1.28 MyDrama - Playback

0:00 Welcome to My vertical Obsession. Today we are talking about playback on My Drama and Playback stars Amber Liaired as Mattie, Bryce, Royce Lundquist as Luke Rivers, Hannah Stocking as Samantha Stern, Sophie Summers as Clare Vance, and Sarah Simpino as Bella. If I said anything any of the names wrong, I apologize. I do my best to make sure and pronouncing them as correctly as I can. So. The synopsis for this one is a young songwriter from a funeral home quietly enters the world of a fading pop star, helping him rediscover the voice he thought he lost. But behind her quiet presence lies a secret. She's a superstar, hiding and plain sight. As they create music together, emotions rise, heartbreak, jealousy, and ambition, turning every moment into something deeper, which starts as tension slowly becomes a powerful connection. But secrets don't stay hidden or so. The overview that I Wrot wrote for this is Maddie's an inspiring singer songwriter who tries to convince Luke Rivers to sing her songs. She ends up getting her chant to write music and become a singer, only she is hiding a secret that she is the AI artist lux who's blowing up on social media. She did this because she wanted to be a singer, but she has stage fright, so this lets her be a singer and gets her songs out without showing her face.

1:25 The more she works with Luke, the more her dream is coming true, the more she starts to fall for him, until they finally admit their feelings for each other. LUKE'SI girlfriend, It's not happy to see this and starts to cause problems. When she finds out Maddie is Lucks, she sets out to get rid of her. One of her plans is getting Maddie to sell Lucks and everything she has, so she teams up with Clara to get Maddie to sell Luck. Clara, who doesn't like Samantha, still agrees with it, unknowing to them, Mattie's family is going through some medical and financial troubles that force Maddie to sell. After she sells, Samantha forces Maddie to tell Luke she's Lucks, which makes Luke feel betrayed and he walks away without wanting anything to do with Mattie. Mattie thinks her dream is over and it's all done. But after her live stream and finally singing as herself, her fans tell her to play at Indigo Music Festival. She decides to go to stop Samantha as Lucks and get herself on the stage. After being caught by Clara, Mattie convinces her to help her get on the stage, to which Mattie plays a video of Luke's mom singing and then introduces herself before singing. Luke drewing to her on stage and the two get back together.

2:33 Samantha ends up losing in the end and her music career ends. Clara starts her own music label and signs Maddie and Luke. Mattie and Luke get nominated for a Grammy Award. So that's just a little of the overview I had for the series. So now getting into the talking points, I have quite a few, so let's just kind of jump right into them. So one of them is Mattie's songbook, and there is two things with this one. So what I had said was there are some things I don't fully understand when it comes to Maddy's songbook. She is luck, So you think some of the songs she used would be in the songbook unless she takes them out when she used them. If she doesn't get rid of them, wouldn't you think Luke would have seen the songs Maddie had used for Lux. The other thought is maybe the songbook was just songs that she was trying to get Luke to sing and there weren't any of Luck's songs in it. It can be explained a couple different ways, but it still seems like a plot hole and seems like songs should have been in the book and Luke would have seen them. So that was one thing with the songbook is I was kind of wondering how all the songs work. It's like, if the songs she's using for Lux or also part of her songbook, wouldn't Luke have seen them? Because he had gone through the book, so I'm sure he would have noticed them.

3:44 But then it's also like, well, maybe she doesn't use those songs for Lucks and maybe those ones were just specifically to try and get Luke to sing them. Type question. But I wasn't one hundred percent short, But those were kind of like the two theories I had with it. The other thing with the songbook is after the fight between Luke and Maddie, Luke is shown to have the songbook in the studio, and then it's shown to be with Mattie at her house. So did Maddie go and pick it up or did it get sent to her. It really doesn't seem like Maddie went back to the studio after her fight with Luke, because at one point she had bumped into Clara and Clara's like, I want nothing to do with you anymore. So from that I kind of gathered that maybe she really never stepped foot in the studio again. So then it's a question of when did she get it back, how did she get it back, and just how did that all happen. So it was just a little question, but not such a big deal. It was just one of those things where I was like, wait, how did she get it back?

4:38 But fun little point out there. So the next note I had was about the fact that it was a musical, because it was advertised as a musical, which I loved and also one of the many reasons why I wanted to see this. So this was as advertised as a musical and it was, but just not in the way I expected. The series is about singer songwriters, so the music was very natural within the series. I'm used to musicals having songs or music in random places, but yet still work within the scene. Plus I'm used to the songs not sounding like ones you would hear on the radio, whereas this one the songs sound like you might hear on the radio or listen to your iPod. So this was a little different of a musical and I loved every minute of it. I love all the songs as well, and how you can listen to them on streaming. I do kind of wish you could buy them on iTunes to have, but it's okay. It's still cool you can listen to them on Spotify. I know. That is one thing that I wish the series that Missing rock Star is my husband had done with the music they had.

5:39 They had good music too that I kind of wish you could save and download. But then again that might have changed. I haven't checked, but the last time I look, you couldn't same with this one. Last time I looked, and when I wrote this up, you couldn't buy the music off iTunes, but you could listen to it on Spotify, And I think on Apple Music, just not purchase it to buy, but again it could have changed since writing this. Hopefully the other series two similar things or put them on iTunes to buy, because I know I would really like that to be able to kind of have the music on my iTunes because I don't do Spotify or Apple Music. I prefer to be ones that I can buy and put on my iPod type music. But that's personal preference for me. I've mentioned in the past that I would love to see more series like this, that there should be more musical type vertical series. They're just so fun and they deserve to be more of them.

6:30 That's what I said about the musical aspect. The next part. I really tried to get into this because I really love this. It's about two scenes and a great use of symbolism, so talking about the fireworks at the party. So what I had said about this was I love how the fireworks were going off during two big scenes. Was great use of symbolism. Who had the fireworks of a love confession and the scheming to portray the main characters. These two scenes were also happening while the fireworks were actually going off at the same time in the scene and it was a great way to connect the two scenes. In the first scene, the love confession was between Luke and Mattie. Luke opens up and tells Mattie how he cares about her and wants to be with her. Well, it's not him saying I love you, yet, it's still a moment of them confessing their feelings to each other.

7:20 At the time, they had been working to make it look like Samantha and Luke got back together, and Mattie was worried that Luke would want to get back together with Samantha for real, So this was his moment to tell Maddie that she was the only one he wanted. So it's fireworks in the sense of romance. The second scene is two characters scheming to portray the leads. Samantha lets Clara know she knows Maddie is Lux, which Clara thought that she was the only one who knew. Samantha commits is Clara to help her get Maddie to sell Lux. That way, Samantha can have access to the program and socials. She wanted the fame that Lux currently had. Even though Clara didn't like Samantha, she still agreed to the deal because it would help get her money as well. This was fireworks in the sense of something explosive happening. These scenes happened back to back as the fireworks at the party are being fired off. It was a great way to show the fireworks both literally and figuratively within the two scenes. It was such a great visual element in the series. So I really enjoyed that whole moment in those scenes with the fireworks and the two scenes happening while the fireworks were going off. So that was really fun to watch. So next up, just a little issue I found, but then goes into kind of like a little bit of a question too. So it was about the color grading on the clips. So I did notice that there was a couple scenes that color grading for them wasn't on the clips. I wasn't sure if the clips were missed or it was a rendering issue. I know sometimes rendering can miss or skip clips. It's always

8:54 frustrating when rendering or saving media files ends ends up with a clip or a clips that don't have color corrected. Sometimes if you aren't watching frame by frame, you might not see it as well. I get this is something that shouldn't have a mistake like this, but things do happen. After all, some of the biggest shows have mistakes, like Game of Thrones and that coffee cup. Not everything is perfect. Plus the program for video editing can cause issues too. This could be a human error or a programmer. To be honest, it didn't take away from the series at all. It was just a small thing that I had noticed when watching. It was just one minute the scene was light even though it was nighttime. The next to the scene was a lot darker, and then it went back to a lighter scene. It was just a moment that caught me off guard. This just continues to make me wonder how the editing works. Along with wondering how the editing of the series is done, I wonder what program is used. I know two of the main ones are Adobe Premiere Pro and APID Media Composer. I think Final Cut has been used, but it's more the other two.

9:57 I know. It's a process I do hope to learn more about and I I think I've mentioned it before. Editing post projection is one thing that I loved so always wanting to learn more about it, especially now with all the verticals. I would love to kind of learn more about the behind the scenes with editing and how the process all works. So another point I had was about Luke's mom. When you first saw the video of Luke's mom, you knew Mattie was going to put it into a song. I figured it would be put into an intro into a song that maybe was about his mom or about love. It was nice to see that it was an intro to Maddie singing as herself, and I get it was for Luke and to apologize to him. I really do get that, but it also seemed random in the LUX situation. I also understand that it was meant to be a grand gesture by giving him videos of his mom back. It was her way of showing him how much she loved him, that she was willing to corrupt the LUX program for him. I do understand the reasoning behind it, and loved the moment so much it even got me a little teary eyed. I just miss how it connected to LUX Mattie's performance. Maybe that's the point. She was putting herself out there to apologize to Luke and give him this moment while also being on the stage and singing as herself, maybe in hopes that Luke would forgive her and join her. So maybe, so, just maybe that was the whole point, which would then kind of make sense. I love how this was how they ended up using the videos of Luke's mom It was sweet, heartwarming and a great way to win someone's heart.

11:26 You give them the one thing they never thought they'd see or something they thought they would lose. Was one hell of a grand gesture and I loved it. So. One of the other points I made is about the song, the cover song that Luke sings. So what I had said was, I will say the first time I watched, I didn't really notice this, but when it came to the cover song, Mattie helped Luke create Samantha Manipulator to post it as Lucks. She knew Mattie was LUs and trying to get her away from Luke. She also knew that Luke hated lucks, so what better way to ruin them than to have matt Any pub Luke's song with lux Mattie thought she was doing something good by letting people hear the song when she was just digging herself into a hole thanks to the shovel that Samantha handed her.

12:09 Samantha was a sneaky bitch, but this was but this one was really low. She used Mattie's feeling for Luke and her want to get Luke back on top with his music against her. Samantha knew Maddie would do it. Samantha did it all for her personal gain, not really caring it hurt Luke in the end, it helped her get what she wanted. That's what Samantha was about. How can this help me? How can I make me more famous? She wanted the fame and hurt people to get it. She could have been famous and a star if she was nice and played well with others, but she didn't want to do that. She'd rather scheme and manipulate people to get what she wanted. That's kind of how I saw Samantha, which she could have done very well if she just played well and didn't scheme every chance she got.

12:51 I feel, and so down to the last point, which was the color change, because I noticed that a lot. And one of the things I noticed was at the time, the color would change behind the characters when they would sing. It didn't happen all the time, but seemed to be more with Mattie. But it was an interesting choice. I felt like it was trying to differentiate between the musical elements of the spoken word of the series. I think it also was to highlight Maddie's singing, as she was the one with stage fright, so it showed how she was overcoming that fear to be the singer she ends up being in the end a way to give her the spotlight to show she can achieve greatness. Or maybe I'm wrong and there's a whole other reason for the color change in this color change in those scenes. I just know that it was done for a reason, because everything has a reason. Things are always done for a certain reason within telling the story. That is one of the amazing things about filmmaking. There was a reason behind every choice that is made. That is why you should rewatch a series, show, or movie because you will see things you didn't see the first time around. Sometimes the details put in can make the viewing better when you know some of the things that go into it. That's always one thing that you enjoy is rewatching series because I always find something new when I watch it again.

14:05 So I highly recommend rewatching series because you don't always catch it in the first time and like I said in this it's like one of the things that I had missed was Samantha working to get Maddie to put Luke's song on Lux's account. It's like I didn't fully realize it when I the first time I watched it, but when I watched it again, I was like, wait, she is totally manipulating her to do that. So again you see things that you didn't necessarily see the first time around. So I love rewatching series to get a I won't say a different view, but to get something new out of it. Because each time you watch, you finds something new or you see something that you didn't know before. I love that that is a possibility in rewatching things to now to get into my overall thoughts, I love everything about this series. One of the things I love most was that it was a musical vertical series.

14:54 I've said a couple of times how I enjoying verticals that have musical elements to them. It's also something that is seen as much in the vertical space. So to see more series coming out that have musical elements or our musicals is a good thing. I will continue to say how I love to see more series like this. Another reason I love this one so much was that it felt like a movie that was put into a vertical format. I didn't feel like it was a typical vertical series. While I love typical verticals, sometimes it's nice to have ones that feel like they could be on Hallmark or Netflix. It shows that guilty pleasure dramas isn't always needed. I love the soapy drama and the guilty pleasure drama, but one day it will be overplayed and I would love to see verticals do more serious dramas or storylines just to find the space to grow like this, and I hope it continues to do that. I think My Drama is good at trying to do that with their series. They don't tend to be the typical verticals, but they still have the soapi drama. This one really felt different, and maybe it was because the music within it.

15:57 It felt like a movie and I just love every minute of it. It was amazing and would love to see more. Not sure how a sequel will go, but I want to see Maddie and Luke win that Grammy and for Luke to be able to thank his mom. I just want to see more and hear more. Music so and for the reading, I gave it a nine out of ten. And I know I've said in past ones, I don't tend to do that unless it is absolutely phenomenal and outstanding, and for me, this one was absolutely phenomenal, so good, loved everything about it. Can watch it continuously over and over again because it was so good. It's highly recommended. If you haven't seen it yet, you should go and watch it. I just loved everything about this one and as always, would love to hear your thoughts on the series, what you liked, what you didn't like, and if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review. Would love to hear your thoughts. This has been playback on my drama. I'm your host, Megan.

16:53 This has been my vertical obsession until next time.