Close Encounters, ARP and Philip Dodds

u0421793

Interestingly, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the music was scored prior to the shooting script of the film, it seems.

• http://www.rhodeschroma.com/?id=doddswilliams
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Dodds

If you remember the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you might remember the large ARP 2500 synthesiser used at the end, in one of the more coherent parts of the script, when flying saucers land and communicate using a sort of tonal language. There’s also a reference to the Kodaly Method in this part of the film, for some reason.

The rest of the film is open to question as to why it turned out the way it did, but it kind of fitted into the general weird occluded new age nonsense that was going around then and has come around all over again. For example, why build a big statue of a mountain, or draw it over and over? Is the landing site the focus? Is the resonant message that was picked up by those receiving, nothing more substantial than a location? I’d have given the point of the communication a bit more of a, er, point, than just a geographic location. On the other hand, it worked for 2001 A Space Odyssey, a decade before, with TMA1 indicating a magnetic peak that marked a spot to dig. Anyway.

The ARP was delivered, set up and programmed by Philip Dodds, from ARP. In one of those superb examples of serendipity, he ended up being cast in the actual film as an extra (well, a lot more than an extra) and so it is he that you see playing the synth in the film. Much later, after ARP and Rhodes, he was to go on to formulate and lead the development of SCORM (which is how I got reminded of this whole story — I was searching for stuff to do with video streaming and moodle and learning management systems, and tripped over SCORM and thought to myself "That’s to do with Phil Dodds from ARP”, so brought it all here where it might be of interest to you all).

mkell424

Thanks for the info on Dodds. Very interesting. As far as the movie goes I think you are right about the lack of depth. The 2001 comparison about pointing to a location is correct but there was so much more to the film like HAL. Plus unlike the mountain in Close Encounters that was just a location, the monolith in 2001 was responsible for the evolution of man.

papertiger

"Play the five tones."

I still get chills during that part. And of course when the crowd in India sings the same phrase.

Also this: (lol)

u0421793

It’s that day – 45 years ago the film was released apparently

https://mastodon.cloud/@u0421793/109353713889440495

knewspeak

They had to throw it away didn’t they, covered in oil from the smoke effect.

u0421793

@knewspeak said:
They had to throw it away didn’t they, covered in oil from the smoke effect.

I didn’t know that!

Slush

One of Spielbergs best movies. I saw it in the theater when I was a kid, and we had it on video, I must have seen it a 1000 times. Too bad Spielberg wasn’t happy with the editing of the movie when it came out. We had the original edit on video which was slightly different than the ‘update’. The film studio allowed him to make a new cut for a release, but under the condition he had to show the interior of the space ship at the end of the movie. This takes away the mystery part of what is inside. Spielberg told in an interview that editing the last part of the movie where the aliens came out of the ship was one of the hardest things he ever had to do. They first tried stop-motion but that did not turn out very well. Puppets where used instead, and the scenes with all the little aliens was done with schoolgirls from the local swimschool dressed up in alien suits. Girls of that age have a special way of moving that worked very well. I can talk about this movie forever.