Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of Psych on Netflix. Is it ridiculous? Yes, but I’ve been following Dule Hill since he was on the West Wing and his improv with James Roday is incredibly entertaining.
Like most TV series, Psych has a catchy theme song accompanied by a montage of scenes from the show that come up along with the main actors’ credits. Here is the intro montage from Season 5:
Every now and then, the network will do something a bit different with the intro and change the music to fit with the theme of a specific episode. For example, one episode guest-starred Curt Smith from Tears for Fears, who did a special cover of the theme song.
When different intro music like this is used, the montage is left largely the same, but with additional footage added to fill the additional time. NBC’s copyrights don’t allow for a video of this montage to exist on youtube, but to get an idea, you can play both videos with the sound off on the first one.
In Osgood & Hinshaw’s The Aesthetics of Editing, they discuss the use of a montage as a way of establishing the material and of drawing in the audience. They also quote editor Jon Dilling, who explains how clips sometimes naturally align themselves with music without any action on the part of the editor, “For just about any cut of music, you can place pictures in a random order and eventually moments in the music will align themselves with moments in your footage.” However, Dilling goes on to say, editors cannot rely on random editing alone.
The different Psych theme songs provide an effective examination of these principles because of the change in music while maintaining the montage. The original montage is by no means perfectly aligned with the music- showing characterizations takes precedence- but there are moments where it aligns. However, these moments are also apparent in the Curt Smith cover of the theme, thus demonstrating the randomness principle that Dilling describes.
Byting Insights 