T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse although Josef was securely locked in the basement working on the video you are about to watch. It's time for BackToFrankBlack to plunge itself into the festive season with a week long celebration of the Kay Reindl and Erin Maher penned festive episode, Midnight of the Century! I am delighted to say that all the hard work that has gone in to this week has been supported by Frank Spotnitz and to all who made it possible, and to Frank, I am very grateful.
We have a week of events to help you good folk celebrate the festive season, Millennium style and we hope that you will all be duly inspired to do you bit for the cause and post your letters and postcards to 20th Century Fox before Christmas. To launch the week, Josef has created a beautiful little video celebrating the episode so without further ado, switch on the fairy lights, grab a glass of eggnog and two types of bread and join with me in wishing all Millennium fans out there, A Merry Little Christmas!
As promised, each music new release from Josef will be accompanied by a postcard that we urge you to send to Steve Asbell at 20th Century Fox. Making 20th Century Fox aware that we are here to stay and active in our support of a Millennium Movie is a vital way you can help this campaign achieve its ends. We are regularly asked what is the best way to help this campaign and there is no finer way than sending this postcard. The only way we can bring this show back is to make some noise and continue making that noise. Give Frank black the best Christmas present you could possibly give him by helping to bring him back to our screens in 2010.
Send your letters and postcards to FOX:
STEVE ASBELL
Twentieth Century Fox
10201 West Pico Blvd.,
Bldg. 88, Room 132
Los Angeles, CA 90035#
Mark
As a little extra treat for you good folks (well it is Christmas after all) you can now download a behind the scenes account of the creative process that goes into the creation of the above music video. Simply click on Frank's Christmas tree below to be taken to the download link.
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18 Responses to "Midnight of The Century Week Day One: Midnight Of A Merry Little Christmas!"
I think THIS is the best postcard, I seems I'm always saying this, but it's a great one, a keeper.
I really should have checked my spelling when I wrote that run down on my thought process for creating the music video. I thought you would go over it, ah well. It's been a tough week to get ready for, people will get the drift :D
I've actually decided to go back to the dreadful Pinnacle 10.7 even though it's slower to work with, it's the slow motion feature and better quality in rendering videos that makes it worthwhile.
I'll re-do Weeds and Skull and Bones...call me a perfectionist.
I've got something up my sleeve, which really required me to go back to the slo-mo version. Otherwise it would look just awful.
Merry Christmas from Iceland!
- Jósef
Mark, this is absolutely beautiful and everything Christmas should look like, very festive and lovely! This will defintely put everyone in the Christmas spirit, even the Grinch!! :) Just wanted to check this out before I went to bed, will leave more comments in the morning. :) Merry Christmas everyone!!! :)
Laura
Absolutely fantastic, I love this episode and you captured its spirit perfectly, even from the use of Lara's brilliant line at the start.
Perfect music too and the extra pdf file insight was interesting to read.
Merry Christmas to you and everyone else at BackToFrankBlack.com!
You good people have made an old man very happy. I was having something of a glum day and I dropped by and you have filled my heart with a lovely festive glow. To all the Millennium fans out there a very Merry Christmas. Please do consider sharing a link so we can download some of these videos folks. This one is beautiful and it is something I would very much like to keep for prosperity. All the best to all of you.
The video looks beautiful, the blog looks beautiful, the postcard looks beautiful. What a wonderful job you have done. You should be very, very proud of yourselves.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Very enjoyable, as always. Thank you so much!
What a lovely, joyous music video that was. Several people I think have recorded the song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, but my favourite version is by actress Michele Lee. It was played over the closing scenes of Knots Landing's 1990 Christmas episode "A Merry Little Christmas". It's a lovely version which added something to the scenes at the end of the episode.
Bing Crosby's version is another classic version, the perfect song I think to go with the clips from "Midnight of the Century". I watched the episode a couple of weeks ago, the first time since I first saw it back in the winter/spring of 1998. One of the rare Millennium episodes to be given a PG certificate by the BBFC. It's one of the few MM episodes the whole family can watch!
I like the photography in Millennium, and this episode especially had some good stuff throughout (the shot of the train set running in the toy shop window (the black and white version was the best), the shots of the church from the outside, the snow falling as Frank walked out of his father's yellow house, the churchyard and the ghosts (?) walking the street in front of the church at the end of the episode).
My favourite scenes include when the mystery person lights the lamp outside Frank's father's house and promptly disappears, the scene in the churchyard when Frank is approached by a mystery man and tells him about the souls and ghosts at the midnight of the century, when the Christmas tree falls over behind Lara in Frank's house, and the scene in which all the angel drawings are seen on the walls in the bedroom.
The episode was shown at a time when the show was on a roll, coming out with consistently excellent episodes, and the best was yet to come.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Wonderful video and what a wonderful idea for a Christmas Week. "Midnight Of The Century" is one of my favourite episodes. It is very touching and very beautiful at the same time. Here's wishing you all a very merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas one and all.
Kimon
Brilliant!
Thanks so much for the comments, means a lot to me.
I too feel this video came out really good.
I watched this episode rather recently and two moments always get to me, tears run down my face, when Frank's dad is telling him about the pact he made with Frank's mother and when they finally hug and cherishes the photo of Jordan.
I did have a Louis Armstrong version, but it wasn't the same.
I really like there's this bit of sadness in the song although there is much joy. It just sums up perfectly what happens in the episode, and I just conneceted the appropriated scenes to the lyrics in the song. Once I had that going, this video was a breeze to go through.
And it has a few good humorous moments when Frank says "I hear you" to Jordan when she said she didn't like Danny Dinosaur because she got one last year! And when Frank saw Jordan got that computer pet game that he had planned to give her for Christmas, priceless. I just know Lance must have had fun with that episode.
Enough of my mumblings...
Merry Christmas from Iceland!
- Jósef
Now you mention the Danny the Dinosaur I heard (I have no idea if it's true) but the name of the toy was chosen as an in-joke regarding one of the cast and crew. I've never found out who it was but I do recall Kay mentioning that at the old Millennium Newsgroup if I recall rightly.
Danny Dinosaur, maybe some old-timer who's been in the biz a long time?
Hmmm...maybe we should investigate the credits of that particular episode.
But I felt it was just a better name than Barney. Danny Dinosaur, it's two D's, you can't go wrong with that.
And one thing I want to mention.
I really like how they address the Christmas shopping, how we as a consumer are treated differently now.
The customer is never right these days and we must get whatever is IN these days and you're a loser if you get something OLD. Plus, how people don't take the time to shop and to enjoy themselves. It's just madness on Christmas Eve.
There's not much done at my house regarding Christmas, I'm not that all excited about Christmas like when I was a kid.
But that doesn't mean I want everyone to feel the same way as I do, I want people to be happy.
Merry Christmas, once again ;)
- Jósef
This is my favourite episode of all. Well to done to Kay and Erin for creating such a work of art and to Josef for the video and for everyone who made the blog look so beautiful. Happy Holiday's to all of you.
Thank you so much for a very beautiful video and a very beautiful Christmas celebration. I am one of those folks who feels that Catherine gets a bad deal so it was so touching to see that you included her kiss with Frank and as a lover of Lara I loved her smile. I felt so very festive watching this. Thank you and have a very Happy Holiday!
Merry Christmas to one and all and I've always wanted to say this but never dared, Josef is a very handsome dude so can I have him in my stocking for Christmas? Please?
A great video, and another great faux-book cover postcard. They're always a joy to look at.
On an unrelated note, I got the creeps big time when I went to this page and Peter's voice chimed in, talking about the future existing like branches on a tree... you see, at the time, I was watching LOST season 5, right at the time when the crew was skipping through time on the Island. The serendipity of it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end!
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