That Thing You Do

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Here is another installment in the series “My Favorite Movies”, and the movie in focus today is That Thing You Do, which was written and directed by Tom Hanks. The story, set in the 60’s, is about a rock and roll band called “The Wonders” who “make the big time” with a hit song, but then fall apart. There are several references to The Beatles and other 60’s groups, and it’s a fun movie, but the thing I admire most about it is from a musician’s standpoint. With most movies that show music being performed, the music is not performed live. Usually the actors on screen have to act and lip-sync to a music track. Additionally, many times the actors are not musicians, so the actor has to pretend to play their instrument while lip-syncing to the music track. This is usually very obvious to real musicians - as a musician, I can tell if the actor in a movie/TV show can play their instrument or if he/she is just faking it while playing to the music track. And most of the time, the actors are just faking it. The movie may even have a scene with a band on a stage in the background, but they usually don’t hire real musicians - they just hire actors known as “extras” to stand in the background, hold the instruments, and pretend to be playing. Again, this is very obvious to actual musicians. In That Thing You Do, the starring actors were also lip-syncing to music tracks. But even though they weren’t musicians, they practiced with their character’s musical instrument for weeks before the filming started, and when it came time to film their music scenes, the actors played along with the music tracks just like they were actually playing the song. The end result is that the actors played the guitar notes and drum beats just as though they were really playing the song, which made the music scenes look very realistic. Throughout the movie it is obvious that attention was paid to the details of each music scene, for each of the scenes either has real musicians (like the trio in the bar) or actors who have practiced with instruments and are playing along with the music. After watching years of movies that pay little or no attention to the technical details of performing music, it is quite enjoyable to find a movie made by people who took the time to make it look real. And, as I wrote, it is a fun movie, with good characters and an interesting story (especially if you are a musician) so I definitely recommend That Thing You Do.