My main question is they made it seem like the shadows only killed their doppelganger, then they went to the line. But their friends stayed and put on makeup and a robe lounging around. Not sure if that was just a we need more action for the family, but if not then when they saw the line at the end they should of been attacked by them like the person who was holding the camera, unless that was that persons shadow.
Jordan Peele new movie "Us" - updated with trailer (contains spoilers)
- Thread starter TimRock
- Start date
Yeah, I just mentioned your first point. Dinner thought he was listening to the story but he wasn't even in that room. Look at his arms even she goes for a hug, he doesn't hug her back.
I think they only attacked people who Interfered.
U think?
I don't believe there was a Jason switch. Hate to call him inbred but I believe they got different traits from their parents. Whatever human trait he didn't get from his father went to the shadow. And the shadow trait he didn't get from the mom went to the shadow son. Yes the sister is also inbred but not all traits pass the same.
One reason why I hate trailers is too many people had an interpretation of the movie before they even saw it. I told the wife I think the best trailer should of been her walking through the fun house mirrors. And as she got close to her shadow the I Got 5 On It undertones start playing. And before the girl turns around, the trailer stops.
We Are “Us”.
April 1, 2019 by Staff Writer; Raynard Jackson
(ThyBlackMan.com) Two weeks ago, I went to the theater to see Jordan Peele’s latest movie, Us. This was his follow-up movie to the box office hit Get Out.
Peele is an extraordinarily gifted writer. He has written for shows like Mad TV, Key & Peele, The Last O.G., etc.
He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his horror movie, Get Out; which was also his directorial debut in 2017.
His latest horror flick, Us, is also receiving rave reviews. It starts off kind of slow, but when it does pick up, you are taken on an emotional rollercoaster ride in the vain of Alfred Hitchcock.
Note to millennials, civilization did not start when yall came out of the womb; nor is Friday the 13th a horror movie; it is simply a blood and guts movie with absolutely no substance to it.
If you want to know what horror movies are, then seeing Get Out and Us is a must!
In this column, I will not give you the typical movie critique, but rather give you a unique observation on Peele and his two hit movies, Get Out and Us.
What Peele is doing is so mind-blowing and so historic, I am truly hoping that he sets off a series of copycat movies; and not for the reason you might think.
Not only is Peele the Alfred Hitchcock of our time; but more importantly, he is the Bill Cosby of our time.
His movies send you on a g-force ridden ride and then drops you back down to that sunken place only to repeat itself again and again, and again.
Just like Hollywood told Cosby that America was not ready for a prime-time Black family that was intact and fully functional; Hollywood, to this day, believes you can’t cast a Black in the lead role of a major movie and have broad appeal that will make money.
Of course, the movie Black Panther destroyed that myth, but Hollywood said that was because it had an African backdrop and was targeting a Black audience. Let’s concede these points for purposes of this column, even though I could dissect this erroneous premise.
Us is a “mainstream” movie with not only a Black lead, Lupita Nyong’o, but she is also extremely black in skin tone.
Hollywood and most Asian countries are still under the ignorant notion that a very dark-skinned person is not as marketable as a fair skin Black like Halle Berry, Regina Hall, or Gabrielle Union.
Nyong’o is joined in the film by 13-year-old Shahadi Wright Joseph, a very cute dark-skinned actress. They both are major characters throughout the film.
In Get Out, the lead actor was Daniel Kaluuya and the main supporting actor was Lil Rel Howery, both very dark-skinned actors.
Kaluuya is of Ugandan heritage and Nyong’o is of Kenyan heritage. So, Peele is not only destroying the myth that Blacks can’t carry a movie, but he is also proving that Africans can also carry a major Hollywood production and still have global appeal while making money.
I am not sure people truly understand how Peele is making global tectonic shifts in how Blacks who have dark skin are viewed. This will have a generational impact on Hollywood.
The other issue no one seems to notice about Us is the Wilson family, which the movie is centered on, is a totally functional Black family. There is absolutely no dysfunctionality in this family. They work professional jobs, don’t use or sell drugs, the daughter is not having sex or is not pregnant, the son is put in check by the father every time he gets out of line.
They are the Cosby family in a horror movie without sacrificing the Cosby family values for marketability purposes. This is a major accomplishment for Peele
When was the last time you saw a major Hollywood movie that had no sex, very little cursing, no using of the n-word, and absolutely NO promotion of homosexuality?
There was no Trump bashing or Republican trashing. There were no overtly political messages or the promotion of Hollywood liberalism.
Us, truly allowed you to escape, for two hours, the reality of all of your daily cares and to actually be entertained in a way that was truly “escapism.”
If Peele stays true to this type of movie making, I think he single-handedly can change the way Blacks, especially those of a darker hue, are viewed by Hollywood; and ultimately the world.
Yes, Black actors can carry a movie globally and profitably; yes, Blacks can be portrayed in substantive, positive roles; and yes, Blacks do have many functional family units, with mom, dad, and children.
Peele is showing the world that there is a full range of possibilities lying dormant within the Black community. He has chosen to use his platform in the most positive of light; tearing down the tired ole stereotypes that never did properly show who Black folks really were.
This side of the Black community is not an aberration; it is more common than the media or Hollywood will ever show. Peele is simply one of the few Blacks in Hollywood who has chosen to exercise his power for good by showing that “we are Us.”
Staff Writer; Raynard Jackson
This talented brother is a Pulitzer Award nominated columnist and founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future (BAFBF), a federally registered 527 Super PAC established to get more Blacks involved in the Republican Party. BAFBF focuses on the Black entrepreneur. For more information about BAFBF,
April 1, 2019 by Staff Writer; Raynard Jackson
(ThyBlackMan.com) Two weeks ago, I went to the theater to see Jordan Peele’s latest movie, Us. This was his follow-up movie to the box office hit Get Out.
Peele is an extraordinarily gifted writer. He has written for shows like Mad TV, Key & Peele, The Last O.G., etc.
He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his horror movie, Get Out; which was also his directorial debut in 2017.
His latest horror flick, Us, is also receiving rave reviews. It starts off kind of slow, but when it does pick up, you are taken on an emotional rollercoaster ride in the vain of Alfred Hitchcock.
Note to millennials, civilization did not start when yall came out of the womb; nor is Friday the 13th a horror movie; it is simply a blood and guts movie with absolutely no substance to it.
If you want to know what horror movies are, then seeing Get Out and Us is a must!
In this column, I will not give you the typical movie critique, but rather give you a unique observation on Peele and his two hit movies, Get Out and Us.
What Peele is doing is so mind-blowing and so historic, I am truly hoping that he sets off a series of copycat movies; and not for the reason you might think.
Not only is Peele the Alfred Hitchcock of our time; but more importantly, he is the Bill Cosby of our time.
His movies send you on a g-force ridden ride and then drops you back down to that sunken place only to repeat itself again and again, and again.
Just like Hollywood told Cosby that America was not ready for a prime-time Black family that was intact and fully functional; Hollywood, to this day, believes you can’t cast a Black in the lead role of a major movie and have broad appeal that will make money.
Of course, the movie Black Panther destroyed that myth, but Hollywood said that was because it had an African backdrop and was targeting a Black audience. Let’s concede these points for purposes of this column, even though I could dissect this erroneous premise.
Us is a “mainstream” movie with not only a Black lead, Lupita Nyong’o, but she is also extremely black in skin tone.
Hollywood and most Asian countries are still under the ignorant notion that a very dark-skinned person is not as marketable as a fair skin Black like Halle Berry, Regina Hall, or Gabrielle Union.
Nyong’o is joined in the film by 13-year-old Shahadi Wright Joseph, a very cute dark-skinned actress. They both are major characters throughout the film.
In Get Out, the lead actor was Daniel Kaluuya and the main supporting actor was Lil Rel Howery, both very dark-skinned actors.
Kaluuya is of Ugandan heritage and Nyong’o is of Kenyan heritage. So, Peele is not only destroying the myth that Blacks can’t carry a movie, but he is also proving that Africans can also carry a major Hollywood production and still have global appeal while making money.
I am not sure people truly understand how Peele is making global tectonic shifts in how Blacks who have dark skin are viewed. This will have a generational impact on Hollywood.
The other issue no one seems to notice about Us is the Wilson family, which the movie is centered on, is a totally functional Black family. There is absolutely no dysfunctionality in this family. They work professional jobs, don’t use or sell drugs, the daughter is not having sex or is not pregnant, the son is put in check by the father every time he gets out of line.
They are the Cosby family in a horror movie without sacrificing the Cosby family values for marketability purposes. This is a major accomplishment for Peele
When was the last time you saw a major Hollywood movie that had no sex, very little cursing, no using of the n-word, and absolutely NO promotion of homosexuality?
There was no Trump bashing or Republican trashing. There were no overtly political messages or the promotion of Hollywood liberalism.
Us, truly allowed you to escape, for two hours, the reality of all of your daily cares and to actually be entertained in a way that was truly “escapism.”
If Peele stays true to this type of movie making, I think he single-handedly can change the way Blacks, especially those of a darker hue, are viewed by Hollywood; and ultimately the world.
Yes, Black actors can carry a movie globally and profitably; yes, Blacks can be portrayed in substantive, positive roles; and yes, Blacks do have many functional family units, with mom, dad, and children.
Peele is showing the world that there is a full range of possibilities lying dormant within the Black community. He has chosen to use his platform in the most positive of light; tearing down the tired ole stereotypes that never did properly show who Black folks really were.
This side of the Black community is not an aberration; it is more common than the media or Hollywood will ever show. Peele is simply one of the few Blacks in Hollywood who has chosen to exercise his power for good by showing that “we are Us.”
Staff Writer; Raynard Jackson
This talented brother is a Pulitzer Award nominated columnist and founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future (BAFBF), a federally registered 527 Super PAC established to get more Blacks involved in the Republican Party. BAFBF focuses on the Black entrepreneur. For more information about BAFBF,
When people can’t debate they resort to insults
Nothing flew over anyone’s heads because we are “black“
this was a good movie but he has a problem falling back on comedy which breaks the mood
he had a hard time figuring out how to end this movie and its shows in the last 20min on this film; he spells stuff out and he should have left a lot of things about the Teathered unexplained ( where they were actually from and what they do there ) he should have left it a mystery as to whether the real mom or the doppldoppelg mom survived the match -
that way the ending with him pulling his mask down becomes more powerful - his pulling the mask down signifies his lack of trust and his acknowledgement that his mother is also hiding behind a mask.
he had a hard time figuring out how to end this movie and its shows in the last 20min on this film; he spells stuff out and he should have left a lot of things about the Teathered unexplained ( where they were actually from and what they do there ) he should have left it a mystery as to whether the real mom or the doppldoppelg mom survived the match -
that way the ending with him pulling his mask down becomes more powerful - his pulling the mask down signifies his lack of trust and his acknowledgement that his mother is also hiding behind a mask.
That is bullshit.
Real talk though this cloning stuff we don't know about in the real world is really scary
. All types of moral and ethical issues are going to arrive sooner than we think as these underground labs do their thing in total secrecy. This is a new world we entering and nothing is off limits. Below is an article from years ago. I know what I am saying sounds like some dimensional traveling reptilians from planet LXAAXX shit but evil and corruption is a reality in this world. Not the lizard men I joked about, but real humans on some real crazy shit.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-08/ns-cc082201.php
PUBLIC RELEASE: 22-AUG-2001
Celebrity cloning
NEW SCIENTIST
SHARE
PRINT E-MAIL
BRITNEY SPEARS and George Bush beware! Your many fans might be eager to clone you. So says a Californian company that is offering celebrities the chance to establish copyright over their DNA to prevent unwanted duplication.
"A lot of people are going to want to clone people they admire," says Andre Crump, president of the DNA Copyright Institute (DCI) of San Francisco. In theory at least, all someone needs to clone their hero or heroine is a few living cells from them left behind on a glass or exchanged in a handshake, for example.
For high-profile individuals worried they might fall victim, DCI is offering to record their DNA fingerprint, check that it is unique and store it. As the pattern's "author", the client will get copyright protection to prevent "actions such as DNA theft and misappropriation, cloning and other unauthorised activities", claims DCI's website.
At $1500, the price isn't likely to deter the glitterati, and Crump says 10 people have already taken advantage of what DCI's press release calls "a ground-breaking development on the issue of cloning and the rights of the individual". For an extra fee, the company will also try to register the pattern with the US Copyright Office, although this isn't necessary to establish copyright.
But lawyers dismiss claims that DNA can be copyrighted. "This is nonsense," says Stephen Barnett of the University of California, Berkeley. "Whoever is saying that is ignorant of the term copyright." The idea that a person "authors" their own DNA doesn't hold water legally, Barnett says. And even if it did, he doesn't think it would give them protection against being cloned.
DCI's legal counsel Matthew Marca disagrees. He insists that since clones will share the fingerprint of the original person, they will be in violation of copyright. When New Scientist pointed out to Marca that clones are not exact copies but often contain a new genetic component-mitochondrial DNA from the egg used to create an embryo-he seemed taken aback. After a pause, he responded confidently: "That is some of what will emerge in the eventual prosecution of DNA copyright."
New Scientist has also learned that the address provided on DCI's website at www.DNAcopyright.com, which appears to be a street address, is actually a commercial postal box. When asked about DCI's location, Crump admitted the month-old company is still negotiating office space and will outsource all the biochemistry work.
The idea of copyrighting DNA isn't new. New York-based conceptual artist Larry Miller started issuing $10 Genetic Code Copyright Certificates in 1992. These were never meant to be legally binding, but rather to highlight issues of ownership.
And San Francisco artist Marilyn Donahue has for the past few years been helping people to "copyright" their genome for a little more than the price of a postage stamp. Her method: simply take a photograph of yourself depositing DNA from your tongue onto the back of a stamp and mail it to yourself. Self-directed mail is often used by poets and writers to document the date of a work's creation and establish copyright.
Donahue isn't bothered that a company is trying to capitalise on DNA copyrighting. "I was kind of waiting for something like this to happen," she says. "I'm surprised it has taken this long."
Still, at least DCI's fee includes a personalised plaque. "Our type of clients will want something to hang on the wall and look good," says Crump.
But those seriously worried about being cloned should follow Bill Clinton's example. After he had a Guinness during a presidential visit to Dublin, his entourage reportedly bought the glass to ensure no one got hold of his DNA.
###
Author: Philip Cohen, San Francisco
New Scientist issue: 25th August 2001
PLEASE MENTION NEW SCIENTIST AS THE SOURCE OF THIS STORY AND, IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO: http://www.newscientist.com
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
. All types of moral and ethical issues are going to arrive sooner than we think as these underground labs do their thing in total secrecy. This is a new world we entering and nothing is off limits. Below is an article from years ago. I know what I am saying sounds like some dimensional traveling reptilians from planet LXAAXX shit but evil and corruption is a reality in this world. Not the lizard men I joked about, but real humans on some real crazy shit.https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-08/ns-cc082201.php
PUBLIC RELEASE: 22-AUG-2001
Celebrity cloning
NEW SCIENTIST
SHARE
PRINT E-MAIL
BRITNEY SPEARS and George Bush beware! Your many fans might be eager to clone you. So says a Californian company that is offering celebrities the chance to establish copyright over their DNA to prevent unwanted duplication.
"A lot of people are going to want to clone people they admire," says Andre Crump, president of the DNA Copyright Institute (DCI) of San Francisco. In theory at least, all someone needs to clone their hero or heroine is a few living cells from them left behind on a glass or exchanged in a handshake, for example.
For high-profile individuals worried they might fall victim, DCI is offering to record their DNA fingerprint, check that it is unique and store it. As the pattern's "author", the client will get copyright protection to prevent "actions such as DNA theft and misappropriation, cloning and other unauthorised activities", claims DCI's website.
At $1500, the price isn't likely to deter the glitterati, and Crump says 10 people have already taken advantage of what DCI's press release calls "a ground-breaking development on the issue of cloning and the rights of the individual". For an extra fee, the company will also try to register the pattern with the US Copyright Office, although this isn't necessary to establish copyright.
But lawyers dismiss claims that DNA can be copyrighted. "This is nonsense," says Stephen Barnett of the University of California, Berkeley. "Whoever is saying that is ignorant of the term copyright." The idea that a person "authors" their own DNA doesn't hold water legally, Barnett says. And even if it did, he doesn't think it would give them protection against being cloned.
DCI's legal counsel Matthew Marca disagrees. He insists that since clones will share the fingerprint of the original person, they will be in violation of copyright. When New Scientist pointed out to Marca that clones are not exact copies but often contain a new genetic component-mitochondrial DNA from the egg used to create an embryo-he seemed taken aback. After a pause, he responded confidently: "That is some of what will emerge in the eventual prosecution of DNA copyright."
New Scientist has also learned that the address provided on DCI's website at www.DNAcopyright.com, which appears to be a street address, is actually a commercial postal box. When asked about DCI's location, Crump admitted the month-old company is still negotiating office space and will outsource all the biochemistry work.
The idea of copyrighting DNA isn't new. New York-based conceptual artist Larry Miller started issuing $10 Genetic Code Copyright Certificates in 1992. These were never meant to be legally binding, but rather to highlight issues of ownership.
And San Francisco artist Marilyn Donahue has for the past few years been helping people to "copyright" their genome for a little more than the price of a postage stamp. Her method: simply take a photograph of yourself depositing DNA from your tongue onto the back of a stamp and mail it to yourself. Self-directed mail is often used by poets and writers to document the date of a work's creation and establish copyright.
Donahue isn't bothered that a company is trying to capitalise on DNA copyrighting. "I was kind of waiting for something like this to happen," she says. "I'm surprised it has taken this long."
Still, at least DCI's fee includes a personalised plaque. "Our type of clients will want something to hang on the wall and look good," says Crump.
But those seriously worried about being cloned should follow Bill Clinton's example. After he had a Guinness during a presidential visit to Dublin, his entourage reportedly bought the glass to ensure no one got hold of his DNA.
###
Author: Philip Cohen, San Francisco
New Scientist issue: 25th August 2001
PLEASE MENTION NEW SCIENTIST AS THE SOURCE OF THIS STORY AND, IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO: http://www.newscientist.com
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
Last edited:
April 4, 2019
How Michael Abels Reimagined ‘I Got 5 on It’ in His Score for Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’
The terrifying new movie is worth watching (and listening to) twice.
Scoring movies was a dream deferred for composer Michael Abels. Although his varied musical background included opera, hip hop, bluegrass, jazz, and an ear for percussion he honed at the University of Southern California’s Thorton School of Music, Abels could not break into the industry when he graduated. Instead, he carved his own path with each composition and concerto. Then, comedian-turned-director Jordan Peele approached him to work on the score for his feature debut, Get Out and both men’s careers changed. The movie was a record-breaking success, and the two have reunited once again for Peele’s next project, Us. Peele told Morning Editionthat even Steven Speilberg was enamored with Abels’ work on Get Out. "It's like me and John Williams," he told Peele.
This surprising career trajectory has earned him a wave of news listeners. Abels spoke with No Film School about how slowing sound down makes it seem scary, what Peele told him (or didn’t tell him) in preparation for the score, and what other musical Easter eggs to keep an ear out for when watching (or re-watching) Us.
The soundtrack is now available on all major platforms for streaming and purchase here.
No Film School: Since the success ofUs, have many people told you how your remix of I Got Five on It has stuck with them or how it creeped them out?
Michael Abels: I guess what I'm amazed by is that people will say it freaked them out and they can't stop listening to it.
Jordan Peele said to me from the first time we met was how important silence was in music and creating tension. One of the first things I do is I take that sample, which is actually from Club Nouveau’s Why You Treat Me So Bad. That's where that music comes from. InI Got 5 on It, Luniz sampled that to create their track and “Why You Treat Me So Bad” is a song from the 70s. What I did at the beginning of that is I add more space between the baseline. Just that knowing what's coming but not knowing when, that's one of the essential techniques of creating tension in film and music. And then after that, it's a distortion of the harmony and the ambiance of this. You know, there's a very creepy background ambiance. It sounds like you're in a nightmare.
"Directors, by nature, are people who see the big picture."
NFS: How did Peele approach you to first work with him on Get Out?
Abels: He saw some of my concert orchestral music on YouTube. Most of the music I had written had been performed in concert halls. So, he saw some of that on YouTube, and he had the producers of Get Out hunt me down and call me up.
Directors, by nature, are people who see the big picture. They can envision every aspect of a giant project that a film represents. To trust someone with the musical voice of your big project is a huge leap of faith for any director. I think he felt that we worked well withGet Out, and he could trust me to do that with the new story that he wanted to tell. He told me the idea even before he had written the script and of course, just from saying people are attacked by their doppelgängers, I knew it was just rich for exploration.
Eventually, there was a script, and then I read that. Like with Get Out, he had me read the script and told me some very specific ideas and things you wanted to hear. Then, he just sent me away to make good on that and show him what I could come up with. So, it was very much the same with Us. We talked about duality and how that might be expressed in music. He wanted me to try instruments that didn't normally go together, something conventional and something unconventional. That was the initial inspiration. I went out, and I did all that and tried different techniques to just show him some possibilities.
I wrote the anthem, which is the main title from Us where you start out by hearing a children's choir singing this kind of evil march and you can't understand what, can't understand what they're saying, but they're clearly up to no good. The children's choir was suggested by Jordan, he thought it would be something people think of as sweet but could be used to really creepy effect. Once again, he was right. Even before the film was shot, I had written that. He knew that it was a piece he wanted to use somewhere. That's kind of our process where he's providing me with musical inspiration, and I'm providing him with music that he can then use to be inspired and use, possibly, on other aspects of the film.
Jordan Peele's 'Us.'
NFS: What were some of the unconventional instruments you used?
Abels: There's a thing called a cimbalom, which is kind of like a piano in some ways, but it's played with little hammers. It does this twangy sound. You hear a lot of solo violin and there's a virtual instrument called a Propanium drum, which kind of sounds like if you could turn an oil can into an instrument. It's like someone banging on trash cans, but it's tuned and you can hear higher and lower sounds. It's your job as a film composer to really channel the emotion, the characters, experiencing it through your art. I'm watching the picture, and I know the type of sounds that Jordan likes. He really likes the unconventional. And with those two principals at hand, I'm just trying to channel the emotion that the characters experience in a way that Jordan finds appropriate to his style.
NFS: Peele’s movies reference a lot of other movies that inspired him. Do those kinds of references also show up in the music?
Abels: I mean, obviously, I'm using I Got 5 on It. Yeah, that's a big one. At the very end of the film, there's a little riff on that. I like letting that [song] bleed over a little in the music that's at the end of the movie. And then there's another musical reference at the end. The ending song that takes us into the credits in Us is a Minnie Riperton song called Les Fleur. I don't know the significance of it for Jordan, but he had picked that song from the beginning. He heard that song as being really important, just as I Got 5 on It is important in the story.
At the beginning of the movie, it starts with this little commercial for Hands Across America, which was this fundraiser in 1986, and it's playing out of a television. Jordan had me do the score for that little television commercial, and the score is a little cheesy 1980s arrangement of Les Fleurs, which you would only catch if you were paying incredibly close attention.
"Peele said that he wants people to have something to talk about in the car on the way home. He deliberately doesn't spell it all out."
NFS: There have been a lot of discussions about what Us really means. Did Peele ever just straight out and tell you or was it already kind of implicit when you read the script?
Abels: He said that he wants people to have something to talk about in the car on the way home. He deliberately doesn't spell it all out. He wants the audience to participate in deciding what things in the film resonate with them, what it brings up for them and what they think it means. Now, in order to score the film, I had to think about what I thought it meant. There were details that I asked him about, but they related to me scoring the film. You're meant to be conflicted about how you feel about the tethered characters. They're clearly terrifying, especially when you first meet them, but there are things about them in which you can empathize with them and understand why they're angry. I found myself empathizing with them.
What that means is if I'm writing for my own emotion, I might not write music that's scary enough because I'm feeling empathy. There was one particular scene where Jordan said, “No, you can't empathize here. This is scary.” I would ask him, what do you know? What emotion are you wanting me to come from in this scene? If he leaves it up to my interpretation, he may not get what he wants, but I never sat down and said, so what's this all about? That's wasn't necessary for me to appreciate the mind, the emotions that were on the screen. That’s a full explanation. The characters don't get an explanation and that's why it's so scary.
How Michael Abels Reimagined ‘I Got 5 on It’ in His Score for Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’
The terrifying new movie is worth watching (and listening to) twice.
Scoring movies was a dream deferred for composer Michael Abels. Although his varied musical background included opera, hip hop, bluegrass, jazz, and an ear for percussion he honed at the University of Southern California’s Thorton School of Music, Abels could not break into the industry when he graduated. Instead, he carved his own path with each composition and concerto. Then, comedian-turned-director Jordan Peele approached him to work on the score for his feature debut, Get Out and both men’s careers changed. The movie was a record-breaking success, and the two have reunited once again for Peele’s next project, Us. Peele told Morning Editionthat even Steven Speilberg was enamored with Abels’ work on Get Out. "It's like me and John Williams," he told Peele.
This surprising career trajectory has earned him a wave of news listeners. Abels spoke with No Film School about how slowing sound down makes it seem scary, what Peele told him (or didn’t tell him) in preparation for the score, and what other musical Easter eggs to keep an ear out for when watching (or re-watching) Us.
The soundtrack is now available on all major platforms for streaming and purchase here.
No Film School: Since the success ofUs, have many people told you how your remix of I Got Five on It has stuck with them or how it creeped them out?
Michael Abels: I guess what I'm amazed by is that people will say it freaked them out and they can't stop listening to it.
Jordan Peele said to me from the first time we met was how important silence was in music and creating tension. One of the first things I do is I take that sample, which is actually from Club Nouveau’s Why You Treat Me So Bad. That's where that music comes from. InI Got 5 on It, Luniz sampled that to create their track and “Why You Treat Me So Bad” is a song from the 70s. What I did at the beginning of that is I add more space between the baseline. Just that knowing what's coming but not knowing when, that's one of the essential techniques of creating tension in film and music. And then after that, it's a distortion of the harmony and the ambiance of this. You know, there's a very creepy background ambiance. It sounds like you're in a nightmare.
"Directors, by nature, are people who see the big picture."
NFS: How did Peele approach you to first work with him on Get Out?
Abels: He saw some of my concert orchestral music on YouTube. Most of the music I had written had been performed in concert halls. So, he saw some of that on YouTube, and he had the producers of Get Out hunt me down and call me up.
Directors, by nature, are people who see the big picture. They can envision every aspect of a giant project that a film represents. To trust someone with the musical voice of your big project is a huge leap of faith for any director. I think he felt that we worked well withGet Out, and he could trust me to do that with the new story that he wanted to tell. He told me the idea even before he had written the script and of course, just from saying people are attacked by their doppelgängers, I knew it was just rich for exploration.
Eventually, there was a script, and then I read that. Like with Get Out, he had me read the script and told me some very specific ideas and things you wanted to hear. Then, he just sent me away to make good on that and show him what I could come up with. So, it was very much the same with Us. We talked about duality and how that might be expressed in music. He wanted me to try instruments that didn't normally go together, something conventional and something unconventional. That was the initial inspiration. I went out, and I did all that and tried different techniques to just show him some possibilities.
I wrote the anthem, which is the main title from Us where you start out by hearing a children's choir singing this kind of evil march and you can't understand what, can't understand what they're saying, but they're clearly up to no good. The children's choir was suggested by Jordan, he thought it would be something people think of as sweet but could be used to really creepy effect. Once again, he was right. Even before the film was shot, I had written that. He knew that it was a piece he wanted to use somewhere. That's kind of our process where he's providing me with musical inspiration, and I'm providing him with music that he can then use to be inspired and use, possibly, on other aspects of the film.
Jordan Peele's 'Us.'
NFS: What were some of the unconventional instruments you used?
Abels: There's a thing called a cimbalom, which is kind of like a piano in some ways, but it's played with little hammers. It does this twangy sound. You hear a lot of solo violin and there's a virtual instrument called a Propanium drum, which kind of sounds like if you could turn an oil can into an instrument. It's like someone banging on trash cans, but it's tuned and you can hear higher and lower sounds. It's your job as a film composer to really channel the emotion, the characters, experiencing it through your art. I'm watching the picture, and I know the type of sounds that Jordan likes. He really likes the unconventional. And with those two principals at hand, I'm just trying to channel the emotion that the characters experience in a way that Jordan finds appropriate to his style.
NFS: Peele’s movies reference a lot of other movies that inspired him. Do those kinds of references also show up in the music?
Abels: I mean, obviously, I'm using I Got 5 on It. Yeah, that's a big one. At the very end of the film, there's a little riff on that. I like letting that [song] bleed over a little in the music that's at the end of the movie. And then there's another musical reference at the end. The ending song that takes us into the credits in Us is a Minnie Riperton song called Les Fleur. I don't know the significance of it for Jordan, but he had picked that song from the beginning. He heard that song as being really important, just as I Got 5 on It is important in the story.
At the beginning of the movie, it starts with this little commercial for Hands Across America, which was this fundraiser in 1986, and it's playing out of a television. Jordan had me do the score for that little television commercial, and the score is a little cheesy 1980s arrangement of Les Fleurs, which you would only catch if you were paying incredibly close attention.
"Peele said that he wants people to have something to talk about in the car on the way home. He deliberately doesn't spell it all out."
NFS: There have been a lot of discussions about what Us really means. Did Peele ever just straight out and tell you or was it already kind of implicit when you read the script?
Abels: He said that he wants people to have something to talk about in the car on the way home. He deliberately doesn't spell it all out. He wants the audience to participate in deciding what things in the film resonate with them, what it brings up for them and what they think it means. Now, in order to score the film, I had to think about what I thought it meant. There were details that I asked him about, but they related to me scoring the film. You're meant to be conflicted about how you feel about the tethered characters. They're clearly terrifying, especially when you first meet them, but there are things about them in which you can empathize with them and understand why they're angry. I found myself empathizing with them.
What that means is if I'm writing for my own emotion, I might not write music that's scary enough because I'm feeling empathy. There was one particular scene where Jordan said, “No, you can't empathize here. This is scary.” I would ask him, what do you know? What emotion are you wanting me to come from in this scene? If he leaves it up to my interpretation, he may not get what he wants, but I never sat down and said, so what's this all about? That's wasn't necessary for me to appreciate the mind, the emotions that were on the screen. That’s a full explanation. The characters don't get an explanation and that's why it's so scary.
That was the whole point. the tunnel people were program to copy their betters to the point that they completely overlooked the obvious. Lupita's character escaped because somehow she was able to break her programming.
She escaped because the escalator stopped working during that storm. So yeah, I guess you can say she broke free and figured out the use of the escalator.
The real Lupita planned it. She was the only person down there that wasn't a clone and had the mind to function. The clones had to be taught everything, which is why the experiment failed.
April 4, 2019
How Michael Abels Reimagined ‘I Got 5 on It’ in His Score for Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’
The terrifying new movie is worth watching (and listening to) twice.
Scoring movies was a dream deferred for composer Michael Abels. Although his varied musical background included opera, hip hop, bluegrass, jazz, and an ear for percussion he honed at the University of Southern California’s Thorton School of Music, Abels could not break into the industry when he graduated. Instead, he carved his own path with each composition and concerto. Then, comedian-turned-director Jordan Peele approached him to work on the score for his feature debut, Get Out and both men’s careers changed. The movie was a record-breaking success, and the two have reunited once again for Peele’s next project, Us. Peele told Morning Editionthat even Steven Speilberg was enamored with Abels’ work on Get Out. "It's like me and John Williams," he told Peele.
This surprising career trajectory has earned him a wave of news listeners. Abels spoke with No Film School about how slowing sound down makes it seem scary, what Peele told him (or didn’t tell him) in preparation for the score, and what other musical Easter eggs to keep an ear out for when watching (or re-watching) Us.
The soundtrack is now available on all major platforms for streaming and purchase here.
No Film School: Since the success ofUs, have many people told you how your remix of I Got Five on It has stuck with them or how it creeped them out?
Michael Abels: I guess what I'm amazed by is that people will say it freaked them out and they can't stop listening to it.
Jordan Peele said to me from the first time we met was how important silence was in music and creating tension. One of the first things I do is I take that sample, which is actually from Club Nouveau’s Why You Treat Me So Bad. That's where that music comes from. InI Got 5 on It, Luniz sampled that to create their track and “Why You Treat Me So Bad” is a song from the 70s. What I did at the beginning of that is I add more space between the baseline. Just that knowing what's coming but not knowing when, that's one of the essential techniques of creating tension in film and music. And then after that, it's a distortion of the harmony and the ambiance of this. You know, there's a very creepy background ambiance. It sounds like you're in a nightmare.
"Directors, by nature, are people who see the big picture."
NFS: How did Peele approach you to first work with him on Get Out?
Abels: He saw some of my concert orchestral music on YouTube. Most of the music I had written had been performed in concert halls. So, he saw some of that on YouTube, and he had the producers of Get Out hunt me down and call me up.
Directors, by nature, are people who see the big picture. They can envision every aspect of a giant project that a film represents. To trust someone with the musical voice of your big project is a huge leap of faith for any director. I think he felt that we worked well withGet Out, and he could trust me to do that with the new story that he wanted to tell. He told me the idea even before he had written the script and of course, just from saying people are attacked by their doppelgängers, I knew it was just rich for exploration.
Eventually, there was a script, and then I read that. Like with Get Out, he had me read the script and told me some very specific ideas and things you wanted to hear. Then, he just sent me away to make good on that and show him what I could come up with. So, it was very much the same with Us. We talked about duality and how that might be expressed in music. He wanted me to try instruments that didn't normally go together, something conventional and something unconventional. That was the initial inspiration. I went out, and I did all that and tried different techniques to just show him some possibilities.
I wrote the anthem, which is the main title from Us where you start out by hearing a children's choir singing this kind of evil march and you can't understand what, can't understand what they're saying, but they're clearly up to no good. The children's choir was suggested by Jordan, he thought it would be something people think of as sweet but could be used to really creepy effect. Once again, he was right. Even before the film was shot, I had written that. He knew that it was a piece he wanted to use somewhere. That's kind of our process where he's providing me with musical inspiration, and I'm providing him with music that he can then use to be inspired and use, possibly, on other aspects of the film.
Jordan Peele's 'Us.'
NFS: What were some of the unconventional instruments you used?
Abels: There's a thing called a cimbalom, which is kind of like a piano in some ways, but it's played with little hammers. It does this twangy sound. You hear a lot of solo violin and there's a virtual instrument called a Propanium drum, which kind of sounds like if you could turn an oil can into an instrument. It's like someone banging on trash cans, but it's tuned and you can hear higher and lower sounds. It's your job as a film composer to really channel the emotion, the characters, experiencing it through your art. I'm watching the picture, and I know the type of sounds that Jordan likes. He really likes the unconventional. And with those two principals at hand, I'm just trying to channel the emotion that the characters experience in a way that Jordan finds appropriate to his style.
NFS: Peele’s movies reference a lot of other movies that inspired him. Do those kinds of references also show up in the music?
Abels: I mean, obviously, I'm using I Got 5 on It. Yeah, that's a big one. At the very end of the film, there's a little riff on that. I like letting that [song] bleed over a little in the music that's at the end of the movie. And then there's another musical reference at the end. The ending song that takes us into the credits in Us is a Minnie Riperton song called Les Fleur. I don't know the significance of it for Jordan, but he had picked that song from the beginning. He heard that song as being really important, just as I Got 5 on It is important in the story.
At the beginning of the movie, it starts with this little commercial for Hands Across America, which was this fundraiser in 1986, and it's playing out of a television. Jordan had me do the score for that little television commercial, and the score is a little cheesy 1980s arrangement of Les Fleurs, which you would only catch if you were paying incredibly close attention.
"Peele said that he wants people to have something to talk about in the car on the way home. He deliberately doesn't spell it all out."
NFS: There have been a lot of discussions about what Us really means. Did Peele ever just straight out and tell you or was it already kind of implicit when you read the script?
Abels: He said that he wants people to have something to talk about in the car on the way home. He deliberately doesn't spell it all out. He wants the audience to participate in deciding what things in the film resonate with them, what it brings up for them and what they think it means. Now, in order to score the film, I had to think about what I thought it meant. There were details that I asked him about, but they related to me scoring the film. You're meant to be conflicted about how you feel about the tethered characters. They're clearly terrifying, especially when you first meet them, but there are things about them in which you can empathize with them and understand why they're angry. I found myself empathizing with them.
What that means is if I'm writing for my own emotion, I might not write music that's scary enough because I'm feeling empathy. There was one particular scene where Jordan said, “No, you can't empathize here. This is scary.” I would ask him, what do you know? What emotion are you wanting me to come from in this scene? If he leaves it up to my interpretation, he may not get what he wants, but I never sat down and said, so what's this all about? That's wasn't necessary for me to appreciate the mind, the emotions that were on the screen. That’s a full explanation. The characters don't get an explanation and that's why it's so scary.
I haven’t seen the film, but it’s almost like I have because of what so many people have told me about it. And I love the original “I Got Five On It”, but after this movie, listening to the original isn’t the same.
But it’s on demand now, so I’ll watch the movie soon.
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Except that's hardly the first or last time the Santa Cruz boardwalk had a power outage. Even if they never did it's not that difficult to walk up a downward escalator.
It had to be programming. Otherwise with as many people as they had in the tunnels and the amount of time they spent down there at least a few of them would have ended up on the surface purely by accident at some point.
The only thing I can't figure out is why nobody who worked at the Santa Cruz boardwalk ever found out about the tunnels. The hall of mirrors would have had to have been regularly cleaned and maintained. the escalator that connected both worlds would had to have been maintained and inspected on a regular basis to make sure it was up to code.
this film spans 30 years, yet somehow not one of these employees noticed anything? Not even in the at least 40 years before the film took place?