Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Those interested in finding their own film syncs should be aware that syncing to The Beatles album Help! is one of the most widely used albums. Interestingly, it is often used for action films which seems (at first blush) a rather odd choice as it has so many love/relationship songs on the album. Filmmakers compensate by making broad use of "Ticket To Ride" and "Help" and then to cast a rather blind eye to gender issues. So, the song "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" could be used tongue in cheek for a lost enemy, lost gem, lost dog, etc. etc.

Another thing to forget about is that one song follows another. Filmmakers don't give a darn about the order of things on an album, they care about using music to inspire them. Period.

I've done a sync of four songs to a segment of the film including:

"Ticket to Ride"
"You've Got To Hide Your Love Away"
"Help!"
"I Need You"

Those interested could easily continue the sync to the end of the film if they pay attention to the scenes and little care about needing to repeat songs (hint, hint).

Help Big Boy Get His Feet Back On The Ground Sync

Certainly, any Bond fan recognizes that the Austin Powers films is a parody based heavily on the James Bond films. However, there are more references to the Bond films than many a Bond fan may realize.

Some things in the first film, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery are quite easily identified as based on the film, You Only Live Twice. They include Dr. Evil's appearance based on the Donald Pleasence version of Blofeld. That and his white Persian cat, Dr. Evil's version named Mr. Bigglesworth.

Other things may only occur to the Bond fan if he/she has seen the film recently. For example, Austin Power's extremely hairy chest is based (in parody) on the story element of Tiger Tanaka commenting on Japanese men having beautiful bare skin compared to Connery's hairy chest.
An of a smaller detail is the positioning of an (as of yet) unseen Blofeld, where his cat is shown before he is.

YOLT:


Austin Powers:

Or women driving sporty convertibles with small video monitors that show you the face of the person you're talking to.

There are other secrets for the Bond fan to figure out and discover, involving the hidden soundtrack for You Only Live Twice (and other Bond films). In another entry in this blog I show how the Bond filmmakers did a full film sync to the album Help! This is reference by the Austin Powers film.

For example, to the song "Ticket To Ride", we have Bond escaping danger by getting into Aki's white convertible and Austin Powers escaping women by jumping into Mrs. Kensington's Jaguar convertible.

Some things weren't apparent to me on first viewing. For example, we get a look at a sign for the London Underground) to the lyrics "I do appreciate you being round".

And while I caught the reference to the same "I do appreciate you being round" to round also being Austin Powers sticking out his backside, I missed the arrow on the woman's shirt, helping to point out the clue.

We also have Austin Powers running from a group of women, that references The Beatles's films Help! and A Hard Day's Night while also commenting on Aki running away from James Bond in "You Only Live Twice" to the same song. The Underground also references Tiger Tanaka's private underground railroad as well as his assumption that M (in London) may have the same setup.

To the song "Help, some little touches are:

My independence seems to vanish in the haze

To the vapor passing over Dr. Evil as he is locked away in a freeze chamber.

Help me get my feet upon the ground

To Big Boy's big feet in liftoff

Or a more subtle reference of Austin Powers climbing the stairs (thus feet off the ground) plus having the leg of a woman in a airborne swing in the shot.


Here is the video to the two songs:

Help! Album to You Only Live Twice - Highlights

The filmmakers of the movie, You Only Live Twice decided to do a full film sync to The Beatles' album Help!

It may be hard to imagine at first as it would seem an odd pairing of a lot of love/relationship songs to a James Bond film. However, the filmmakers make strong use of the two most action related songs "Help!" and "Ticket To Ride" and use non-traditional women to go with some other songs. This includes the female flying gadget named Little Nelly and Blofeld's cat. For example, the filmmakers sync "Another Girl" for Bond's introduction to Little Nelly and "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" to Blofeld's losing his white (and disappearing) Persian cat. It also doesn't hurt that Bond has scenes with several women including:

Miss Moneypenny
Aki
Helga (bad girl)
Kissy
Ling (Chinese girl in Hong Kong)
Japanese Masseuse

Naturally, the song "Help!" with the lyrics "help me get my feet back on the ground" works well with everything from space walks to ninjas repelling into Blofeld's volcano lair. "Ticket To Ride" working well for scenes with Aki's white convertible as well as rockets into space and Blofeld's monorail cars (looking a bit like a Disneyland ride).

With 46 separate song syncs, the film syncer needs to realize that the odds of getting all of those syncs correct as the filmmakers intended is unlikely. Sometimes equally good ideas exist in multiple songs. Further, with songs of approximately the same length, different songs could be used without affecting the rather obvious syncs around them. For example, the songs:

"Another Girl"
"I've Just Seen A Face"
"Yesterday"

All clock in at 2 minutes, seven seconds.

With that said, there are some common themes that are present in Help! album syncs that certainly help the syncer find his/her way. Over time, that will be made more clear.

Below are the video highlights from the full album sync. If there is interest in the full film sync, I'll consider posting it.