I got to interview Matt Silady, the artist and writer of The Homeless Channel for Pop Syndicate.
Pop Syndicate: Here’s been the big question I’ve had since I read The Homeless Channel so let’s just get it out of the way up front– what was your original concept of this story? There’s about 3 or 4 things this could be (an activist story, a romance story, a cautionary story) but what did it start out as?
Matt Silady: It started out as a BLT.When I write, you’ll rarely catch me doing any traditional “brainstorming.” Except there was this one time when I was having a BLT in a bar (I was waiting for my girlfriend at the time to finish up her shift) and I started a list on a napkin of cable networks that would never see the light of day: The Needlepoint Network, Gopher Planet, etc. I was just amusing myself. But when I got to The Homeless Channel, it sort of stopped me in my tracks. There was something strange about it that seemed like it just might work. At the same time, there was something else about it that seemed like it just might be the stupidest idea I’d ever seen.
A week or so passes and it keeps popping in my head and I start asking myself who would ever try and start up that network? What would drive them to do something so absurd? What could this person possibly be thinking? And that’s when Darcy Shaw was born.
It’s a story about her.
And in another corner of the net, Brad reviews the 300 soundtrack at Soundtrek.
Based on the comic series by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley (which in turn is based on a true story), the movie directed by Zach Snyder tells the story of 300 Spartan warriors defending Greece from a million-strong Persian army in 480 B.C. Zach Snyder had employed Tyler Bates to score his last film, a remake of ‘Dawn of the Dead’, and has brought him back for this.
Utilizing orchestra, electronics, exotic instruments, guitar and vocals Bates produces a score that evokes the past while updating it with a fresh and modern quality. Some of the pieces call to mind the epic scores of yore, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find this being compared to similar genre work of late, specifically Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard’s ‘Gladiator’. There are only so many ways you can score a period piece and have it come off as somewhat authentic so comparisons are bound to be made but I feel that the use of different instruments, especially the guitar, and an electronic ambiance provide enough for this score to stand on its own. Bates’ horror film past (he scored Dawn of the Dead, The Devil’s Rejects and Slither among others) shines through on a few cuts giving the music some welcome creepiness and atmosphere.
