Told ya. Hit piece.
Now what about that child of the mind who thought this guy (and HBO) would give Q and her fair treatment.
*shakes his magnificent head*
Q: Into the Storm — A Review of HBO’s Documentary
March 24, 2021 / by Praying Medic / 6 Comments
https://prayingmedic.com/2021/03/24/q-into-the-storm-a-review-of-hbos-documentary/
I had no intention of watching HBO’s series on Q (Q: Into the Storm) but after reading a few observations from anons—some positive, some negative—I decided to watch the first two episodes. What follows is a review from someone who has followed Q from the beginning. I’ve read every post by Q more than once. I’ve read every linked document, watched every video Q has posted, and regularly visit the boards where the posts appear.
The film’s producer, Cullen Hoback, chose an interesting musical score for the series. The intro music and other songs that are featured give the film an eerie circus-of-the-bizarre feeling. I assume the choice of music was not random. Everything about the film from the lighting to the music portrays Q and his followers as members of a creepy movement with which no sane person would associate.
On the subject of sound, my list of complaints is long, but I’ll be brief. Hoback chose poor methods for recording his interviews. In many places, the voices of the interviewer or interviewee are inaudible. That problem is magnified by overlaying creepy music just when the film’s audio is lowest. The overall effect is confusion.
Documentaries don’t use actors or sets, but real people in their natural environments. Still, a good producer will use makeup, lighting, and camera angle to enhance the appearance of those who are interviewed. Hoback took a different approach. In most scenes, the subjects interviewed had no makeup, sat in dim lighting, and the camera angle made them appear frightening. This seems to have been intentional, adding to the surreal effect.
To his credit, Hoback enlisted people who’ve played key roles in the movement. I found his discussions with 8chan board owners FastJack and Paul Furber particularly helpful. I learned things about them I did not know.
Hoback spent an enormous amount of time digging into non-Q issues like GamerGate that cropped up on 4chan and 8chan prior to any appearance from Q. This allowed him to suggest that popular movements on 4chan and 8chan are propagated by cruel, amoral people. By extension, this includes Q. The intent here was to suggest that Q is just another sick online movement being run by malevolent actors. If you don’t frequent the boards, you wouldn’t know any different.
Jim Watkins, the owner of 8chan and 8kun, is prominently featured in the second episode, as is his son Ron (aka Codemonkey), who has served as the site administrator. Jim and Ron make the case that their website offers freedom of speech. To counter, Hoback rolls clips of nudity and other controversial images hoping to offend viewers who are accustomed to the filtered content of sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
moar..
Told ya. Hit piece.
Now what about that child of the mind who thought this guy (and HBO) would give Q and her fair treatment.
*shakes his magnificent head*
Thanks for the review. My son canceled the movie channels on cable just prior to this series. (He says his Amazon Prime account allows access to the movies he desires.) So, while I commented briefly on the Vice Channel mini series about Q, I have to rely on good FReepers comments on the HBO offering. They both seem to lack any depth of insight into the Q phenomenon.
On the audio shortcomings of the HBO production, a comment. In-the-field interviews can be like the wild west. So many interview environments are unpredictable that the audio tech is faced with a myriad of problems. In weak sound voice recordings obviously music can be a challenge; probably best to limit music under those circumstances.
However, there are some tools available to the mixing tech to overcome previously difficult mixing problems. The most obvious is the sound compressor. By adjusting the amount of audio compression a weaker voice track can be made to sound much stronger. Compression reduces thinner voice peaks while raising stronger lower frequency voice components without driving up those peak view meter surges, making the voice sound much filler without actually increasing the volume.
This dynamic is what is behind the old viewer complaint that the commercials are louder than the program materials. The commercial sound tracks are selectively compressed to sound rich and full, something simple voice tracks cannot accomplish as effectively. The peak view meter readings still peak at the same level but the sound appears 'louder'.
All this to say that the sound track producer could have played around a bit with voice compression while keeping the music track lower or selecting softer passages for background music. Either the producers wanted poor sound quality to produce a negative viewer reaction - or they were incompetent. Given HBO's lengthy production experience, I would have to choose the first choice. :(