I was challenged the other week to remix Taxi Driver with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I wasn’t able to build on my previous experiment, unfortunately, so I had to leave in Herrmann’s sax music in some spots. Hopefully it isn’t too distracting. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. I seem to be lacking the power or bandwidth to broadcast the video smoothly, and my upload options are limited due to copyright. I was able to get a few clips up on Vimeo though.
For the opening sequence, I muted the soundtrack and added “Night Fever:”
That came out pretty well. I patched in “Boogie Shoes” in a mostly dialogue-free sequence:
This does change the character of the segment. I brought “Night Fever” back in under DeNiro’s monologue. I dropped the volume of the music when he was speaking, so the lyrics don’t compete as much. I don’t think it’s too bad.
“More Than A Woman” might connect to the love interest part of the story:
I probably should have edited that differently, to minimizize the competition between song and monologue. On the other hand, the monologue is a bit gross, so maybe the de-emphasis is okay. Next I added “How Deep Is Your Love:”
It works under the voice-over, but some of the sax on the soundtrack is there too. It’s not too jarring even if it is out of place. It comes across more as a bad solo. The song comes back in after a scene with Shepherd and Brooks:
Like “More Than A Woman,” it fits the storyline. Then there is a walking scene, so I introduced “Stayin’ Alive:”
Naturally that won’t be the last of that song. I found an instrumental version of Donna Summers’ hit, “I Feel Love,” and fit that in the background:
That may be overdoing it, but this is hardly an exercise in good taste. It works better after the conversation scene:
at least until the voice-over/sax combo comes back. That transition is less than smooth. I dropped in “If I Can’t Have You” in a later scene:
It’s another case where the title fits in with the storyline, in a way. I have about a dozen other minute or so clips, but I hit the upload limit for the month. But that gives a picture of where it’s going. I’m surprised at the extent to which the soundtrack fits. It changes the character of the film, of course, but it’s not entirely incongruous. I made no changes other than adding or substituting music. I left the video intact otherwise. Now if I can just find a way to broadcast the full project…
