardo Di Caprio in the Revenant. Fine, he did a great job, but when you get to this point, is it even acting? No disrespect meant to Leo or Annie or anyone else, I really like them both. But aren't those specific Oscars for the best acting performance? I'm sure anyone can react in horror to having their head shaved and wading in the mire to reach an uncomfortable bath all the while trying to sing thirsty and tired. Or go through the awfulness of the plot of the Revenant and look like you're having an awful time. It sounds mean and I again, I don't mean to denigrate them (it is surely on the directors in most cases)... But they could just actually act it without having to actually bear the pain of it. Leo didn't die of hypothermia and drowning in Titanic, but then if he did tbf maybe he would've won an Oscar then? You're right that this system just leads to more and more actors flagellating themselves for roles and then for awards prestige which then leads to more roles and prestige. For example, Christian Bale's body must be a wreck! Reminds me of how Henry Cavill has to dehydrate himself for days in the same way as Hugh for his shirtless scenes in The Witcher. It's not healthy and doesn't it kind of ruin it on rewatches to know that they were suffering? Let them act!
@@richardbourton4523 I don't see anything wrong with suffering for your art. The Revenant will be remembered as one of Leo's best roles and for good reason. I do think the Oscars is a joke though. Some of what makes certain actors so damn impressive is their dedication to their craft. It comes down to the question of, would you rather be healthy or interesting.
@@Daniel-cw5yv Healthy and interesting should be rewarded by the Oscars, not just interesting. They're the Oscars for a reason, they should be able to find a film which can do both.
I mean, I still have respect for Tom Hanks' preparation for Castaway, and some people say that playing Joker lead to Heath Ledger's death (personally I would say unless you're a psychologist don't make claims like that), but the thing is, no one should be _forced_ to do anything like that. Sure, it lead to some great performances, but part of that was it being at least somewhat voluntary.
What’s sad is that if they were all actually hydrated and healthy, and properly vocally trained they all could’ve blown this thing out of the water. It’s incredible the difference you hear with Crowe, Hackman and Hathaway when they are in a proper state of health. Too bad it wasn’t filmed that way
Hathaway especially! It’s not that her voice itself is bad during the movie, it’s that her singing voice barely makes an appearance. It’s honestly so sad that she has such a pretty voice but ended up doing the weird half-spoken sob-singing thing.
Polly Sage i never said I hated it lmao. I like the movie lmao. I said the singing sucked in many parts. But the performances from the holy trinity is really what made it for me. Of course, I was only ten during the movie and was star struck regardless so I mean I didn’t really look deeper into this until seeing this video
I feel like one underrated problem with recording the movie like this is like... I don't care how good of an actor you are, you CANNOT escape the inherent, crushing awkwardness of singing at another person passionately on a silent set. Like. In the theatre there are people in the audience, the orchestra is with you etc etc. I cannot imagine just singing in a vaccuum, that sounds like a horrible experience.
Im learning to get better at it and it feels 100x harder to do it without a backing track, I cant imagine how hard it was for them at least give them an ear piece.
I can’t remember if this is shown in the video but the actors had earpieces where they could hear the piano backing being played, so it wouldn’t have been singing in a vacuum to them, it’s in another BTS video
@@Justice237 Piano is just one instrument and depending on what other instruments are playing you might have have to project more (ik they have throat mics and it's mixed in post, but you still don't get the same effect from just editing it louder) and you can still miss cues like the jobert scene.
The Second French Revolution took place in 1832, when Victor Hugo published the Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's kind of thematic to Hugo's life, as he wrote Les Mis almost 30 years after he wrote Hunchback, and set it to the same time when he published the latter book. Hunchback is actually pretty miserable, and even though Les Miserables had a happy ending, I think it would have worked better if it was published in 1832 instead of Hunchback.
"I didn't tell Hugh to do it, he wanted to do this for himself" "Hooper told me he wanted me to look unrecognisable. He said if someone does recognise you, I want them to think you're physically ill." Hmmm. Someone's lying here. I wonder who has greater motive to lie about risking his employees health for no reason?
@@laurencummings9560 I'm inclined to think Hooper lied. Simply because he's shown as egotistical in trying to completely remodel two beloved highly successful musicals. Maybe i'm creating non existent threads here, but it does seem far off from something he'd do.
@@laurencummings9560 Well. At the end of the day, it's the director's job to direct the actors. So, I still say it would've been his responsibility at the end of the day.
So. If Hooper isn't lying. He could've still told him not to do it. He is the director, and Jackman would've had to listen. So, no matter how you look at it, Hooper looks incredibly bad and incompetent as a director for allowing this to happen.
@@laurencummings9560 That's entirely possible, but honestly, even if he's not lying I don't know how much it matters. The fact that Hooper found out his lead in a musical was deliberately dehydrating himself, and he DIDN'T respond "I appreciate your dedication but that's a massive risk to your health, and also your livelihood because you're an actor and if you ruin your voice that'll be bad for your career, and even if I'm just being completely selfish it will also do terrible things to your singing, so PLEASE make sure you're drinking plenty of water" is bad enough.
i am SO over this narrative of the more you “suffer” for a performance, the “better” it is. like working through pain = working hard, or something. it reminds me of the narrative that u have to “suffer” through something awful-grief, mental illness, etc-in order for your art to be good, so people should lean in to pain or not seek help, when that is the opposite of productive. UGH
I think it's a dangerous idea, that pain=greatness. Not to mention, kind of stupid. By this logic torture victims should be topping the bestsellers and awards lists. Oddly enough, no one has tried to test out my "Being tortured makes you a great artist theory." It reminds me of the make work fallacy, that people used to be better because they suffered more. Oddly enough not many people are volunteering to live medieval in the western world.
You might want to check out this great video essay on Method Acting by Broey Deschanel, it goes into a lot the problems with the suffering = art mentality ruclips.net/video/AVWGyuBFgzw/видео.html
Reminds me of that wrestling video with the empty arena where Bray Wyatt monologues at John Cena and it's dead quiet, and suddenly wrestling taunts turn into a soliloquy from a conceptual play, and John looks sooo uncomfortable
"After 10 hours, they found their reserves. And they got it." Me, a former glockenspiel player: No, they hate-played and hit every note with exact, exhausted force. Those players likely entered a realm of discomfort we mere mortals can never understand.
@@Goblinoiddoof string players have the anger to fight god and will win because they have the final reserves stamina to keep going when God's exhausted
One example I could think of: Bob Bryar on This Is How I Disappear from MCR´s The Black Parade. After God-knows-how-many-takes you could hear on the final recording how he just wants to murder the drumkit.
Man, the corners of my lips would’ve been sore after *one* hour (I used to play trumpet) playing around the Middle C (ie *not as strenuous on your muscles*)
I'm only a vocal student going through training. But this entire video felt like I was getting repeatedly slapped across the face with how many questionable and downright harmful decisions were made.
Samantha Barks is one of the very few who came fully prepared, understood the assignment and still managed to jump through whatever hoops the director decided to pick up that day. She's just pure talent.
Colm Wilkinson as well, and I suppose Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen did a better job than most although not as good as the musical in anyway.
While I agree with the gist of what you're saying, it's likely less about "pure talent" and more simply because she knew both the role and the show (and how the music actually works in the show) inside out, having done it onstage a number of times by the time she was cast in the film, and thus didn't feel the need to needlessly muck around with it as much as *some* people (coughHughJackmancough). Praising someone for being talented is good and all, but it's also good to actually recognise and respect the years of dedicated work they put into it on top of that.
My marching band in high school was very competitive, and my director used to tell us that if our pee wasn’t clear we weren’t drinking enough and were letting the other members down lol
I didn't understand how bad this was until he compared it to how bad the orchestra was treated, I play saxophone, and can barely handle one hour of constant play
pros are trained for long days but for wind players (i’m a clarinettist) i can’t imagine that their embouchure will have held up perfectly. they train for stamina though!
@@xx_izzyxx2250 But for 10 hours straight?? Constantly, to the point where they are begging for a 2 minute break? That could have crippled their professional music career. They were not paid enough for that.
@@xx_izzyxx2250 Orchestras are NOT paid to play 'performance' level for multiple hours on end. Sure, they may PRACTICE for hours on end, but its often at a significantly reduced strain. They had to go all out for hours.
Yeah I also thought this- he was a choral scholar through school and then also at Trinity college Cambridge, so he actually had a pretty rigorous background
Jackman's dehydration and Hathaway's weight loss reminds of what Laurence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman when Hoffman told Olivier that he (Hoffman) was depriving himself of sleep for the filming of "Marathon Man" (1976) -- "Why not try acting? It's much easier."
Yeah, actors shouldn't have to sacrifice their health for a performance. If anything they should make sure to be well rested, fed and hydtrated so that they can do their job to the best of their ability.
@@henrikibsen6258 She is, but losing a lot of weight in a short amount of time is just incredibly dangerous. It's affects not only your physical health but also your mental health. This upsets me personally because I had an ED in the past and I know what it's like to be severely underweight. I can't condone anyone putting themselves in that kind of state on purpose, no matter how professional they are.
@@jimmunster57 a-and? For a professional musician, getting hurt permanently as a result of playing music (which often results in never being able to play that instrument at a professional level again) would be a death sentence for their career and rob them of a skill they've built up with thousands of practice hours over the course of decades. How many millions per member of the orchestra would the company have to dish out to sufficiently compensate for that risk? I don't think there's any amount of money in the world that can make up for such a loss.
The fact that Hooper - through his approach - is basically insulting every musical stage performer (musical OR opera) by implying that because they rehearse their singing and then perform the music as it's supposed to be that their performances are less authentic
What drives me insane is that people have literally said that to me; that stage performances are not as “real” because it sounds too good. I hate hearing it so much and so many of my friends have said it to me.
It's such a weird take, because by the nature of a musical, if you're sacrificing the music for the acting, then that's not a good performance, it's an inherently bad one? That IS the performance. Why did they even want to make a musical? They could have just adapted the book with their all star cast, and nothing would have to suffer? I get that they made Cats afterwards ppbecause this film did well, but as a first step, why make a musical if you're not comfortable with how the singing somehow 'compromises the acting performance'?
@@lokiawriter8077 omg that's the *worst* wth?? Of Course stage performers endeavour to sound as perfect as possible - that's what makes them *professionals* that are performing their *job*?? I think the fact that so many people consider 'singing as a hobby' and 'singing as a profession' as pretty much the same really makes this sort of attitude worse and worse. Especially with the amount of TV singing competitions they really don't understand that musical/opera work from a very different technical standpoint (flashback to every time I told people I'm doing professional singing lessons and getting a shrug, but then receiving an 'ohh so impressive' for me also doing Cello - despite my cello skills being like... actual literal miles worse than my singing)..
@@richardbourton4523 I assume it's because nobody really knows the book, so the "money" was considered to be in the musical, but yeah they probably could have come out with a better product considering
Even for my shows in high school we were constantly told to break for water and talked through when in the performance we could have a drink, we didn't have dairy or sugar (where possible) in the weeks leading up to the show, and we were marking in our dress rehearsals. Everyone did fifteen minutes of warm-up together, and leads were encouraged to do some in their own time. We had honey-lemon drinks and the best sleep possible. Dehydrating yourself before shows is the most stupid thing I've ever heard - even the nine and ten year olds joining from the junior school were looking after themselves better than professional singers in professional productions. Holy shit.
He's right about the live recording part. Movie stans are ignoring the most important point so they can gush about their baby but the amount of time you perform vs rest is ENTIRELY different between stage and film. Movie musicals tend to have prerecorded vocals for a REASON
I gotta say I never considered it when I first saw the movie when I was younger, but now I’m horrified at the pure exhaustion having to sing live for multiple takes daily must’ve been
@@infinitusfinitus It means that they're good enough to pull off cry-singing, even though by crying they're risking a dozen moments of screwing over their own entire performance. It's like being able to race a VWBeetle. Yeah it takes a bunch of skill, props for doing it twice, but please don't make it your primary mode of performance
@@QuikVidGuy - nah I think Sideways' comment is in reference to the not-so-subtle but friendly competitiveness between those who play instruments and those who sing. The orchestra conductor would always joke with us when we, the chorus, would join the orchestra for rehearsal and he'd say "Musicians!" but only in reference to the orchestra and he'd call the rest of us "singers" implying that singers were not actual musicians. It's a joke that continues with every generation.
Eddie Redmayne is a wonderful singer. But it's clear that he's in no way a natural Tenor. More like a Baritone, maybe Bass-Baritone. But the key wasn't changed, and now everyone's made fun of him so much that, despite his music background, he's scared to do another musical. Poor guy.
marius... isn't even a tenor. he's a high baritone (i think his range is like... a2 to g or a4 which is entirely doable for a sufficiently high baritone - i'm a baritone and that's doable for me), but he's definitely a baritone. if eddie IS a baritone then he's definitely one who's scared of high notes but you see that A Lot with not hugely trained baritones.
yes truth. Its the same as Russel Crowe. Javert is a bass to seem menacing. Look at phillip quast performance. Those low notes cant be hit by a tired Crowe
@@sungod1384 yeah, crowe certainly kind of gets the low f in the confrontation but not with any sense of like. confidence or gravity. i get that javert isn't usually cast on the strength of his low range but at least make sure he CAN do it
I'm in shock that anyone could think that 36 hours of dehydration could ever be a good thing BEFORE A LIVE VOCAL PERFORMANCE. Were there no music directors or vocal coaches nearby to say, "Actually, no, Hugh. Please don't do that" ??
@@gabrielleporter553 It doesn't matter what I promote. We live in a capitalist society. Viewership will drop if Thor isn't as ripped. No one will be able to make a compelling argument that he's actually healthier, and should thus be seen more often. Dehydrating for a day is fine. 36 hours is a bit extreme.
Fun Fact that makes me tear my hair out: Alfie Boe (Valjean in the concert clips Sideways shows) auditioned to reprise that role in the movie and he lost to Jackman.
that remind me of Jeremy Jordan auditioning for the same role as Zac Efron in the Greatest Showman and singing through the entire musical score for him to then be told no.
@@laurahenderson4528 Jeremy did the whole demo recording! And then Hugh lost his voice when they were going to put it on in New York for producers, and they asked Jeremy to go and sing off stage while Hugh lip-synced. And they STILL didn't cast him!!!
not giving hugh jackman the prompts for ripping the paper is stupid enough... even dumber when you see he first tears it _as he starts singing the note_ - mate, if you have watched literally ANY OTHER VERSION of this scene you will know to wait before that. it doesn't start there. hugh, what are you - oh - hugh, no, you - he - he has his set deafened, he can't hear us!
The fact that Hugh Jackman went from THIS to his performance in The Greatest Showman is one of the best points to be made here! That jump in quality is what happens when your performers are actually HYDRATED AND HEALTHY!
Hugh's passion gets the better of him when it comes to musicals. When they did the rehearsal for investors he wasn't supposed to sing due to surgery but he ended up doing it anyway because he got caught by the energy in the room. He needs a good director to nudge him on the right path.
@@SquareViking I don't think he understands that there's a difference between sacrificing and putting your all into a role and just being void of logic.
I will give Crowe this, that line of “How many times does a bloke need to die in a given day?” Made me chuckle. It’s the kinda joke you always hear in theater and stage.
@@ihatemyname2816 I don’t think that was acting. Crowe might’ve just collapsed from exhaustion. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took a nap on that mat. 😜
@@stingerjohnny9951 To be honest, after the brutal regime everyone had to go through with filming I can't say I'd be surprised if he *did* collapse from exhaustion...
I was in the musical 9 preforming as Young Guido once and the near suicide scene before my solo took so long to perfect I just kept watching this poor guy nearly shoot himself over and over again while I just stood at the side waiting to come in like 🧍♂️ Also, random note, for the production we put the mics in high durability condoms to protect them and it almost fell out of my pocket onstage
so, like, I know Sideways dosen't really do content anymore, which sucks but if that's what's healthy, I'm glad, but I wanted to say that I'm an engineering student who knows NOTHING about music to the point where I have trouble identifying a leitmotif because I don't always hear when music is simaler. I'm getting better at it but it's ONLY because Sideways helped show me the importance of music in storytelling. My mom worked in the opera and ballet but 30 years, and although my artistic talent went into design work and mechanics rather than hair and makeup, I still think theater is REALLY COOL! so I showed her this and it was the most fun I've had with her in ages. She convinced me to Le Mis and we ended up watching the concert version because I'd only ever seen the movie (my sister insisted on watching it during her musical phase). it was amazing, I know this is about to sound like "STEM major discovers musical theater is good actually" but I know, I've watched musicals before, and I understand that they're really good, I'd just never seen this specific show before lol. anyways, the music was beautiful, the emotional beats hit so much harder when they were reinforced by the musical backing and build up of the uhhh leitmoteifs also Ruthie Henshall's come to me was.... one of the most impressive things I've ever heard, she ends the song by like.... I don't know how to describe it, she like..... gets louder and higher pitched and like quieter at the same time?? like it geneuanly sounds like a trick of the audio or like she's stepping away from the microphone, but she's not, she's doing it with her VOICE and it's HAUNTING, I asked my mom and she kinda laughed at my awe, and said it was "talent" Look, from a pure acting standpoint Come to me might be better in the move, with the tears and emotion and weakness, but that haunting last note will stay with me for a lot longer.
He totally redeemed himself in Greatest Showman. (Mostly "From Now On") I mean, autotune and such but my friend saw The Man, The Show live and she said he was great. So he was obviously just not meant for Les Mis.
He was meant to be 'rawer', grittier here than in The Greatest Showman and this music was recorded directly as performed which I don't think The Greatest Showman was so you can't really compare the two.
@@northernlights9814 but as Sidways pionts out in the video (35:55 is when the part starts), all of the actors were able to do better performances hydrated. Jackman did a better performance outside in the cold rather than what got put in the film.
@@fairyflight8436 I saw that in the video, but I always presume the end product is the choice of the Director of the movie, be it 'artistic' choice or his preferred 'take'. This Director had so much experience from making movies and tv-series that he would not overlook a better 'take'. He made his choice, his preferrance, and we can like it or not.
I mean, it's hilarious that he says that, and then plugs Lindsay Ellis's "Why Cats" video... when she uses that "It's hard to sing/project while sitting down" argument, WHILE USING THAT ANNE HATHAWAY CLIP FROM LES MIS.
There's a RUclips reaction channel that has a guy who gives singing lessons and plays in a band react to music videos. In the video that I saw, which was him and his guitarist reacting to Global Warming by Gojira, he was sitting the entire time and was giving examples of projecting vocals. He had to back away from the mic every time because he would peak the mic when he would sing. So yeah, whoever said you can't project while sitting is lying.
I almost exclusively listen to the original London recording because it’s what I grew up on, but I make an exception for the 10th anniversary concert because it’s amazing
@@writerintherye And it had NO RIGHT to be that way. Realism comes when you focus on developing your characters, stories and plots, not from developing "The right feeling."
I actually gasped when you showed Anne Hathaway actually singing at the end. I'm glad you told her story for why she really wanted to do this role and it kind of makes me feel bad for her now. I listened to the movie soundtrack and had kind of written her off. Now I'm going to go look for her actual vocal performances.
@@antoinettea6179 Pretty much this. There's the distinction that it takes place in France, or has a French theme, vs. the lyrics itself being in French (language). People are aware _Miss Saigon_ takes place in Vietnam, but wouldn't think that its original adaptation is in Vietnamese (it isn't). Or _Cats_ is about a bunch of cats, but its original language isn't some "feline language" (which it also isn't).
Apparently they told Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks and Hadley Fraser to "tone it down" when performing on set in order to make the other cast members sound better.
I had the great, great pleasure of seeing Alfie Boe (the guy potraying Valjean in the 25th anniversary edition you see clips from in this video) portray Valjean on Broadway in 2015 and I was devastated to hear he auditioned for the same part in the movie and didn't get it. I guess star power->vocal power in a MUSICAL.
While I completely agree that it's criminal he didn't get the part, I'm at the very least relieved to know he dodged a bullet given the conditions all of the musicians in this movie endured pfpff
@@jippy33 Honestly, the idea of intentionally depriving oneself of water for the sake of a performance is bad enough, worsened significantly by the idea of someone SINGING under those circumstances. The fact that they say that all so casually and with proud smiles on their faces is HORRIFYING.
If they really wanted to hear more "realistic" performances, they should have had the whole orchestra perform live on set as well, preferably in the rain, deprived of food and water. I'd listen to that version.
Seeing that Jackman dehydrated himself for the role, that Hathaway dropped an almost dangerous amount of weight, AND how long they had to sing straight... jeez it's a wonder that the AD or on-set medic didn't shut down the set for a day, and I honestly wouldn't be shocked if that happened. I've worked sets where crew collapsed from exhaustion and medics forced a shutdown for at least a couple hours. Friends of friends have told me horror stories where CAST collapsed and the show got shut down for a day or more, putting the film in danger of falling behind schedule or over budget. Not only that, but even on longer shoots I've been on (we're talking 20-28 hours here), nobody expects actors or crew to be on top of it at hour 10 or 20 as they are at hour 1 so as a filmmaker this was absolutely HORRIFIC And that bs about the orchestra "finding their reserves" ... wtf man. I play saxophone in a wind ensemble and yeah we practice a lot, but playing at performance level for 10+ hours straight probably killed the woodwinds (at least in my experience), and I wouldn't be surprised if a few reeds were permanently ruined from people biting through their lower lips (yes, that's a thing). And when you hear that trumpet running lines when the one performer is begging for a 2 minute break, it's painful, he sounds soo tired. He sounds like he can't feel his face, which he probably couldn't. This film was a musical disaster from every angle
Yeah, when you're absolutely playing it out as a reed instrument, your teeth press against your lip and they'll cut a groove. That doesn't even count how your facial muscles start to fail after hours. I can't imagine how shitty that was.
Playing an instrument is a workout. How much of a workout it is is going to vary on the song, and on the instrument, but your face muscles aren't designed to exercise for that length of time!
Thank you for including that brief clip of Jackman and Crowe singing live together! I appreciate the redemption and proof they're so much better than what ended up in the film.
@@voguishthrone5887 An experienced singer like Jackman should've known better and Tom Hooper shouldn't have encouraged him. But Hooper isn't musically inclined to know how dangerous that was.
I came across this video where Crowe was singing with Jeff Leyton (who played Valjean on stage before and was one of the Valjean actors who sang "Do You Hear The People Sing?" in the "Les Mis: The Dream Cast in Concert" back in 1995) where they sing "The Confrontation". And honestly, Crowe sounds a lot better. Aside from the fact that he was thankfully not overworked and dehydrated during this time, I have a feeling he asked Leyton for vocal help and he end up singing the song the way it's supposed to be sung, which explains why he sounds a lot better. ruclips.net/video/_AlC__ouuMo/видео.htmlsi=_jJmL55bOPtj1a1M
Yeah...I was in school choir and theatre, and in my area we had an annual festival called All-County Music Festival, where a bunch of kids from the whole county would put together a huge concert after practicing at seperate schools for like a month and as a whole for three days (all day for each of those days, btw, with probably three to five breaks? I can't entirely recall) That festival gave us water bottles for free every year, and for the three days we all rehearsed together we were basically banned from eating dairy, sugar, spicy food, and other such phlegm-makers, and we had to ensure that we got 8 hours of sleep a night and ate three meals a day. And that was for a really low stakes music festival, nothing was hinging on it, we were just doing it for fun and to meet some cool directors (my last concert, I got to be directed by a lovely lady who had performed at Carnegie Hall). And while I play a lot of instruments, I only ever did vocalist's All-County, but I am very familiar with the flow of it. To think that Hollywood actors don't get to or decide not to follow such simple standards to meet is, uh. Concerning.
as a human being this terrifies me. like wtf. I get a headache if I don't drink my three litres over less than a single day. I don't even want to think about the pain those thirty six hours + actually performing would cause me
When I heard what Hugh Jackman dehydrated himself for his performance, I was genuinely horrified. As a vocalist myself, drinking water is SUPER important to me. I've been in a few productions and several concerts, and each time, I go on vocal rest the day before and only drink water. Otherwise, my voice hurts after my performance. I can't imagine performing for hours on end without proper hydration. Given the circumstances, Hugh Jackman is lucky his performance was as good as it was (and let's be honest, it was awful) and that his vocal chords weren't permanently damaged
And the worst part is, as Sideways pointed out, that he did it all to look ripped in a film where he never takes his shirt off, so he just risked permanently ruining his voice for nothing.
I can't believe the cast were even permitted to sing for so long in those conditions/ without any water. As you said, someone could have been seriously hurt. I'm so sick of hearing about actors abusing themselves for roles. There are other, healthier methods of acting than this
That's the sort of thing that gives an actor the role of his lifetime. And it shows on screen, which means that effort is more likely to be rewarded with awards (is it a surprise that DiCaprio got his Oscar with The Revenant rather than with more "comfortable" roles he's had before?). "Healthier methods" just don't make films that are quite as poignant.
Exactly. If filmmakers could use makeup, trick photography, and computer effects to make a horse look abused and emaciated without ever actually hurting the horse (as in the case of Black Beauty, in 1994, in believe), they should be able to do the same to achieve realistic appearances for actors in a major blockbuster in 2012.
I was in pit orchestra for a local production of the show, and the recurring motifs were so fun to play! They're weird rhythms, but they reoccur so many times that you can recognize them on sight and know how they'll fit with the rest of the ensemble. Also the teenagers playing Valjean and Javert absolutely crushed it, The Night was one of my favorite pieces to listen to during the performances- I had almost entirely rests during the song, but the way the lead actor sang it was so gorgeous. I HATED the belting when I finally watched the movie because I was so used to how delicate our actor made the vocals.
I used to sing a ton and this made me go grab several cups of water. jesus fuck that's utterly horrifying to me. It's the same thing as taking a hammer to a brass instrument, you just don't fucking do it.
The problem with crying in film is: you can tell if there are no tears. If you cry on stage, not even the first row will be able to tell if there are actual tears streaming down your face. However, in film you can always tell, bc the camera is obviously much closer to the face than an actual audience would be. So while fake crying on stage might work, it will look really artificial and fake in film. The solution to this is easy. JUST PRERECORD THE DAMN SONGS!
Louis Kirkwood the thing is, recording it live does not have am single advantage. I get that the idea of a musical is to be seen live, but this is not the stage adaption. As someone who is quite familiar with the theater world: Things that work on stage usually don’t work out in film, and singing live is just one of those things. If you’re approaching a movie adaption the same way you’d approach a stage adaption you will fail. It’s a shitty experience for the actors, bc singing 10-12 h a day can damage your vocal chords immensely, wich is something that was described in this video over and over again. The actors can’t show their full potential, bc they have to hold back so they can do the next 20 takes just as well (wich just doesn’t work). Also just bc another director/producer would do it just as badly as what was done here, doesn’t make it any better. Overall this is just overcomplicating things with out having any positiv effects on the movie, the crew or the cast
@Louis Kirkwood It isn't just that the actors had discomfort (which is bad) but that it didn't produce a better product but actually dragged it down. In theatre they make concessions to the performance for the sake of music by getting them to just stand in front of a microphone so it sounds better. In the film they made the opposite concession, making the music worse to get a movie performance with full crying and facial expressions and so on. The thing is if they had studio recording they could have had both. That's what is disappointing for me, that when the goal was "a transcendence to the traditional forms" it instead felt like it was bogged down and stuck in the mud somewhere in between those forms.
I have a friend who works in the movie industry (not as an actor, she's a designer) and one of the most terrifying things she always hears from famous directors is this line: "Pain is temporary. Film is forever."
Jackie Chan said something similar in that manner when got interviewed about why he put in so much and risk so much in his action takes, and does he regret it?
I'm reminded of the story of Dustin Hoffman going without sleep for three nights so he could play a scene where his character was exhausted. And Laurence Olivier asked him "Why don't you try acting? It's so much easier."
Sometimes dedicating their bodies to their craft has its merits. Take Christian Bale in The Machinist as an example. He had to transform his body to be the character he was portraying, which was a man who hasn’t slept for a year and barely eats.
@@WhiteWaterAlchemist Yet they managed to make Matt Damon look like a man who was only eating a quarter of a potato while stranded on Mars with cgi🤷🏾♀️
if I don't drink a half gallon a day, my voice will just spontaneously go into sleep mode. Even my face just starts not sounding right and trying to find the scale is like trying to open a can of soda when my hand's asleep. I'm pretty sure I can no longer hit 6th octave notes because I was drinking too much vodka for a little while
Water fasting is so dangerous too! Not an acceptable weight loss method or a good way to make you "look sick" on camera. They have skilled make-up artists for that, and they can always CGI you skinnier.
Without being technical, it just sounded like absolutely no one was singing in a good key for their vocal range. They all sounded like they were strangling.
I kept thinking is Hugh Jackman singing in the wrong key? Is this out of his range? I expected so much from Hugh, I have seen him on stage and he was amazing. What the hell is this?
@@devonrains6580 Same, I was so confused about how he could sound so bad when he actually has skills! But if you think about the conditions they were working under, including DEHYDRATION apparently, I guess it explains a lot. He sung some les mis songs live at some point and it sounded way better (not that the film sets he bar very high).
Samantha Barks was robbed when they cut the intro to On My Own. She suddenly just appears out of nowhere singing the song without the context- lost so much impact.
I don’t think she appears out of no where In the movie version shes basically gets left at Cosette's house since Marius is oblivious to her still being there when he walks off and after screaming and being hit by her father she has to walk back alone, which is where we see her start singing. But yeah wish they didn’t cut the first lyrics of her song. There was a deleted scene/bts scene I saw somewhere where when she’s singing there’s a moment where she’s actually looking up at the window of the cafe where she can see Marius in the window.
As someone taking singing lessons, Crowe’s four different vocal teachers makes me so angry. The differences in the warm up exercises ALONE between my vocal teacher and general school music teacher throws my voice during choir SO BADLY. HOW IN THE WORLD DID HE THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA
Choir teachers have limited time to warm up an entire class, and begin working on pieces (which often includes teaching how to read music in general). They have to get a class full of (sometimes very amateur) students ready for a concert or competition under a time constraint. They have to get a variety of unique voices to blend, which requires different warm ups to those you may do before your solo performance. Vocal coaches work primarily on technique, and typically will work on technique that is better suited for solo performances (and heavily dependent on what kind of music you’ll be performing!). Separate your choral performance technique from your solo performance technique, two different modes there. Classic choral, opera chorus, opera solo, musical theatre chorus, musical theatre solo, pop, rock, etc etc etc have different techniques and warm ups best suited for the style and/or individual voice. If your coach is training you in Musical theatre techniques, you can’t apply that to choir. You need to learn to separate your technique for the different genres. Some techniques cross over, many don’t. Lady Gaga is a pop vocalist, and has a beautiful classical & opera voice. Different techniques to achieve her sounds. Anyway, that being said, all vocal coaches have their own style of teaching, and their own specialization of music type. As a soloist, I filtered through a few coaches until I found the right fit for the style of music I performed best in. They may have had very skilled coaches lined up for crow, but each specializing in different genre disciplines. They might have had a pop oriented coach, a Broadway coach, an opera coach. Each teaching different things and starting from scratch. He didn’t get much out of it because they just wouldn’t have gotten very far with him in their short time of trying to start from scratch (Unteaching then reteaching) with the techniques they believed were best suited. It’s less so his voice was “thrown” and more so he learned very little of how to control his instrument for the pieces of music he was performing. If he had spent significant time with ONE opera vocal coach, OR a Broadway coach, or one who can do both (preferably), he would have been better off.
It needs to stop being considered okay, let alone admirable, for actors to abuse their bodies (or more likely, directors to push for actors to abuse their bodies) for the sake of a movie.
@@Hesher93 ah yes... and if an actor decides to jump off a building to recreate a character's physical ailments, its ok because its their decision, and noone forced them to. It shouldn't matter if it was their decision or not. someone needed to have told them that if they do this they have a chance of seriously harming themselves. Imagine a world where hugh jackman or anne hathaway did get serious vocal damage. (thank goodness they didnt) We would be shorted of these actors and the future performances they might give.
Please, actors do it to serve their own interests. By showing that they can/will do/learn something for a specific project, they are showing everybody (from the Academy to the general audiences) how much committed they are to their art. That makes them more bankable, respectable, recognizable and award-worthy. It's the same with athletes who keep pushing their physical limits by repeatedly winning medals/trophies and breaking records.
@@allywatchstation As if they didnt know that, they are adults for gods sake, they know what they are doing. They know what eating an Apple a day would/could do to them, they are adults, its their decision, there is something like personal responsibility. At the end of the day, they do it because they love it or for the pay check, nobody forces them. Espacially actors like Hughe Jackman who can handpick their roles.
OP: "This bad thing needs to stop being the norm." Reply 1: "no one's FORCING them. If they don't want to be abused, someone else will be abused instead." Yes. That's the problem. Reply 3: "the actors do it because they benefit/profit from it." Yes. That's the problem. Reply 4: "well it's always been like this, so..." Yes, that's why OP said it needs to STOP. Shout out to reply 2 for understanding what OP's words meant in the order OP put them in. It was apparently a pretty monumental achievement.
I was thoroughly baffled when you said Cameron Mackintosh approved this movie. I didn't know he held the film rights, and never would have thought he would want anyone unqualified in the cast. Also I was definitely disappointed with Hugh Jackman, given he's got actual musical theater experience. I'm also shocked anyone LET him not drink water.
*Tom Hooper:* I need you to look sick for this musical! *Hugh Jackman:* Okay, I gonna make myself actually sick in a way that'll definitely impact my singing ability! *The whole make-up department:* ... Are we a joke to you?
@@Ociloc exactly! I wouldn't think he's sick if I saw him, however, I would be concerned he's not eating/drinking enough. To make actors have that extreme muscle definition, it's not just Hugh depriving himself of water. Most male actors do that for movies to look leaner and it's SO BAD. Being buff doesn't mean you have to have 0% body fat. That's majorly unhealthy. An example of someone being absolutely ripped but also having a healthy amount of body fat would be Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, although he is an extreme example because he's so tall. But yeah. The guys in the movies look as shredded as they do because they're starving and dehydrating themselves and it's SO NOT GOOD. It's unrealistic body standards for dudes and is causing people to hurt themselves.
@@sarahturner4148 I mean, if they wanted to make Hugh look realistic as a convict of 20 years- malnourished all the time, then... They did a good job. The main problem here is that they put the acting performance before singing and it really shows
Norah Maurice if you’ve ever seen a competition ready bodybuilder in person you’d get what he means. When you look at their faces all you think is “gaunt”
I’m still always shocked to hear what Jackman put himself through, because he of all of the main cast should have known better. He started out in musical theatre long before he did film, he was a dancer! I’ve seen him live and he was a fantastic performer, which is why his work in Les Mis was so disappointing :c
Sadly most actors don't get a choice. Even if you walk off the set you can get replaced, even if you're a big name like Hugh Jackman. Hooper abused these actors for the sake of "art".
Also correct me if im wrong, but this was before marvel really blew up. Which was kinda the time it seemed actors were starting to have more sway in thing. Cause if Robert Downey Jr, basically irl iron man, said yeah no im not doing x thing. They cant just replace him. Same for hughe as the wolverine. Some timds you can argue sometimed you cant and either quit, which sometimes jsnt an option financially. Or deal with it.
I mean, either way he still mentions how Crowe's singing in the film isn't even representative of what his real capability is. I mean the whole point of giving Crowe credit for anything music-related at all is to show just how good he 'should've' been had the production not compromised him, and the rest of the cast's singing ability. But yeah it would be cooler to have further noted just how even more musically competent these people have been, because then it just makes it even sadder when they're not performing up to expectation (less to their own accord, and more because of the production).
Seeing Hugh Jackman go from a dehydrated, yellow-eyed raggety pink skeleton covered in hair, to transforming into The Greatest Showman full of smooth melodies and charisma, shows why hydration, rest and rehearsal breaks are important!!! For the love of god, Hollywood, never do this again! xD
Agreed, it was awful how they were treated, but I didn't really like The Greatest Showman either. Imo, they took an awful man who was literally very abusive and turned him into a hero.
@@420catboi It's all about the perspective from the context. The whole world was abusive towards the 'freaks,' and in that world he was a shining light of acceptance, opportunity and respect. He offered them jobs, gave them a family, etc etc. That there were wage disputes or he teased them for what made them unique and caricaturized them for the sake of the show, may make him something evil in the modern day, in a world where 'weirdos' automatically have more than he offered, thus he would only be taking away. But at the time, all of it was better than what they would have gotten from anyone else, and what more can you ask for besides improvement from where you are now? And they stayed because there wasn't anything better for them- he was peak human rights for them. So to those people, he was their hero, and if we have to polish what he did to make him come across that way to us, so be it.
@@420catboi I see what you mean but it see these kinds of films as fictional works. Like the Conjuring films, I really like them but the warrens in real life were frauds
@@frde2190 I agree. Fictionally, they're stunning pieces of work. But at the same time, I think it's important for people to know the real history behind these stories and why they're so impactful as well. But that's just my opinion. I totally see where you're coming from tho.
I understand the show is LITERALLY called Les Miserables, but that's doesn't mean EVERYONE INVOLVED HAD TO BE ACTUALLY MISERABLE 😣 So much respect to everyones sacrifice to make this movie, seriously hats off Also I never knew the tearing of the paper was supposed to go with the orchestra beats but that hits SO MUCH HARDER when it does! My god that was exhilarating to see for the first time in this video
Hi, film student here! I think for Eddie singing "Empty Chairs" they used one of several different techniques used to make it look like actors are crying when they actually aren't. Some actors can cry on command, but there are some other ways to make an actor tear up rather than really cry. These include, but are not limited to, shining a bright light in their eyes and using actual eye drops that act as tears. Considering how his crying is not effecting his singing, I think they used one of those techniques to make it appear like he was actually crying but he wasn't. You can kind of tell because his eyes aren't as red as they would be if he were really crying. Why they didn't do this with Hathaway probably has to do with her own acting choice and how, for some horrible reason, method acting is considered a cool thing when it really isn't. Great video, just wanted to lend my two cents!
Agreed while I understand Hathaways thought process I felt it ended up taking away from the scene. It’s such a beautiful plaintive tender song full of pain, love and hope that it was, as my grandmother would say, “over egging the pudding”. You remember how a song made you feel not what the person looked like singing it. Hundreds of Sound of Music fans will attest to that. They were trying for gritty realism AND emotive musical but ended up with a mish mash.
I’m able to cry when I’m singing in a way that doesn’t affect my throat... I don’t really have control over it other than being able to keep it from going too far. (And my eyes don’t get red) A director started freaking out one time when he saw tears running down my face but I told him “oh this is just the emotions coming out my eyeballs... I’m not really crying” and I’m still not sure he believed me 😆 So all that just to say that for some people, there are two types of crying on stage. I definitely would be afraid of going into that place of realistic crying though.
me, not a vocalist: damn they were doing 10 hours of singing? that sounds unpleasant 😬 me, a violist: THEY PLAYED FOR 7 HOURS??? I TAP OUT AFTER 2, _WH-_
I used to be a vocalist in a few choirs throughout my life (youth and barbershop chorus), and I have done full days of singing before. Around hour 6 is when you start to experience vocal fatigue and you *NEED* to back off and just focus on the technical composition of the music. If you push yourself you are at serious risk of damaging your voice. And that's for literally singular, isolated days of intense rehearsals, with regular breaks and intense focus on hydration. I can't imagine doing that multiple times in a short period. What Hugh did with his dehydration stunt is literally like using a knife to play a string instrument. Jesus.
As a college vocal major, my professors recommended 15-20 minutes practice in the morning and another 10-15 in the evenings. Those are on days with a rehearsal and/or a lesson though.
@@Elemental-Phoenix Yeah, when I was in high school, I spent easter at an "International Choir Week" for teens, in Germany. In 10 days, we had to practice and rehearse stuff for only choir, and for choir with orchestra, and have two performances at the end of the 10 days. It really showed me what it might be like to be a professional choir singer. We started practice every day at between 9 and 10am, sang for a few hours, had a long lunch break, then sang a few hours more. It was tiring, just like any other work situation is. Physically and mentally - at the end of each day, we were so ready to go have fun, to stop rehearsing, because honestly.... Even just looking at sheetmusic for 6-7 hours every day, reading them while reading the lyrics (different languages for most of the pieces!) while singing them was just.... Mentally exhausting! But very fun. It would NOT have been fun if we also had to dehydrate ourselves for days on end, and lose weight as rapidly as possible. Or if we had to belt out all we had for 10 hours straight. Like.... The directors and people behind the camera shouldn't have allowed that to happen at ALL!
Ikr, people don't realize how heavy violin/viola are and playing 7 hours in a row can literally lead to injuries. They should've been sued under labor law or something lmao. Made me mad hearing that. Most I've done was iirc 3~4 hr rehearsal and that was a REHEARSAL. You can rest in between playing your part while conductor works on a different section. I can't imagine my spine/shoulder/arms/fingers after doing 7 hour takes for a recording smh.
My daughter who isn't a singer asked what was wrong with Redmayne's voice. I had to explain that to her and she did not understand at all. She kept asking which of the singers were "right".
@@ptkelly80 True, I just made this point to be fair to Russell Crowe. The video posits that Crowe went through multiple vocal coaches while Redmayne stuck to one good one, and had a great performance as a result. Crowe wasn't good, but Redmayne definitely didn't learn how to sing for musical theatre in just a few weeks.
True, Eddie is actually far more trained vocally than the 🐐 Marius Michael Ball, whose voice is entirley untrained. Always makes me smile when people say "he's not classically trained so obviously he's not as good a singer as Michael"
As a vocalist, listening to the physical shit the actors put themselves through for the sake of 'realism' and 'grittiness' is horrifying. As an audio engineer, the number of work arounds those poor idiots had to use in order to get a decent, workable track sounds like a god damn nightmare
Simon Hayes is one of the greatest production sound mixers of all time and the live soundtrack he recorded on Les Mis is one of the greatest technical achievements in a film ever (earning him an Academy Award that year). His work will be remembered in the same way Jack Foley and Ben Burt are for sound design. A live musical should be performed live and just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth it. It's insulting that all the lengths they went to on set to record this sound track are played for laughs instead of hailed for the absolute genius they are. Simon hasn't even perfected the art yet. He's still got a couple decades of this left in him. And truthfully, all the "headaches" shown in the recording of a film soundtrack are just more dramatic versions of what production sound mixers are doing on shows and movies every day. Recording a sound track is difficult stuff regardless of if there's singing. Whether or not the actors were prepared for the level of demand they would face in producing this movie, or even if the right performers were cast in the first place, is another matter entirely. It's clear that the only way the studio was willing to finance the movie was with name actors instead of classically trained musical stage performers.
Im not a good recording artist but I do go to collage with a lot of them (my study is kinda broad) and seeing what goes into a professionl recording in a regular studio setting is already insane. Thinking of people doing thát on a film set makes me cry.
And in all honesty, you don’t have to hire Hollywood actors for this kind of thing. There’s theatre actors who can sing effectively and give grit and realism within vocal delivery and acting chops. Lmao I don’t understand why people think musical theatre actors all learn is campiness and jazz hands 😂😂 both Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman started out in theatre lmao
@@BluesClues2s And to add onto your topic of Simon perfecting the craft. The stage production has had over 25 years (as of 2012) of trial and error (notes from other productions, of what worked and did not work etc.) to nail down the musical. Also, stage productions are doing more than one performance, so they know by the end one night 1, what worked and did not worked, so they can correct it for the second night, and so forth. The movie is lucky to have 2 years tops with all their main players, and the actors are coming in from other projects, or are splitting their time between projects. And they have no redos.
I watched the movie first and thought it was pretty bad and didn’t understand what the hype was about. Then I saw this vid and was like ☹️. Figured out why lol
Saw stage first then film and didn't think the film was that bad yes Hugh and Russell didn't sound great but if u pull any film apart like this your bound to find issues
The clips of the director saying "no one asked him to do it" to hugh jackman saying "he asked me to look unrecognizable" are hilariously next to each other
it honestly kinda makes everyone look SUPER suspicious
at this point, i'm not gonna rule out tomothy here doing some super weird pressuring on his actors to do harmful shit (like what happened with anne hathaway's weight loss and on-camera haircut)
@@flamepunk8683 What’s harmful about getting a haircut? Don’t be such a baby
@@ohwellwhateverr There's nothing inherently harmful about getting a haircut, yes, you're right. Congrats. But it does make it very demanding for the sake of "realism". It's kinda degrading, lasts for (obviously) a lot longer than just doing it fake, and means you basically get one take which is a lot of pressure on everyone involved. All in all, while it's not the worst thing by a mile, it's just... not necessary?
@@Charbified fucking THANK YOU
it's also on camera, meaning whatever degradation would be there is gonna be shown around in theatres and shit, it's not something you'd just *do* on a whim, and i doubt it was against her will or anything, but it really just highlights the way the producers saw their actors in that movie.
Especially when beauty standards and shit in hollywood, mainstream media, etc, for women especially, and concerning their hair, i doubt it would have been all that pleasant, and there's a hundred ways to get the same effect without degrading your performers.
Maybe he could have lost some weight, jacked himself up and not dehydrated himself? Prisoners back in those days would have been drinking water. And there's a difference between the look of a bodybuilder's body and a guy who does a lot of hard labour on low rations all day, so it probably didn't even look that accurate.
This is like a horror movie for vocalists. I audibly gasped in horror when he mentioned DEPRIVING HIMSELF OF WATER FOR 36 HOURS. Like, holy shit
When I'm doing an hour of PRACTICE I drink at least 4 bottles throughout to keep myself sounding even vaguely presentable. I also gasped and clutched my throat in solidarity
To quote Joseph Joestar : OH GOOOOODDDD!!
this video is what got me back intodrinkign water. Hearing Davis like that, I couldn't imagine that much damage or what it might feel like
im a vocalist, it aint.
You Can't sing, CAN'T sing with so little water very well. That was terrifying to find out. Plus so little water hurts everything else!
If singing for 8 hours a day can ruin your voice box, then playing a stringed instrument for the same amount every day will absolutely shred your wrists. The bass and cello players must have been on fire
I played violin from late elementary to early high school. The wrists won't just be on fire, so will the entire goddamn hands, backs, and rears. Oh and arms! Playing for 2 consecutive hours was always hard for me but I managed to push through. I can't imagine 3 without breaks in between. Those poor musicians most likely had something damaged by the end of their recording
@@sunchasericeserawings7166 The butt and back was worst for me. Literally no breaks in between playing to lay back made my back try to kill itself. Worse was we sat on those metal folding chairs so our tail bone and hips literally die inside. I think I’ll die at 30 because a clot that built up from my performances will come loose and block my heart.
@@themanwithallthewrongopini3551 oof. Yeah as I'm older with a back and tailbone injury I think those would kill me more nowadays. Good goddess... I feel so bad for all these musicians
@@sunchasericeserawings7166 I was lucky to have a front row seat to see Ben Folds performing with YMusic. The violinist played with her whole body so much so that her hair was swinging about. She must have gotten completely exhausted but she gave that violin LIFE!
@@starkman78 oh yeah, that would be exhausting but worth it
Having the band going so many hours without breaks is terrifying. Ive only ever played lighter instruments (my specialties are flute and violin) and going for a few hours in band practice without breaks kills my muscles. *EIGHT HOURS* is insane I feel so bad for them especially those with heavier instruments. Their whole bodies would be in serious pain for literal days.
@@shammyturtle9741 exactly. It’s insane to imagine going for eight whole hours. Three is insanely painful. I can’t even picture how much pain those guys were in.
I'm sure Tom Hooper had a thing for overworking his employees.
Like, he gets a kick out of it.
String instruments aren’t bad to play long. I play for 4 hours at a time on guitar just for fun
I have actually played for 8+ hours in high school for honor bands, but I had breaks in between. I play clarinet, and even that little thing had me in pain. My hands ached and my thumb was rubbed so raw I had to ice it on break. My lips were so damn puffy from constant playing, and my jaw was off for a week. Even my back and chest hurt. When we got the chance to get up and walk around I bolt up almost immediately. I've also sang for ridiculously long rehearsals and even that sucks. Breaks are needed if you want top quality performances.
I practice a guitar solo for 10 minutes and my fingies hurt…
and these guys were playing trombones and cellos and clariners for 8 HOURS straight… God on high that’s employee abuse.
I just realized that Anne Hathaway mage herself cry and sing each take for 8-10 hours my God the fact that she can still talk is insane to me
And THAT is why she won the Oscar!
@@OmniphonProductions Are they awarding the effort instead of the actual end result of the performance?
Actors are professional vocalists...and speech arts is a real discipline of study. I once saw Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen perform a play without amplification, and I could hear everything from the back row. They are pro stage actors who know how to project without injury.
Similarly, Audra McDonald did a show as Billie Holliday, in vocal fry for the whole show run. No injuries. She's a master, who knows how to manage the task in a healthy way for her voice.
My guess is that Anne Hathaway has this type of skill. She makes the sounds in that song without straining her voice like a layperson would...said layperson would probably do far more vocal work than was necessary to produce those sounds. Likewise, a professional pianist isn't really working all that hard, physically, because they've taught themselves a certain economy of motion while accomplishing physical tasks which amateurs haven't internalized yet and thus overdo.
@@ivorytickler7777 Audra McDonald is a _goddess!!!_ Knowing how she usually sounds, when I saw the Billie Holiday performance, I couldn't help wondering whether (metaphorically) making a clarinet sound like a muted trumpet...caused her discomfort. However, as you say, there are techniques by which professionals avoid discomfort (or damage) that laypersons might otherwise incur. Death Metal vocalists and professional voice actors would all have very short careers without such tricks of the trade.
Having said that, not all professional actors are _singers_ (or dancers for that matter), especially if they have specifically focused their attention on film. (I'm lookin' at you, Russell Crowe!) There's is an added degree of difficulty in Musical Theater that most people simply don't appreciate, largely because people like Audra McDonald make it look so easy. With all this in mind, I think your final paragraph is spot-on; especially considering that Anne Hathaway nailed _I Dreamed A Dream_ on the fourth take.
@@OmniphonProductions She also grew up watching backstage while her mom sang that same role!
Sweet God, the story behind what happened to the actors is legitimately horrifying. They're lucky no one got badly hurt.
They’re lucky no one dropped fucking dead
Hearing the actors _actually_ singing makes me wish they got a director who respects musicals. We could've had so much!
I'll never understand why people that hate musicals are directing their adaptations
the fact that this train wreck was Redmayne’s first vocal performance and years later he was cast as Emcee in Cabaret and slayed it so hard he won Olivier in Best Actor in Musical for it is mind blowing to me
He got better!
He probably had singing classes in drama school.
He was so good that when he first appeared I was like, “Oh, finally! At least they brought *someone* in from musical theatre!” (I had never heard of him before).
I remember when it was just released people were questioning the non famous names in the cast, if they could perform. And then there was a video of just a sound of Eddie Redmayne singing Ave Maria and it was so good and people were like yup, I think he would be a good Marius. I try to search it again around here but I couldn't find it anymore.
i thought people hated him in cabaret?
I’m not even a vocalist, but hearing about Hugh Jackman not drinking water for 36 hours before shooting actually put me into shock! How did anyone on set let that happen? I can’t even imagine how that must have felt trying to sing with his throat being that dry!
That's one and a half days - you can die from not drinking any water for a period of over 2 days!
I keep thinking about the massive kidney pain in his lower back. Ouch!
I'm not surprised if his kidneys are broken
Well the thing with specifically Jackman is that it isn’t new to him- actors playing superheroes are often asked to dehydrate for a stupid amount of time because it makes the muscles pop out better or something. Doesn’t excuse it and actually is emblematic of some bigger stuff, but for him specifically it wasn’t super new.
could've (& probably did) seriously damage his voice
This director's actions were bordering on criminal. My sister's singing teacher could only speak in a whisper. His voice was completely destroyed by doing one performance with a slight cold. Damaging your voice is a real thing.
Damn that’s tragic
see this is what broadway does to actors too though. making them work through colds and shit because it’s tony season, it shocks me how little vocal damage has happened…
Brian Molko did this at Cardiff CIA a few years ago, tried to perform Placebo's greatest hits with essentially the middle aged man level of freshers flu. I was there. It was sad. He spent months with an ENT having surgeries afterwards... we're going back to see them again soon and hoping the battle to save his voice was worth it.
I've had my voice completely collapse during a stage performance... it turned me off of musical theatre forever honestly.... all because I was forced... FORCED into singing in a register that my voice wasn't made for at all, I'm a low tenor, higher end bass singer, they expected me to hit notes meant for a female vocalist and I did and it hurt so much that my voice died on stage, completely, in the middle of the show, couldn't make a sound, couldn't speak a word and somehow that was MY fault.
Right?! Wtf was MacIntosh thinking trusting THIS ONE to do this.
Fun Fact: Before the pandemic, I was in a lot of musicals. Most recently Grizabella in Cats. I had a hard time projecting Memories, so my vocal coach told me to practice normally, but on my back so I would get used to taking in bigger breaths of air. So when it came time to perform, I had trained myself into breathing in more air than necessary, so I was able to project better. I *highly* recommenced this technique if you're having trouble projecting.
my first voice lesson with my voice teacher back in high school consisted entirely of me doing breathing exercises on my back to get used to it. And singing on back helps immensely as well. (as long as you're straight and flat)
this is the opposite of what the simpsons taught me
@@oo4667 what do you mean lol
@@carmenmercedes9903 iirc after an operation homer discovers that he's a wonderful singer, but only while lying down
@@oo4667 oohh
As a vocalist and a clarinet player, the fact that anything in this ever happened is horrifying
So it was basically a method acted musical movie called"The Miserables"?
@@erikbihari3625method acting isn't always good, unless you think a death in a movie should be real
@@joedav67 the largest r/wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh you will ever have
I play the flute and for us too hydration is important. Your playing will suck and sound horrible if your mouth is dry = not enough saliva. There is a reason why we clean our mouthpieces well.
I play the Flute and am a Soprano. I can not imagine the amount of carpal tunnel from repeated finger and wrist movements. Not to downplay the orchestra but I'm especially thinking of the piano player. I might be wrong but I don't think they used the whole orchestra for filming days because in the video it said Jackman wasn't listening to that version in his ear to time it. Which would mean the pianist played even more and for longer.
As a clarinet player, it’s absolutely horrifying that they made the orchestra play full force for 10 hours, what in the absolute FUCK
As a violinist and flutist I completely agree. That shit would hurt
@@caithemburrow5569 tendinitis galore
That’s legit abuse, like marching band performers barely have to play and March for 4-5 hours at a time but at least we’re granted plenty of breaks
The director is crazy and uneducated, that's all lol
Brass commiting suicide in the back row
In a graham norton interview Hugh Jackman admitted that when he played Gaston on broadway he literally peed his pants live on stage so he could hit his final note. Hearing he dehydrated himself for valjean is insane. This man once valued both hydration and vocal performance so much that he PISSED HIS PANTS IN FRONT OF A LIVE AUDIENCE.
He had that much blatter control ?!?!
@@PutBoxOnMe “bladder” 🙄🙄
@@tose917 Who cares man? Seriously. Someone might criticize you for using emojis, and you’re out here critiquing incorrect spelling? Hypocrite; didn’t even spell “forever” right in your own name.
To me it seems his dedication is still there, it just went into prioritizing the acting visuals (often at the expense of vocal performance, as the video shows).
@@CaptPhiI yeah true, I actually think that the movie had good acting, with good facial expressions that added depth to the story. Despite that, the singing is clearly not up to standard, as are a few…other things (cough cough-Javert’s suicide-cough cough).
The way Hollywood treats its actors health and weight is DISGUSTING. The reason Jackman was so casual about literally dehydrating himself is probably because he was USED TO DOING IT in work on other movies. Any time you see an actor with razor sharp cut abs-theyre most definitely dangerously dehydrated. The body needs fat and water.
Off topic, but I love your pfp. It's adorable.
I would much rather watch a movie with blatant practical/computer effects than know the talent put themselves in serious danger to achieve a particular look, I tell you what. And Ann Hathaway immediately going on record saying "*This was not impressive, I did to look like I was dying, don't do this*" and directors still demand dangerous crap... disgusting.
I would agree but you can also give up the roles for YOUR own health. As adults we like to blame other things for issues we’ve caused for ourselves. I don’t think ANYONE should starve themselves, dehydrate themselves, harm themselves FOR ANY REASON let alone a role but if you do it anyways… knowing better… uhhhh I think both the actor and the directors are to blame, not just one. This does not go for child actors though.
@@bunniesinatrenchcoat1809 under a certain amount of duress, your choices are not entirely your own
@@bunniesinatrenchcoat1809 Since it's currently an industry norm, actors don't really have a choice with this. It's like poor conditions for factory workers in sweatshops or the industrial revolution, if you're unwilling to put up with this treatment someone else will be more than willing to take your place and your paycheck.
I remember watching half of the Les Mis movie on Netflix and I thought it was pretty good. A few months later I watched Les Mis at a huge theatre near me and I was blown away, I loved it and it was actually great. Then I finished the Les MIs movie and I felt disappointed because the musical was just so so good I couldn’t watch the movie and pretend it was decent. Like the musical was so good to me at the end I started clapping so hard my mom thought i was clapping for one of the hot actors. When that kid died I teared up, when the kid died in the movie I just felt nothing. The musical is 1000x better than the movie and now I understand why people trashed on the movie so much.
To this day I have never watched the full movie, even though I love Les Miserables; it was the first musical I ever saw. I read the book as well and watched the BBC film adaptation multiple times. This movie just offends my sensibilities. Of course, Samantha Barks knocks it out of the park but she is the only thing I can appreciate in this disaster.
the movie was my first exposure to Les Mis. when I saw it, my first reaction was "so this is the musical that everyone loves so much? it's kinda meh"
then I went and saw a stage production at a local theater. it BLEW ME AWAY. I was so touched by the story and emotion. I cried so hard at multiple points, that after it was done, the person I saw it with had to ask if I was ok.
I haven't seen the movie again since then, but I have seen this video about a dozen times, and that's about enough for me lol.
this was me with the into the woods Disney movie versus the 1980 broadway musical on RUclips I can't even get through the movie anymore LMAO
I actually watched the movie first, and was like meh about it, couldn't see why it was an award winning musical. Years later I watched the 10th anniversary theatre version and was blown. Away. It made me, an atheist, have a religious experience at the line 'to love another is to see the face of God'. And this video laid it all out so clearly why the disparity is huge! Phantom of the opera (25th anniversary) and Les Mis (10th anniversary) are now my top two musicals ❤️
They made a "mehvie"
good god i am sick of directors and actors literally almost killing themselves for "authenticity" and the oscars rewarding them for it
Being inhumane to your cast is not a ‘sacrifice for the art’ it doesn’t matter if you pay them 500 million dollars, it’s abuse from an employer. The oscars awarding this is so repulsive it makes my skin crawl.
Right?! It's this behaviour that led to Leonardo Di Caprio in the Revenant. Fine, he did a great job, but when you get to this point, is it even acting? No disrespect meant to Leo or Annie or anyone else, I really like them both. But aren't those specific Oscars for the best acting performance? I'm sure anyone can react in horror to having their head shaved and wading in the mire to reach an uncomfortable bath all the while trying to sing thirsty and tired. Or go through the awfulness of the plot of the Revenant and look like you're having an awful time. It sounds mean and I again, I don't mean to denigrate them (it is surely on the directors in most cases)... But they could just actually act it without having to actually bear the pain of it. Leo didn't die of hypothermia and drowning in Titanic, but then if he did tbf maybe he would've won an Oscar then? You're right that this system just leads to more and more actors flagellating themselves for roles and then for awards prestige which then leads to more roles and prestige. For example, Christian Bale's body must be a wreck! Reminds me of how Henry Cavill has to dehydrate himself for days in the same way as Hugh for his shirtless scenes in The Witcher. It's not healthy and doesn't it kind of ruin it on rewatches to know that they were suffering? Let them act!
@@richardbourton4523 I don't see anything wrong with suffering for your art. The Revenant will be remembered as one of Leo's best roles and for good reason. I do think the Oscars is a joke though. Some of what makes certain actors so damn impressive is their dedication to their craft. It comes down to the question of, would you rather be healthy or interesting.
@@Daniel-cw5yv Healthy and interesting should be rewarded by the Oscars, not just interesting. They're the Oscars for a reason, they should be able to find a film which can do both.
I mean, I still have respect for Tom Hanks' preparation for Castaway, and some people say that playing Joker lead to Heath Ledger's death (personally I would say unless you're a psychologist don't make claims like that), but the thing is, no one should be _forced_ to do anything like that. Sure, it lead to some great performances, but part of that was it being at least somewhat voluntary.
What’s sad is that if they were all actually hydrated and healthy, and properly vocally trained they all could’ve blown this thing out of the water. It’s incredible the difference you hear with Crowe, Hackman and Hathaway when they are in a proper state of health. Too bad it wasn’t filmed that way
To be fair i guess they ALSO took the received critics and tried to work on it after the movie was aired
“hugh jackman may be dead, but i’m his brother....kip..hackman.”
Hathaway especially! It’s not that her voice itself is bad during the movie, it’s that her singing voice barely makes an appearance. It’s honestly so sad that she has such a pretty voice but ended up doing the weird half-spoken sob-singing thing.
Hehe mcrmy
Polly Sage i never said I hated it lmao. I like the movie lmao. I said the singing sucked in many parts. But the performances from the holy trinity is really what made it for me. Of course, I was only ten during the movie and was star struck regardless so I mean I didn’t really look deeper into this until seeing this video
I feel like one underrated problem with recording the movie like this is like... I don't care how good of an actor you are, you CANNOT escape the inherent, crushing awkwardness of singing at another person passionately on a silent set. Like. In the theatre there are people in the audience, the orchestra is with you etc etc. I cannot imagine just singing in a vaccuum, that sounds like a horrible experience.
thats not really a problem tbh, there are more awkward acting scenerios than that which is why it isn't really acknowledged thats literally the norm
Im learning to get better at it and it feels 100x harder to do it without a backing track, I cant imagine how hard it was for them at least give them an ear piece.
I can’t remember if this is shown in the video but the actors had earpieces where they could hear the piano backing being played, so it wouldn’t have been singing in a vacuum to them, it’s in another BTS video
@@Justice237 Piano is just one instrument and depending on what other instruments are playing you might have have to project more (ik they have throat mics and it's mixed in post, but you still don't get the same effect from just editing it louder) and you can still miss cues like the jobert scene.
Lmfaoooo that was not uncommon in early rehearsals in high school drama. Ahh painful memories 😂😂😂.
The fact no one received permanent vocal damage because of this is a mother fucking miracle.
I think Tom Hooper just wanted to make everyone miserables.
I see what you did there
Lmaoo
Ah, very thematic.
The true Miserables was the crew all along
The Second French Revolution took place in 1832, when Victor Hugo published the Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's kind of thematic to Hugo's life, as he wrote Les Mis almost 30 years after he wrote Hunchback, and set it to the same time when he published the latter book. Hunchback is actually pretty miserable, and even though Les Miserables had a happy ending, I think it would have worked better if it was published in 1832 instead of Hunchback.
"I didn't tell Hugh to do it, he wanted to do this for himself"
"Hooper told me he wanted me to look unrecognisable. He said if someone does recognise you, I want them to think you're physically ill."
Hmmm. Someone's lying here. I wonder who has greater motive to lie about risking his employees health for no reason?
@@laurencummings9560 I'm inclined to think Hooper lied. Simply because he's shown as egotistical in trying to completely remodel two beloved highly successful musicals. Maybe i'm creating non existent threads here, but it does seem far off from something he'd do.
@@laurencummings9560 Well. At the end of the day, it's the director's job to direct the actors.
So, I still say it would've been his responsibility at the end of the day.
So. If Hooper isn't lying. He could've still told him not to do it. He is the director, and Jackman would've had to listen.
So, no matter how you look at it, Hooper looks incredibly bad and incompetent as a director for allowing this to happen.
@@laurencummings9560 That's entirely possible, but honestly, even if he's not lying I don't know how much it matters. The fact that Hooper found out his lead in a musical was deliberately dehydrating himself, and he DIDN'T respond "I appreciate your dedication but that's a massive risk to your health, and also your livelihood because you're an actor and if you ruin your voice that'll be bad for your career, and even if I'm just being completely selfish it will also do terrible things to your singing, so PLEASE make sure you're drinking plenty of water" is bad enough.
@@kassemir No, Kassemir... it's "At the end of the day, you're another day older." Cmon. 😃
can we also talk about the fact that for some reason Jackman is doing like 4 different accents in this movie?
Was one of them Wolverine?
And then the greatest showman is good?!? H o w
@@thatpitter He is a good singer, for some reason everything went wrong with this, look up him in Oklahoma
right?? why does he start off irish and end up english and occasionally wander into french?
I think it’s because he decided to not drink water for 36 hours.
I'm glad you pointed out the health thing. That kind of thing is very dangerous and it's disgusting any production would make anyone go through that.
Or outright refuse to allow the actors to abuse themselves like that. If it were me, I’d insist on hydrating. Oh my goddddd
i am SO over this narrative of the more you “suffer” for a performance, the “better” it is. like working through pain = working hard, or something. it reminds me of the narrative that u have to “suffer” through something awful-grief, mental illness, etc-in order for your art to be good, so people should lean in to pain or not seek help, when that is the opposite of productive. UGH
Agreed. Stanislavsky is rolling in his grave.
I think it's a dangerous idea, that pain=greatness. Not to mention, kind of stupid. By this logic torture victims should be topping the bestsellers and awards lists. Oddly enough, no one has tried to test out my "Being tortured makes you a great artist theory." It reminds me of the make work fallacy, that people used to be better because they suffered more. Oddly enough not many people are volunteering to live medieval in the western world.
Y'all seen the Revenant? Lol.
@@niallreid7664 Leonardo put himself in hell and sat there like
🔥🔥🐶☕🔥🔥
You might want to check out this great video essay on Method Acting by Broey Deschanel, it goes into a lot the problems with the suffering = art mentality
ruclips.net/video/AVWGyuBFgzw/видео.html
"We just sing at each other on an otherwise deathly silent set" God....how awkward...
Reminds me of that wrestling video with the empty arena where Bray Wyatt monologues at John Cena and it's dead quiet, and suddenly wrestling taunts turn into a soliloquy from a conceptual play, and John looks sooo uncomfortable
"After 10 hours, they found their reserves. And they got it."
Me, a former glockenspiel player:
No, they hate-played and hit every note with exact, exhausted force.
Those players likely entered a realm of discomfort we mere mortals can never understand.
I salute to them and am also terrified of their wrath
@@Goblinoiddoof string players have the anger to fight god and will win because they have the final reserves stamina to keep going when God's exhausted
@@artemisfowldragon The only people who can fight them off are the Organ players
You simply cannot fight people insane enough to play the organ
One example I could think of: Bob Bryar on This Is How I Disappear from MCR´s The Black Parade. After God-knows-how-many-takes you could hear on the final recording how he just wants to murder the drumkit.
Man, the corners of my lips would’ve been sore after *one* hour (I used to play trumpet) playing around the Middle C (ie *not as strenuous on your muscles*)
i’m a classically trained vocalist. when i got to the part where jackman admitted to NOT DRINKING WATER BEFORE SINGING i really did have a stroke lol
Did you recover by the time he explained why was it wrong? 😂
I bet you needed more time than that.
I'm only a vocal student going through training. But this entire video felt like I was getting repeatedly slapped across the face with how many questionable and downright harmful decisions were made.
Samantha Barks is one of the very few who came fully prepared, understood the assignment and still managed to jump through whatever hoops the director decided to pick up that day. She's just pure talent.
Yep, Tom HOOPER clearly likes to throw HOOPS for actors to jump through.
And
Amanda Seyfried because
1.She do Mamma Mia which she nailed it
2.She is Amanda Seyfried
It's not just "pure talent" it's a lot of hard work mixed with talent
Colm Wilkinson as well, and I suppose Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen did a better job than most although not as good as the musical in anyway.
While I agree with the gist of what you're saying, it's likely less about "pure talent" and more simply because she knew both the role and the show (and how the music actually works in the show) inside out, having done it onstage a number of times by the time she was cast in the film, and thus didn't feel the need to needlessly muck around with it as much as *some* people (coughHughJackmancough). Praising someone for being talented is good and all, but it's also good to actually recognise and respect the years of dedicated work they put into it on top of that.
In reference to water I once had a voice teacher who said, “If you wanna sing right, you gotta pee white.”
Healthy pee is 1 to 3... 4 to 8, you must hydrate.
My marching band in high school was very competitive, and my director used to tell us that if our pee wasn’t clear we weren’t drinking enough and were letting the other members down lol
When I used to sing stuff the vocal teacher I want to said 'sing wet, pee clear'
WHITE?
@@jirachisob5633 prolly means "clear" or as close to clear as possible
I didn't understand how bad this was until he compared it to how bad the orchestra was treated, I play saxophone, and can barely handle one hour of constant play
They will have had worse, that’s what orchestras do. They play music hours on end. That’s what they are paid to do.
pros are trained for long days but for wind players (i’m a clarinettist) i can’t imagine that their embouchure will have held up perfectly. they train for stamina though!
@@xx_izzyxx2250 you sound like my HR.
@@xx_izzyxx2250 But for 10 hours straight?? Constantly, to the point where they are begging for a 2 minute break? That could have crippled their professional music career. They were not paid enough for that.
@@xx_izzyxx2250 Orchestras are NOT paid to play 'performance' level for multiple hours on end. Sure, they may PRACTICE for hours on end, but its often at a significantly reduced strain. They had to go all out for hours.
Just to correct something: Eddie Redmayne did musical theater when he was younger and was in tons of school productions.
Yeah I also thought this- he was a choral scholar through school and then also at Trinity college Cambridge, so he actually had a pretty rigorous background
makes sense, because he is the only one who acts like he is in a musical and knows how to sell it (besides Barks obviously)
@@writerintherye
And Aaron Tveit! He’s so good
I thought so, his singing in this movie was truly underappriciated imo. I watched him sang at the Oscars for this movie, he did a good job
Jackman's dehydration and Hathaway's weight loss reminds of what Laurence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman when Hoffman told Olivier that he (Hoffman) was depriving himself of sleep for the filming of "Marathon Man" (1976) -- "Why not try acting? It's much easier."
Yeah, actors shouldn't have to sacrifice their health for a performance. If anything they should make sure to be well rested, fed and hydtrated so that they can do their job to the best of their ability.
Anne is a good actress though, and not usually a method gal.
@@henrikibsen6258 She is, but losing a lot of weight in a short amount of time is just incredibly dangerous. It's affects not only your physical health but also your mental health. This upsets me personally because I had an ED in the past and I know what it's like to be severely underweight. I can't condone anyone putting themselves in that kind of state on purpose, no matter how professional they are.
They made the orchestra play for 10 hours straight?? That could have ruined any of those musicians careers. I feel sorry for the conductor.
I'm sure they were handsomely rewarded for their efforts.
@@jimmunster57 a-and? For a professional musician, getting hurt permanently as a result of playing music (which often results in never being able to play that instrument at a professional level again) would be a death sentence for their career and rob them of a skill they've built up with thousands of practice hours over the course of decades. How many millions per member of the orchestra would the company have to dish out to sufficiently compensate for that risk? I don't think there's any amount of money in the world that can make up for such a loss.
And the music in Les Mis is one of the hardest musicals' music to play.
@@jimmunster57 Lol, musicians getting paid. That's something new
I think they only had one pianist playing while they sung, not the entire orchestra
The fact that Hooper - through his approach - is basically insulting every musical stage performer (musical OR opera) by implying that because they rehearse their singing and then perform the music as it's supposed to be that their performances are less authentic
What drives me insane is that people have literally said that to me; that stage performances are not as “real” because it sounds too good. I hate hearing it so much and so many of my friends have said it to me.
It's such a weird take, because by the nature of a musical, if you're sacrificing the music for the acting, then that's not a good performance, it's an inherently bad one? That IS the performance. Why did they even want to make a musical? They could have just adapted the book with their all star cast, and nothing would have to suffer? I get that they made Cats afterwards ppbecause this film did well, but as a first step, why make a musical if you're not comfortable with how the singing somehow 'compromises the acting performance'?
@@lokiawriter8077 omg that's the *worst* wth?? Of Course stage performers endeavour to sound as perfect as possible - that's what makes them *professionals* that are performing their *job*?? I think the fact that so many people consider 'singing as a hobby' and 'singing as a profession' as pretty much the same really makes this sort of attitude worse and worse. Especially with the amount of TV singing competitions they really don't understand that musical/opera work from a very different technical standpoint
(flashback to every time I told people I'm doing professional singing lessons and getting a shrug, but then receiving an 'ohh so impressive' for me also doing Cello - despite my cello skills being like... actual literal miles worse than my singing)..
@@richardbourton4523 I assume it's because nobody really knows the book, so the "money" was considered to be in the musical, but yeah they probably could have come out with a better product considering
People worked hard to hone their craft for years upon years only for some two-bit hack say a performance shouldn't be perfect. Wtf?
Even for my shows in high school we were constantly told to break for water and talked through when in the performance we could have a drink, we didn't have dairy or sugar (where possible) in the weeks leading up to the show, and we were marking in our dress rehearsals. Everyone did fifteen minutes of warm-up together, and leads were encouraged to do some in their own time. We had honey-lemon drinks and the best sleep possible. Dehydrating yourself before shows is the most stupid thing I've ever heard - even the nine and ten year olds joining from the junior school were looking after themselves better than professional singers in professional productions. Holy shit.
He's right about the live recording part. Movie stans are ignoring the most important point so they can gush about their baby but the amount of time you perform vs rest is ENTIRELY different between stage and film. Movie musicals tend to have prerecorded vocals for a REASON
I gotta say I never considered it when I first saw the movie when I was younger, but now I’m horrified at the pure exhaustion having to sing live for multiple takes daily must’ve been
Y'all be sleeping on one of Sideways' best lines:
"There's this thing that vocalists do, that I absolutely hate, and it's when they're right."
🤣🤣🤣
What does that even mean?
@@infinitusfinitus It means that they're good enough to pull off cry-singing, even though by crying they're risking a dozen moments of screwing over their own entire performance. It's like being able to race a VWBeetle. Yeah it takes a bunch of skill, props for doing it twice, but please don't make it your primary mode of performance
@@QuikVidGuy - nah I think Sideways' comment is in reference to the not-so-subtle but friendly competitiveness between those who play instruments and those who sing. The orchestra conductor would always joke with us when we, the chorus, would join the orchestra for rehearsal and he'd say "Musicians!" but only in reference to the orchestra and he'd call the rest of us "singers" implying that singers were not actual musicians. It's a joke that continues with every generation.
Are we gonna ignore "and he's all like 'no, all lives matter! Nya!'"
as a vocalist, i agree. we suck.
Eddie Redmayne is a wonderful singer. But it's clear that he's in no way a natural Tenor. More like a Baritone, maybe Bass-Baritone. But the key wasn't changed, and now everyone's made fun of him so much that, despite his music background, he's scared to do another musical. Poor guy.
marius... isn't even a tenor. he's a high baritone (i think his range is like... a2 to g or a4 which is entirely doable for a sufficiently high baritone - i'm a baritone and that's doable for me), but he's definitely a baritone. if eddie IS a baritone then he's definitely one who's scared of high notes but you see that A Lot with not hugely trained baritones.
Michael Ball is one of the most beloved Mariuses and he is a high baritone
Thank you! I was going to comment it, but you beat me to it.
yes truth. Its the same as Russel Crowe. Javert is a bass to seem menacing. Look at phillip quast performance. Those low notes cant be hit by a tired Crowe
@@sungod1384 yeah, crowe certainly kind of gets the low f in the confrontation but not with any sense of like. confidence or gravity. i get that javert isn't usually cast on the strength of his low range but at least make sure he CAN do it
I'm in shock that anyone could think that 36 hours of dehydration could ever be a good thing BEFORE A LIVE VOCAL PERFORMANCE. Were there no music directors or vocal coaches nearby to say, "Actually, no, Hugh. Please don't do that" ??
I mean to hear Jackman deytrating himself is horrorfying even without the Vocal Part. Thats unhealthy eather way and really not good for his body
Boca?
@@Flora-ix3os Yes
Huh??
Mean* dehydrating* horrifying* that’s* either*
@@somefuckstolemynick Grammer Nazi. Englisch isnt my Mothertounge you know
Hugh Jackman depriving himself of water for 36 hours just should not be encouraged. So awful for you, let alone your voice
Literally every male buff male actor has done it. Its not good but it makes muscles pop and appear more toned
Chad Kroeger Yeah and it’s not healthy. They should not do that. Nobody said they don’t they said they should not
@@DeathnoteBB *should not* Either do it, or someone else will. It's their job. You don't get to play Cpt. America by being average.
adam goessl bro dehydration isn’t healthy. don’t encourage unhealthy behavior because there are other means to get ahead
@@gabrielleporter553 It doesn't matter what I promote. We live in a capitalist society. Viewership will drop if Thor isn't as ripped. No one will be able to make a compelling argument that he's actually healthier, and should thus be seen more often. Dehydrating for a day is fine. 36 hours is a bit extreme.
Fun Fact that makes me tear my hair out: Alfie Boe (Valjean in the concert clips Sideways shows) auditioned to reprise that role in the movie and he lost to Jackman.
Boe is such an incredible performer... His version of Bring Him Home shatters my heart every time I hear it, it's so beautiful
that remind me of Jeremy Jordan auditioning for the same role as Zac Efron in the Greatest Showman and singing through the entire musical score for him to then be told no.
Good for him, he avoided this monstrosity
Yeah, but given what we learned in this video, he dodged an unhealthy performance
@@laurahenderson4528 Jeremy did the whole demo recording! And then Hugh lost his voice when they were going to put it on in New York for producers, and they asked Jeremy to go and sing off stage while Hugh lip-synced. And they STILL didn't cast him!!!
not giving hugh jackman the prompts for ripping the paper is stupid enough... even dumber when you see he first tears it _as he starts singing the note_ - mate, if you have watched literally ANY OTHER VERSION of this scene you will know to wait before that. it doesn't start there. hugh, what are you - oh - hugh, no, you - he - he has his set deafened, he can't hear us!
The fact that Hugh Jackman went from THIS to his performance in The Greatest Showman is one of the best points to be made here! That jump in quality is what happens when your performers are actually HYDRATED AND HEALTHY!
Right? When I was so surprised by his performance in this film because I knew he started in musical theater.
Hugh's passion gets the better of him when it comes to musicals. When they did the rehearsal for investors he wasn't supposed to sing due to surgery but he ended up doing it anyway because he got caught by the energy in the room. He needs a good director to nudge him on the right path.
and not singing full blast for 8 hours straight every day!
@@SquareViking I read about that. Apparently he ripped stitches. Like... calm down, Hugh?
@@SquareViking I don't think he understands that there's a difference between sacrificing and putting your all into a role and just being void of logic.
I will give Crowe this, that line of “How many times does a bloke need to die in a given day?” Made me chuckle.
It’s the kinda joke you always hear in theater and stage.
That with the shot of him lifelessly flopping off a ledge is *chefs kiss*
@@ihatemyname2816 I don’t think that was acting. Crowe might’ve just collapsed from exhaustion. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took a nap on that mat. 😜
@@stingerjohnny9951 To be honest, after the brutal regime everyone had to go through with filming I can't say I'd be surprised if he *did* collapse from exhaustion...
Ask Sean Bean :-p
I was in the musical 9 preforming as Young Guido once and the near suicide scene before my solo took so long to perfect I just kept watching this poor guy nearly shoot himself over and over again while I just stood at the side waiting to come in like 🧍♂️
Also, random note, for the production we put the mics in high durability condoms to protect them and it almost fell out of my pocket onstage
Jackman: I didn’t drink water for 36 hours before preforming
Me: *franticly drinks water in secondhand pain and panic*
I'm feeling mighty thirsty right about now
Hydrohomies spotted
Saaaaaaaame
Same
Man, I literally got up and went to drink water after that part, that sounds painful
so, like, I know Sideways dosen't really do content anymore, which sucks but if that's what's healthy, I'm glad, but I wanted to say that I'm an engineering student who knows NOTHING about music to the point where I have trouble identifying a leitmotif because I don't always hear when music is simaler. I'm getting better at it but it's ONLY because Sideways helped show me the importance of music in storytelling. My mom worked in the opera and ballet but 30 years, and although my artistic talent went into design work and mechanics rather than hair and makeup, I still think theater is REALLY COOL! so I showed her this and it was the most fun I've had with her in ages. She convinced me to Le Mis and we ended up watching the concert version because I'd only ever seen the movie (my sister insisted on watching it during her musical phase). it was amazing, I know this is about to sound like "STEM major discovers musical theater is good actually" but I know, I've watched musicals before, and I understand that they're really good, I'd just never seen this specific show before lol. anyways, the music was beautiful, the emotional beats hit so much harder when they were reinforced by the musical backing and build up of the uhhh leitmoteifs also Ruthie Henshall's come to me was.... one of the most impressive things I've ever heard, she ends the song by like.... I don't know how to describe it, she like..... gets louder and higher pitched and like quieter at the same time?? like it geneuanly sounds like a trick of the audio or like she's stepping away from the microphone, but she's not, she's doing it with her VOICE and it's HAUNTING, I asked my mom and she kinda laughed at my awe, and said it was "talent" Look, from a pure acting standpoint Come to me might be better in the move, with the tears and emotion and weakness, but that haunting last note will stay with me for a lot longer.
I remember when I saw the Greatest Showman, I thought to myself: "Huh. Hugh Jackman sounds way better than in Les Mis." I guess now I know why. ;-;
I don't even like The Greatest Showman for a bunch of reasons. However, I will wholeheartedly agree.
He totally redeemed himself in Greatest Showman. (Mostly "From Now On") I mean, autotune and such but my friend saw The Man, The Show live and she said he was great. So he was obviously just not meant for Les Mis.
He was meant to be 'rawer', grittier here than in The Greatest Showman and this music was recorded directly as performed which I don't think The Greatest Showman was so you can't really compare the two.
@@northernlights9814 but as Sidways pionts out in the video (35:55 is when the part starts), all of the actors were able to do better performances hydrated. Jackman did a better performance outside in the cold rather than what got put in the film.
@@fairyflight8436 I saw that in the video, but I always presume the end product is the choice of the Director of the movie, be it 'artistic' choice or his preferred 'take'. This Director had so much experience from making movies and tv-series that he would not overlook a better 'take'. He made his choice, his preferrance, and we can like it or not.
This and the Cats video have made me wonder whether it is legitimately Tom Hooper's goal to destroy the public's opinion of musicals from the inside
“If sitting doesn’t let you project, someone forgot to tell Ali Stroker.” MIC FREAKING DROP!
YES!!!! She's so awesome!
I truly had to pause the video and just STARE for a moment after that
I mean, it's hilarious that he says that, and then plugs Lindsay Ellis's "Why Cats" video... when she uses that "It's hard to sing/project while sitting down" argument, WHILE USING THAT ANNE HATHAWAY CLIP FROM LES MIS.
Well I felt the clip he cut to there sounded horrible, much less enjoyable to listen to then what Hathaway did in this movie.
There's a RUclips reaction channel that has a guy who gives singing lessons and plays in a band react to music videos. In the video that I saw, which was him and his guitarist reacting to Global Warming by Gojira, he was sitting the entire time and was giving examples of projecting vocals. He had to back away from the mic every time because he would peak the mic when he would sing.
So yeah, whoever said you can't project while sitting is lying.
It also doesn't help that the 10th Anniversary Dream Cast in Concert was as perfect as they come. Seriously, just incredible.
Yessssss! It is the best!
I almost exclusively listen to the original London recording because it’s what I grew up on, but I make an exception for the 10th anniversary concert because it’s amazing
@@shammyturtle9741 I get that entirely.
fr the comparision cuts made it seem like the movie was a 10th grade school production
@@writerintherye And it had NO RIGHT to be that way. Realism comes when you focus on developing your characters, stories and plots, not from developing "The right feeling."
I actually gasped when you showed Anne Hathaway actually singing at the end. I'm glad you told her story for why she really wanted to do this role and it kind of makes me feel bad for her now. I listened to the movie soundtrack and had kind of written her off. Now I'm going to go look for her actual vocal performances.
I love that. Anne Hathaway gets brushed off a lot but I really like her.
@@smoothblink i have really liked her as an actress.
Pretty good vocal performance from her would be in Ella Enchanted when she sings Somebody to Love
Anne Hathaway is overrated
@@talondearborne7631 I fucking love Ella Enchanted.
It's literally called _Les Miserables_ and people didn't know it was French???
Well I’m sure a lot of people knew it was a book originally but I was surprised to hear that the musical itself was written in French first
Plus, some Americans probably didn't know it was French and thought it was pronounced "less mi-zur-ah-bels" ;)
zxKAOS1 that’s how this video started lol
I think people think that the novel by Victor Hugo was written in French but maybe assume that Claude-Michel Schoenberg wrote the songs in English.
@@antoinettea6179 Pretty much this. There's the distinction that it takes place in France, or has a French theme, vs. the lyrics itself being in French (language). People are aware _Miss Saigon_ takes place in Vietnam, but wouldn't think that its original adaptation is in Vietnamese (it isn't). Or _Cats_ is about a bunch of cats, but its original language isn't some "feline language" (which it also isn't).
Apparently they told Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks and Hadley Fraser to "tone it down" when performing on set in order to make the other cast members sound better.
Emily Guilfoyle cuz there all theatre gods and would have out shun the leads
Hadley Fraser is in it less than a minute and he shows more presence and vocal ability than all of them put together.
@@misfittoys5873 No kidding.
Except Hugh Jackman is also a Broadway legend. 🙄
tehkatersz i’m honestly so shocked that he dehydrated himself so severely. like he’s done theatre he should know better?
I had the great, great pleasure of seeing Alfie Boe (the guy potraying Valjean in the 25th anniversary edition you see clips from in this video) portray Valjean on Broadway in 2015 and I was devastated to hear he auditioned for the same part in the movie and didn't get it. I guess star power->vocal power in a MUSICAL.
While I completely agree that it's criminal he didn't get the part, I'm at the very least relieved to know he dodged a bullet given the conditions all of the musicians in this movie endured pfpff
@@TheTrueTurtlegirl Heh. Somehow I doubt he would have needed more than one take. Or given up drinking WATER. Jeez, I can't over how stupid that is.
@@jippy33 Honestly, the idea of intentionally depriving oneself of water for the sake of a performance is bad enough, worsened significantly by the idea of someone SINGING under those circumstances. The fact that they say that all so casually and with proud smiles on their faces is HORRIFYING.
If they really wanted to hear more "realistic" performances, they should have had the whole orchestra perform live on set as well, preferably in the rain, deprived of food and water. I'd listen to that version.
You sick bastard. I’m in
the poor instruments
I hate you for this idea
All you would hear is the orchestra beating the director to death with ✨relaxing rain sounds✨in the background
"Les Misérables as performed by the Sonic Unleashed E-Rank orchestra. Directed by Tom Hooper."
Seeing that Jackman dehydrated himself for the role, that Hathaway dropped an almost dangerous amount of weight, AND how long they had to sing straight... jeez it's a wonder that the AD or on-set medic didn't shut down the set for a day, and I honestly wouldn't be shocked if that happened. I've worked sets where crew collapsed from exhaustion and medics forced a shutdown for at least a couple hours. Friends of friends have told me horror stories where CAST collapsed and the show got shut down for a day or more, putting the film in danger of falling behind schedule or over budget. Not only that, but even on longer shoots I've been on (we're talking 20-28 hours here), nobody expects actors or crew to be on top of it at hour 10 or 20 as they are at hour 1 so as a filmmaker this was absolutely HORRIFIC
And that bs about the orchestra "finding their reserves" ... wtf man. I play saxophone in a wind ensemble and yeah we practice a lot, but playing at performance level for 10+ hours straight probably killed the woodwinds (at least in my experience), and I wouldn't be surprised if a few reeds were permanently ruined from people biting through their lower lips (yes, that's a thing). And when you hear that trumpet running lines when the one performer is begging for a 2 minute break, it's painful, he sounds soo tired. He sounds like he can't feel his face, which he probably couldn't. This film was a musical disaster from every angle
I think someone did faint on set. Heaven knows why no one stopped it sooner!
@@danielasarmiento30 Yeah I think it was the "show 'im what you've got" woman and she just got some honey water to keep going
Yeah, when you're absolutely playing it out as a reed instrument, your teeth press against your lip and they'll cut a groove. That doesn't even count how your facial muscles start to fail after hours. I can't imagine how shitty that was.
Playing an instrument is a workout. How much of a workout it is is going to vary on the song, and on the instrument, but your face muscles aren't designed to exercise for that length of time!
I agree! There's a lot to consider!
Thank you for including that brief clip of Jackman and Crowe singing live together! I appreciate the redemption and proof they're so much better than what ended up in the film.
I like Jackman’s singing… when it’s directed well. He has a nice voice, but like every instrument it needs to be directed well
@@voguishthrone5887 Not to mention, properly hydrated. Still not over that water thing.
@@jbvader721 yeah- that is such a *bizarre* thing to do to yourself, *especially* in a singing role
@@voguishthrone5887 An experienced singer like Jackman should've known better and Tom Hooper shouldn't have encouraged him. But Hooper isn't musically inclined to know how dangerous that was.
I came across this video where Crowe was singing with Jeff Leyton (who played Valjean on stage before and was one of the Valjean actors who sang "Do You Hear The People Sing?" in the "Les Mis: The Dream Cast in Concert" back in 1995) where they sing "The Confrontation". And honestly, Crowe sounds a lot better. Aside from the fact that he was thankfully not overworked and dehydrated during this time, I have a feeling he asked Leyton for vocal help and he end up singing the song the way it's supposed to be sung, which explains why he sounds a lot better.
ruclips.net/video/_AlC__ouuMo/видео.htmlsi=_jJmL55bOPtj1a1M
Hugh. Hun. Why are you giving a better performance at a god damn karaoke night than in the actual movie
Probably because he didn't go into the karaoke performance after not drinking water for 36 hours
@@elsie8757amazing what you can sound like when you're not torturing yourself
@@jplayzowI want to laugh but this is legit what happened
@@stellarluna1834 Yeah go figure doing literally everything the wrong way to get a good product doesn't get a good product
Well because he wasn't drinking water and...did you watch the video?
as someone who has only been in my school choir and is by no means a vocalist, hearing about hugh jackman deprive himself of water horrified me
RIGHT AHSHDJFKL Our director yelled at us every 5 seconds to drink water
Yeah...I was in school choir and theatre, and in my area we had an annual festival called All-County Music Festival, where a bunch of kids from the whole county would put together a huge concert after practicing at seperate schools for like a month and as a whole for three days (all day for each of those days, btw, with probably three to five breaks? I can't entirely recall) That festival gave us water bottles for free every year, and for the three days we all rehearsed together we were basically banned from eating dairy, sugar, spicy food, and other such phlegm-makers, and we had to ensure that we got 8 hours of sleep a night and ate three meals a day. And that was for a really low stakes music festival, nothing was hinging on it, we were just doing it for fun and to meet some cool directors (my last concert, I got to be directed by a lovely lady who had performed at Carnegie Hall). And while I play a lot of instruments, I only ever did vocalist's All-County, but I am very familiar with the flow of it. To think that Hollywood actors don't get to or decide not to follow such simple standards to meet is, uh. Concerning.
as a human being this terrifies me. like wtf. I get a headache if I don't drink my three litres over less than a single day. I don't even want to think about the pain those thirty six hours + actually performing would cause me
Me too holy shit I paused the video for 5 minutes after hearing that
I was sitting in shock and horror for a big chunk of the video after that
When I heard what Hugh Jackman dehydrated himself for his performance, I was genuinely horrified. As a vocalist myself, drinking water is SUPER important to me. I've been in a few productions and several concerts, and each time, I go on vocal rest the day before and only drink water. Otherwise, my voice hurts after my performance. I can't imagine performing for hours on end without proper hydration. Given the circumstances, Hugh Jackman is lucky his performance was as good as it was (and let's be honest, it was awful) and that his vocal chords weren't permanently damaged
He could've lost his voice, right?
@@jessya775 he could’ve definitely lost his voice. i’m surprised he didn’t, honestly.
@@jessya775 I don't know about losing his voice but he definitely could've done irreparable damage to it
And the worst part is, as Sideways pointed out, that he did it all to look ripped in a film where he never takes his shirt off, so he just risked permanently ruining his voice for nothing.
it's a MUSICAL after all
I can't believe the cast were even permitted to sing for so long in those conditions/ without any water. As you said, someone could have been seriously hurt. I'm so sick of hearing about actors abusing themselves for roles. There are other, healthier methods of acting than this
That's the sort of thing that gives an actor the role of his lifetime. And it shows on screen, which means that effort is more likely to be rewarded with awards (is it a surprise that DiCaprio got his Oscar with The Revenant rather than with more "comfortable" roles he's had before?).
"Healthier methods" just don't make films that are quite as poignant.
@@MadManchou The movie literally would've been better if he had drank water in the day and half before filming though...
Unfortunately, it is very expensive to be on set. Even more so if you're recording everything live and have a huge number of extras.
Franz Patrick as Said by someone who sint an actor
Exactly. If filmmakers could use makeup, trick photography, and computer effects to make a horse look abused and emaciated without ever actually hurting the horse (as in the case of Black Beauty, in 1994, in believe), they should be able to do the same to achieve realistic appearances for actors in a major blockbuster in 2012.
I was in pit orchestra for a local production of the show, and the recurring motifs were so fun to play! They're weird rhythms, but they reoccur so many times that you can recognize them on sight and know how they'll fit with the rest of the ensemble.
Also the teenagers playing Valjean and Javert absolutely crushed it, The Night was one of my favorite pieces to listen to during the performances- I had almost entirely rests during the song, but the way the lead actor sang it was so gorgeous. I HATED the belting when I finally watched the movie because I was so used to how delicate our actor made the vocals.
This video made me drink a glass of water and I'm not even a vocalist
I used to sing a ton and this made me go grab several cups of water.
jesus fuck that's utterly horrifying to me. It's the same thing as taking a hammer to a brass instrument, you just don't fucking do it.
SAME
I drank 24 oz and I still feel thirsty. Why would Jackman agree to that?! My throat is sore just thinking of it. Whyyyyyy
I drank a cup of jizz!!
Coffeeisnecessarynow rumors have it that that’s healthy
I was not expecting to hear "I'm Samantha Barks, and I'm a badass" today, but my life is nontheless enriched for having heard it.
It’s what she deserves.
elrapido5150 YES!
She was terrific
As a singer, I immediately was horrified when Hugh Jackman said he didn't drink any water for 36 hours. I flipped out and reached for my water bottle.
I’m a singer as well (kinda) but it even horrified me as a person. 36 hours seems terrifying to me
Im not even a singer (at least not well) and I want some water after hearing that
I don't sing but this sounds fucking dangerous to any human. Who let this happen?
Same, that'd be pain to sing...
not even just from a vocal perspective either!
As a professional singer and voice teacher, I deeply appreciate the discussion of vocal function.
The problem with crying in film is: you can tell if there are no tears. If you cry on stage, not even the first row will be able to tell if there are actual tears streaming down your face. However, in film you can always tell, bc the camera is obviously much closer to the face than an actual audience would be. So while fake crying on stage might work, it will look really artificial and fake in film. The solution to this is easy. JUST PRERECORD THE DAMN SONGS!
@Louis Kirkwood I'm fine with a sequel or prequel if it at least has decent damn singing.
Louis Kirkwood the thing is, recording it live does not have am single advantage. I get that the idea of a musical is to be seen live, but this is not the stage adaption. As someone who is quite familiar with the theater world: Things that work on stage usually don’t work out in film, and singing live is just one of those things. If you’re approaching a movie adaption the same way you’d approach a stage adaption you will fail. It’s a shitty experience for the actors, bc singing 10-12 h a day can damage your vocal chords immensely, wich is something that was described in this video over and over again. The actors can’t show their full potential, bc they have to hold back so they can do the next 20 takes just as well (wich just doesn’t work). Also just bc another director/producer would do it just as badly as what was done here, doesn’t make it any better. Overall this is just overcomplicating things with out having any positiv effects on the movie, the crew or the cast
@Louis Kirkwood It isn't just that the actors had discomfort (which is bad) but that it didn't produce a better product but actually dragged it down. In theatre they make concessions to the performance for the sake of music by getting them to just stand in front of a microphone so it sounds better. In the film they made the opposite concession, making the music worse to get a movie performance with full crying and facial expressions and so on. The thing is if they had studio recording they could have had both. That's what is disappointing for me, that when the goal was "a transcendence to the traditional forms" it instead felt like it was bogged down and stuck in the mud somewhere in between those forms.
@Louis Kirkwood lol no, it genuinely sucked.
+Rebecca W. If the "fake crying is too obvious" thing were true, why does Samantha Barks prove that false?
I have a friend who works in the movie industry (not as an actor, she's a designer) and one of the most terrifying things she always hears from famous directors is this line: "Pain is temporary. Film is forever."
jesus that’s pretentious
kirikakirikakirika I model part time and I run when a photographer says that to me
Wasn't it Peter Jackson who was (in)famous for saying that?
Jackie Chan said something similar in that manner when got interviewed about why he put in so much and risk so much in his action takes, and does he regret it?
You can't see the look of horror that's frozen on my face!
I'm reminded of the story of Dustin Hoffman going without sleep for three nights so he could play a scene where his character was exhausted.
And Laurence Olivier asked him "Why don't you try acting? It's so much easier."
You should watch Daniel Day Lewis talking about it.
kellan lutz went without sleep for like 2-3 days so it would make his character actually look sleep deprived in the remake of nightmare on elm street
Perfectly sums up how I feel about it. Their job is to act, not be professional masochists with a penchant for bodily and mental harm.
Sometimes dedicating their bodies to their craft has its merits. Take Christian Bale in The Machinist as an example. He had to transform his body to be the character he was portraying, which was a man who hasn’t slept for a year and barely eats.
@@WhiteWaterAlchemist Yet they managed to make Matt Damon look like a man who was only eating a quarter of a potato while stranded on Mars with cgi🤷🏾♀️
Eddie Redmayne was a choral scholar at Trinity?! Why are you saying he had no experience? He probably had WAAAY more experience than Russel Crowe.
We HAVE to give to Samantha Barks cos she is by FAR the best vocalist in this film and on my own is amazing
Yes and they told her to hold back she’s even better in the stage version
Her and Aaron Tveit anyway ;_;
Anna G her performance was even better in the 25th anniversary!! She’s incredible!!
Yep. Was literally my first thought when I saw that video.
@@micahlee4625 I know right, haha, even thought they cut like have his lines and Samantha Barks definitely gets to show off more
bro the water fasting part made my throat hurt so bad jesus chriiiiiiiiiiiiist
Shoot, I got a drink just hearing that part
Ay when’s your next vid dropping the last one was incredible
if I don't drink a half gallon a day, my voice will just spontaneously go into sleep mode. Even my face just starts not sounding right and trying to find the scale is like trying to open a can of soda when my hand's asleep. I'm pretty sure I can no longer hit 6th octave notes because I was drinking too much vodka for a little while
Water fasting is so dangerous too! Not an acceptable weight loss method or a good way to make you "look sick" on camera. They have skilled make-up artists for that, and they can always CGI you skinnier.
Whoa didn’t expect breadsword here. Sick.
Without being technical, it just sounded like absolutely no one was singing in a good key for their vocal range. They all sounded like they were strangling.
Yes, _strangling_ is the word here. Not just struggling, _strangling_ their own voice boxes.
I kept thinking is Hugh Jackman singing in the wrong key? Is this out of his range? I expected so much from Hugh, I have seen him on stage and he was amazing. What the hell is this?
@@devonrains6580 Same, I was so confused about how he could sound so bad when he actually has skills! But if you think about the conditions they were working under, including DEHYDRATION apparently, I guess it explains a lot. He sung some les mis songs live at some point and it sounded way better (not that the film sets he bar very high).
Such a wasted opportunity.
Yeah it's like they were choking
Hooper's Les Mis stumbled so Cats could fall flat on its face.
underrated comment, thank you for the chuckle.
Samantha Barks was robbed when they cut the intro to On My Own. She suddenly just appears out of nowhere singing the song without the context- lost so much impact.
this.
Snap.
She was one of the best parts of the film I thought (along with les amis of course).
I don’t think she appears out of no where In the movie version shes basically gets left at Cosette's house since Marius is oblivious to her still being there when he walks off and after screaming and being hit by her father she has to walk back alone, which is where we see her start singing. But yeah wish they didn’t cut the first lyrics of her song. There was a deleted scene/bts scene I saw somewhere where when she’s singing there’s a moment where she’s actually looking up at the window of the cafe where she can see Marius in the window.
@@Priceless201 Cutting the intro killed the impact of this song - there isn't enough context and the song was written that way for a reason.
As someone taking singing lessons, Crowe’s four different vocal teachers makes me so angry. The differences in the warm up exercises ALONE between my vocal teacher and general school music teacher throws my voice during choir SO BADLY. HOW IN THE WORLD DID HE THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA
Choir teachers have limited time to warm up an entire class, and begin working on pieces (which often includes teaching how to read music in general). They have to get a class full of (sometimes very amateur) students ready for a concert or competition under a time constraint. They have to get a variety of unique voices to blend, which requires different warm ups to those you may do before your solo performance. Vocal coaches work primarily on technique, and typically will work on technique that is better suited for solo performances (and heavily dependent on what kind of music you’ll be performing!). Separate your choral performance technique from your solo performance technique, two different modes there. Classic choral, opera chorus, opera solo, musical theatre chorus, musical theatre solo, pop, rock, etc etc etc have different techniques and warm ups best suited for the style and/or individual voice. If your coach is training you in Musical theatre techniques, you can’t apply that to choir. You need to learn to separate your technique for the different genres. Some techniques cross over, many don’t. Lady Gaga is a pop vocalist, and has a beautiful classical & opera voice. Different techniques to achieve her sounds.
Anyway, that being said, all vocal coaches have their own style of teaching, and their own specialization of music type. As a soloist, I filtered through a few coaches until I found the right fit for the style of music I performed best in. They may have had very skilled coaches lined up for crow, but each specializing in different genre disciplines. They might have had a pop oriented coach, a Broadway coach, an opera coach. Each teaching different things and starting from scratch. He didn’t get much out of it because they just wouldn’t have gotten very far with him in their short time of trying to start from scratch (Unteaching then reteaching) with the techniques they believed were best suited. It’s less so his voice was “thrown” and more so he learned very little of how to control his instrument for the pieces of music he was performing. If he had spent significant time with ONE opera vocal coach, OR a Broadway coach, or one who can do both (preferably), he would have been better off.
It needs to stop being considered okay, let alone admirable, for actors to abuse their bodies (or more likely, directors to push for actors to abuse their bodies) for the sake of a movie.
Its the Actors/Actress decision nobody forces them, if they dont want to do it, they shouldnt take the job.
@@Hesher93 ah yes... and if an actor decides to jump off a building to recreate a character's physical ailments, its ok because its their decision, and noone forced them to. It shouldn't matter if it was their decision or not. someone needed to have told them that if they do this they have a chance of seriously harming themselves. Imagine a world where hugh jackman or anne hathaway did get serious vocal damage. (thank goodness they didnt) We would be shorted of these actors and the future performances they might give.
Please, actors do it to serve their own interests. By showing that they can/will do/learn something for a specific project, they are showing everybody (from the Academy to the general audiences) how much committed they are to their art. That makes them more bankable, respectable, recognizable and award-worthy. It's the same with athletes who keep pushing their physical limits by repeatedly winning medals/trophies and breaking records.
@@allywatchstation As if they didnt know that, they are adults for gods sake, they know what they are doing. They know what eating an Apple a day would/could do to them, they are adults, its their decision, there is something like personal responsibility. At the end of the day, they do it because they love it or for the pay check, nobody forces them. Espacially actors like Hughe Jackman who can handpick their roles.
OP: "This bad thing needs to stop being the norm."
Reply 1: "no one's FORCING them. If they don't want to be abused, someone else will be abused instead." Yes. That's the problem.
Reply 3: "the actors do it because they benefit/profit from it." Yes. That's the problem.
Reply 4: "well it's always been like this, so..." Yes, that's why OP said it needs to STOP.
Shout out to reply 2 for understanding what OP's words meant in the order OP put them in. It was apparently a pretty monumental achievement.
I was thoroughly baffled when you said Cameron Mackintosh approved this movie. I didn't know he held the film rights, and never would have thought he would want anyone unqualified in the cast. Also I was definitely disappointed with Hugh Jackman, given he's got actual musical theater experience. I'm also shocked anyone LET him not drink water.
*Tom Hooper:* I need you to look sick for this musical!
*Hugh Jackman:* Okay, I gonna make myself actually sick in a way that'll definitely impact my singing ability!
*The whole make-up department:* ... Are we a joke to you?
Also, how is being super buff sick?
@@Ociloc exactly! I wouldn't think he's sick if I saw him, however, I would be concerned he's not eating/drinking enough. To make actors have that extreme muscle definition, it's not just Hugh depriving himself of water. Most male actors do that for movies to look leaner and it's SO BAD. Being buff doesn't mean you have to have 0% body fat. That's majorly unhealthy. An example of someone being absolutely ripped but also having a healthy amount of body fat would be Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, although he is an extreme example because he's so tall. But yeah. The guys in the movies look as shredded as they do because they're starving and dehydrating themselves and it's SO NOT GOOD. It's unrealistic body standards for dudes and is causing people to hurt themselves.
Music nerd rages for 38 minutes and 36 seconds because actors get paid millions to do their jobs
@@sarahturner4148 I mean, if they wanted to make Hugh look realistic as a convict of 20 years- malnourished all the time, then... They did a good job. The main problem here is that they put the acting performance before singing and it really shows
Norah Maurice if you’ve ever seen a competition ready bodybuilder in person you’d get what he means. When you look at their faces all you think is “gaunt”
Damn Hooper really took the MISERABLE of 'Les Misérables' to heart
fuckin raw
"If you enjoy filming this movie, you're doing it wrong"
Man, that's deep
Considering at least two actors dehydrated/lost weight to look boney and poor… yeah✋
I now realise that 'Les Miserables' is the name afforded to fans of the "original" show.
I’m still always shocked to hear what Jackman put himself through, because he of all of the main cast should have known better. He started out in musical theatre long before he did film, he was a dancer! I’ve seen him live and he was a fantastic performer, which is why his work in Les Mis was so disappointing :c
Sadly most actors don't get a choice. Even if you walk off the set you can get replaced, even if you're a big name like Hugh Jackman. Hooper abused these actors for the sake of "art".
@@jamie1602 a lot of people have said "he didn't have to do it" in the same way a landlord says "you don't have to pay rent I guess"
Also correct me if im wrong, but this was before marvel really blew up. Which was kinda the time it seemed actors were starting to have more sway in thing. Cause if Robert Downey Jr, basically irl iron man, said yeah no im not doing x thing. They cant just replace him. Same for hughe as the wolverine. Some timds you can argue sometimed you cant and either quit, which sometimes jsnt an option financially. Or deal with it.
Crowe was in the original Australian cast of Blood Brothers. He has more musical theatre experience than you give him credit for.
I mean, either way he still mentions how Crowe's singing in the film isn't even representative of what his real capability is. I mean the whole point of giving Crowe credit for anything music-related at all is to show just how good he 'should've' been had the production not compromised him, and the rest of the cast's singing ability.
But yeah it would be cooler to have further noted just how even more musically competent these people have been, because then it just makes it even sadder when they're not performing up to expectation (less to their own accord, and more because of the production).
Seeing Hugh Jackman go from a dehydrated, yellow-eyed raggety pink skeleton covered in hair, to transforming into The Greatest Showman full of smooth melodies and charisma, shows why hydration, rest and rehearsal breaks are important!!! For the love of god, Hollywood, never do this again! xD
Agreed, it was awful how they were treated, but I didn't really like The Greatest Showman either. Imo, they took an awful man who was literally very abusive and turned him into a hero.
@@420catboi It's all about the perspective from the context. The whole world was abusive towards the 'freaks,' and in that world he was a shining light of acceptance, opportunity and respect. He offered them jobs, gave them a family, etc etc. That there were wage disputes or he teased them for what made them unique and caricaturized them for the sake of the show, may make him something evil in the modern day, in a world where 'weirdos' automatically have more than he offered, thus he would only be taking away. But at the time, all of it was better than what they would have gotten from anyone else, and what more can you ask for besides improvement from where you are now? And they stayed because there wasn't anything better for them- he was peak human rights for them. So to those people, he was their hero, and if we have to polish what he did to make him come across that way to us, so be it.
@@420catboi I see what you mean but it see these kinds of films as fictional works. Like the Conjuring films, I really like them but the warrens in real life were frauds
@@frde2190 I agree. Fictionally, they're stunning pieces of work. But at the same time, I think it's important for people to know the real history behind these stories and why they're so impactful as well. But that's just my opinion. I totally see where you're coming from tho.
@@frenchbreadstupidity7054 I recommend watching Jenny nicholsons video on greatest showman
I love the fact that the pianist is in a cage. Naughty pianists go to piano jail
Piano jail! 😂
C A G E T H E P I A N I S T
So they don't run away from this movie
Bonk
Go to piano jail B O N K
i'm back after the cats video. ROAST tomathy, mr. sideways, ROAST him
OMG SAME
@@lucydiamond1595 lmaoo SAME HERE
same here! they were both amazing
Hi "why the hell was a musical directed by someone who knows nothing about music" gang.
@@erika6473 hello fellow member
Your stay away from RUclips is so tragic, I would literally auction parts of my soul off to hear your thoughts on the oppenheimer soundtrack
I understand the show is LITERALLY called Les Miserables, but that's doesn't mean EVERYONE INVOLVED HAD TO BE ACTUALLY MISERABLE 😣 So much respect to everyones sacrifice to make this movie, seriously hats off
Also I never knew the tearing of the paper was supposed to go with the orchestra beats but that hits SO MUCH HARDER when it does! My god that was exhilarating to see for the first time in this video
Finally, somebody who appreciates the sacrifices of those who created this fabulous production.
@@happinesstan. The film is still bad.
Watching the Les Miserables 25th anniversary show is such a revelation. They do everything so perfectly in that show.
The older I get the more I’m started to understand that everyone in Hollywood is absolutely insane.
Indeed
That they brag about it like a badge of honor
99% are, yes.
Hi, film student here!
I think for Eddie singing "Empty Chairs" they used one of several different techniques used to make it look like actors are crying when they actually aren't. Some actors can cry on command, but there are some other ways to make an actor tear up rather than really cry. These include, but are not limited to, shining a bright light in their eyes and using actual eye drops that act as tears.
Considering how his crying is not effecting his singing, I think they used one of those techniques to make it appear like he was actually crying but he wasn't. You can kind of tell because his eyes aren't as red as they would be if he were really crying. Why they didn't do this with Hathaway probably has to do with her own acting choice and how, for some horrible reason, method acting is considered a cool thing when it really isn't.
Great video, just wanted to lend my two cents!
Agreed while I understand Hathaways thought process I felt it ended up taking away from the scene. It’s such a beautiful plaintive tender song full of pain, love and hope that it was, as my grandmother would say, “over egging the pudding”. You remember how a song made you feel not what the person looked like singing it. Hundreds of Sound of Music fans will attest to that. They were trying for gritty realism AND emotive musical but ended up with a mish mash.
That is a bunch of excellent points
It's also worth remembering that as someone who lip-syncs daily, it's way easier to cry then
I’m able to cry when I’m singing in a way that doesn’t affect my throat... I don’t really have control over it other than being able to keep it from going too far. (And my eyes don’t get red)
A director started freaking out one time when he saw tears running down my face but I told him “oh this is just the emotions coming out my eyeballs... I’m not really crying” and I’m still not sure he believed me 😆
So all that just to say that for some people, there are two types of crying on stage. I definitely would be afraid of going into that place of realistic crying though.
I can’t cry on command but if I make myself anxious enough I can
When I sang musical theater, I trained myself in sad songs to let the emotions out of the eyes (tears) but not let it affect my throat.
My only issue with this video is how he says that Jackman didn’t drink water for 3 days, but 36 hours is a day and a half.
Hugh Jackman’s “All I did was STEAL SOME BREAD” has lived rent free in my head since I saw this in cinemas.
He sounds like he’s getting punched in the gut with every word. XD
@@Dreigonix with how dehydrated he was, he might as well have been punched. It mightve been a better performance
He was trying to sing like someone who was loosing his temper
Thank you for shedding light on the dangerous negligence present on the set of this monstrosity.
How is your health Hildy?
When I watched the movie i thought it was a fantastic movie but i never watched the theater version so maybe my opinion wasn't biased.
No response? I think she’s... dead 🤭
ah yes, the mistress of bardcore
the queen of bard core watches the same you tubers i watch- squeee
me, not a vocalist: damn they were doing 10 hours of singing? that sounds unpleasant 😬
me, a violist: THEY PLAYED FOR 7 HOURS??? I TAP OUT AFTER 2, _WH-_
I used to be a vocalist in a few choirs throughout my life (youth and barbershop chorus), and I have done full days of singing before. Around hour 6 is when you start to experience vocal fatigue and you *NEED* to back off and just focus on the technical composition of the music. If you push yourself you are at serious risk of damaging your voice. And that's for literally singular, isolated days of intense rehearsals, with regular breaks and intense focus on hydration. I can't imagine doing that multiple times in a short period.
What Hugh did with his dehydration stunt is literally like using a knife to play a string instrument.
Jesus.
As a college vocal major, my professors recommended 15-20 minutes practice in the morning and another 10-15 in the evenings. Those are on days with a rehearsal and/or a lesson though.
Wow, can't even practice for 40 hours a day?!!?
Disappointing...
@@Elemental-Phoenix Yeah, when I was in high school, I spent easter at an "International Choir Week" for teens, in Germany. In 10 days, we had to practice and rehearse stuff for only choir, and for choir with orchestra, and have two performances at the end of the 10 days. It really showed me what it might be like to be a professional choir singer. We started practice every day at between 9 and 10am, sang for a few hours, had a long lunch break, then sang a few hours more. It was tiring, just like any other work situation is. Physically and mentally - at the end of each day, we were so ready to go have fun, to stop rehearsing, because honestly.... Even just looking at sheetmusic for 6-7 hours every day, reading them while reading the lyrics (different languages for most of the pieces!) while singing them was just.... Mentally exhausting!
But very fun.
It would NOT have been fun if we also had to dehydrate ourselves for days on end, and lose weight as rapidly as possible. Or if we had to belt out all we had for 10 hours straight.
Like.... The directors and people behind the camera shouldn't have allowed that to happen at ALL!
Ikr, people don't realize how heavy violin/viola are and playing 7 hours in a row can literally lead to injuries. They should've been sued under labor law or something lmao. Made me mad hearing that. Most I've done was iirc 3~4 hr rehearsal and that was a REHEARSAL. You can rest in between playing your part while conductor works on a different section. I can't imagine my spine/shoulder/arms/fingers after doing 7 hour takes for a recording smh.
Back again because this video IS comfort. See you soon Sideways!
Eddie Redmayne went to a performing arts school and has been singing since he was a kid. Just to be fair, he is classically trained.
My daughter who isn't a singer asked what was wrong with Redmayne's voice. I had to explain that to her and she did not understand at all. She kept asking which of the singers were "right".
@@ptkelly80 True, I just made this point to be fair to Russell Crowe. The video posits that Crowe went through multiple vocal coaches while Redmayne stuck to one good one, and had a great performance as a result. Crowe wasn't good, but Redmayne definitely didn't learn how to sing for musical theatre in just a few weeks.
Michelle Boon My current theory is that he zeroed in on acting and left behind the vocal and dance aspects, so he had to play catch-up with Les Mis.
True, Eddie is actually far more trained vocally than the 🐐 Marius Michael Ball, whose voice is entirley untrained. Always makes me smile when people say "he's not classically trained so obviously he's not as good a singer as Michael"
As a vocalist, listening to the physical shit the actors put themselves through for the sake of 'realism' and 'grittiness' is horrifying.
As an audio engineer, the number of work arounds those poor idiots had to use in order to get a decent, workable track sounds like a god damn nightmare
Simon Hayes is one of the greatest production sound mixers of all time and the live soundtrack he recorded on Les Mis is one of the greatest technical achievements in a film ever (earning him an Academy Award that year). His work will be remembered in the same way Jack Foley and Ben Burt are for sound design. A live musical should be performed live and just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth it. It's insulting that all the lengths they went to on set to record this sound track are played for laughs instead of hailed for the absolute genius they are. Simon hasn't even perfected the art yet. He's still got a couple decades of this left in him.
And truthfully, all the "headaches" shown in the recording of a film soundtrack are just more dramatic versions of what production sound mixers are doing on shows and movies every day. Recording a sound track is difficult stuff regardless of if there's singing.
Whether or not the actors were prepared for the level of demand they would face in producing this movie, or even if the right performers were cast in the first place, is another matter entirely. It's clear that the only way the studio was willing to finance the movie was with name actors instead of classically trained musical stage performers.
Im not a good recording artist but I do go to collage with a lot of them (my study is kinda broad) and seeing what goes into a professionl recording in a regular studio setting is already insane. Thinking of people doing thát on a film set makes me cry.
Yes yes yes yes yes
And in all honesty, you don’t have to hire Hollywood actors for this kind of thing. There’s theatre actors who can sing effectively and give grit and realism within vocal delivery and acting chops. Lmao I don’t understand why people think musical theatre actors all learn is campiness and jazz hands 😂😂 both Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman started out in theatre lmao
@@BluesClues2s And to add onto your topic of Simon perfecting the craft.
The stage production has had over 25 years (as of 2012) of trial and error (notes from other productions, of what worked and did not work etc.) to nail down the musical. Also, stage productions are doing more than one performance, so they know by the end one night 1, what worked and did not worked, so they can correct it for the second night, and so forth.
The movie is lucky to have 2 years tops with all their main players, and the actors are coming in from other projects, or are splitting their time between projects. And they have no redos.
Luckily I was ignorant of how the movie should have been so I enjoyed it.
Same. But I enjoyed it for the sole fact of it being Les Miserables - book, movie, musical, I cry every time.
I watched the movie first and thought it was pretty bad and didn’t understand what the hype was about. Then I saw this vid and was like ☹️. Figured out why lol
Saw stage first then film and didn't think the film was that bad yes Hugh and Russell didn't sound great but if u pull any film apart like this your bound to find issues
Big mood.
Although I believed I had watched the Liam Neeson non-musical version first but to hell if I ever retained any from it.
Same, but now I’m doing a production of Les Mis and they didn’t do very well.
19:20 not only is the melody really warped, but you can also hear the orchestra (the harp especially) STRUGGLE to keep Hathaway’s tempo.