DEVOTED FAN CREATES ONE-MAN JAWS MUSICAL
I just graduated college at Moravian College in Bethlehem in the spring of ’21 and I will be attending graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University. Jaws has always been one of my favorite movies since I was child even if I had to watch it the first few times behind my hands whenever the shark was present. Jaws quickly rose to the top of my favorite films list due to my early love of John Williams who wrote many of the scores that inspired me to compose.
Every year with the exception of 2020, I have hosted a Jaws movie night on June 20th where my close friends and I watch the film on a projected screen from a pool. In the boredom of being stuck in my house during May of 2020 after completing two months of online Zoom courses, I was challenged by my best friend to write a musical in a week.
Feeling inspired by the last show I saw before Broadway shutdown, the off-broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors, and my favorite film, Jaws, I wrote my parody musical, Little Shores of Horrors, in 5 days using works from across the career of Little Shop of Horrors composer, Alan Menken, as well as John Williams’ riveting score as inspiration for the score’s sound. It was an especially unique challenge to find interesting ways to include the famous Jaws half-step motif in the musical’s score. It was also a goal of mine to portray Bruce the Shark as a misunderstood villain to counteract the reactions and misconceptions accidentally caused by the original 1975 film to view sharks as just ruthless killers.
After a year of family and friends asking to see the musical performed, I took it upon myself to film the entire musical in my bedroom with a budget of $50 using whatever props and decorations I could find in the house and filmed, edited, and recorded the whole thing in 7 days. Having the opportunity to recreate scenes from one of my favorite films was an absolute blast despite my very supportive parents being slightly concerned that I would return from work only to recite Jaws to myself for hours in my bedroom. This past Jaws Day(June 20, 2021), I was able to premiere my filmed musical adaptation on a projected screen in my backyard for family and close friends to which I received supportively biased reviews.
My hope is that this musical can give someone a reason to smile today and help them remember that there are no problems(or sharks) that cannot be overcome as long as you have the courage to conquer.
On the first day of shooting, I storyboarded the entire film using Powerpoint to give structure to where I was supposed to look when having conversations with the various characters. This way, I could film the scenes of one character and not have to constantly change in and out of the various costumes for a given scene.
This was my first time using a green screen. I got a rig for about $25 online and filmed the entire movie, recorded the entire orchestration, and edited the film, from my bedroom using various lamps as lighting.
This is a look at what the fishermen look like during the song Another One before the virtual backgrounds were added. I got the idea for different colored sunglasses from my childhood watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The three fishermen are named in the script as Roy, Robert, and Richard after Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss.
My one and only regret of this filming process was not ironing the green screen sheet.
The only time I ever required assistance was when I filmed the last shot for the filming portion of the musical in which Bruce the Shark blows up. The pool was 65 degrees and my little sister, Aileigh, filmed the three second shot from a ladder on the outside of the pool.
For the premiere of my low-budget, Indie movie-musical, my older brother, Ryan, made shark-attack themed cocktails that were decorated with gummy sharks and cherry juice.
My hope is that this musical can give someone a reason to smile today and help them remember that there are no problems(or sharks) that cannot be overcome as long as you have the courage to conquer.
Words, images and video by Liam P Mulligan
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