How important is context? Illustrated examples.

Ok, this is a technical post (sort of). But I thought I would give a visual example of why you should always logically think of context in everything you do. Everything in your daily life relies on context to support it. The meaning, completeness, success or failure of everything relies on context to support it. I have 2 examples of how this can be visualized. The first is a clip of David Lee Roth in the studio recording his part of the song “Running With The Devil”. How funny is this without the supporting music and background vocals. When you listen to the completed song, it is really cool to see how the context drives the finished product.

My second example is how sit coms drive humor using laugh tracks. All that “canned” laughter you hear when a character says something on these shows is not real. Its pumped in after the taping. It is really interesting to listen to a taping of “Friends” with no laugh track. Directors and sound engineers can steer the humor.

Now, to sum all of this up, this is a video I found where someone made with adding a laugh track to the shining.

Even better, in my opinion, is this one where “Willy Wonka” is transformed into a horror movie.

Enjoy!