Richard Penna

Goodall is one of the most easygoing and unpretentious composers I've ever seen and I saw this series way back whenever the BBC first showed it. He's really good at explaining musical stuff to idiots like me.

As far as chopped up sequences: largely irrelevant - you generally don't present tracking/editing/etc in these sets. Only if a prominent sequence were created using stem elements would I expect there to be some consideration over whether to recreate or use the film stem to include it. (i.e. I don't agree with a blanket 'no tracking' rule - you have to consider prominent cues on individual basis) I suspect that the desire to have super-deluxe all encompassing sets is probably limited to communities like this, but I'd say that only goes as far as how wide ranging the bonus section is. There's a difference between presenting all major alternates, and presenting every single variation Williams recorded, catering for different inserts and refining orchestration. I don't for one second envy the task ahead of a producer when deciding what and how to include.

I love the little concert-like pieces in GoT - Light of the Seven, Jenny of Oldstones. They're very simple but oh so evocative. Some of his HotD material is little more than voices, drones and strings, but what he does with them to creative his sound is so interesting to me. What's not strong about them? I'm looking for some element with more substance than just not being at Williams' level of orchestrational complexity, because we both know there's so much more than that to an effective piece of scoring.

I always try to keep my comments in the positive spirit of the discussion (hence bringing up the superb Rosewood as a replacement score example that Williams nailed) but I'm not going to restrict my words just to avoid offending a few people who are convinced that no one can ever write better than JW. The forum ceases to be a place of discussion and debate if every conversation gets derailed because someone is devasted at a suggestion tarnishing Williams' abilities. This score is largely not my thing except for a few cues and The Days Between with the beautiful guitar melody. My overall prior point was that, apart from there being nothing I hear in this score that makes it overly special within Williams' ouvre, I honestly hope that the labels' attention and resources are being spent on scores that need expanding and properly presenting more than I think this score does.

A long-term rental is definitely a more appropriate way to see it - all you're "purchasing" is a license to watch the film on their platform for as long as they carry it. In fact, the whole thing is basically just a way for them to get an extra $10 from you to watch a trendy new film, and their carefully-written T&Cs cover their ass if and when they lose the agreement with the studio. Even iPlayer desktop which allows downloads, doesn't actually just give you a file to do what you want with. I believe they're stored in some sort of format that makes them expire after a period. It's all completely around controlling how and when you watch a show - for some reason all these studios are absolutely terrified of allowing you a private digital copy of a show. I'm almost surprised there has never been a legal challenge to Amazon's "purchase" terminology actually, because you're definitely not purchasing anything.

I understand the password sharing crackdown - that's much more blatant receipt of something you haven't paid for. But things disappearing off services after a period is the killer for me. I'll always remember watching Kingdom of Heaven on some platform a few years ago and due to its length, I went to bed with about 5 minutes to go...... not realising that it was the last day they had it! I went back the next morning to watch the last 5 minutes and it either wasn't there or they wanted money. My response? I liked it so I bought the director's cut Blu-ray. The fact that that's a solution to that problem in 2024 is not good, and if the streamers and studios don't find a way of keeping movies on their services far more long term, then as you say, it goes back to piracy - the very thing streaming was addressing at one point. I like the idea of buying digital movies in place of discs, but again, the killer is you need to let me own a file of that download. I've given you money to buy it - you don't get to just remove it from me when you're bickering with the studio again. That's not my problem.

One thing I note is that if you're prepared to pay you can watch nearly anything, and I did actually buy a movie called Secret Life of Bees from Prime when it was my book club's selection and it was only a few £s to buy (unfortunately I disliked the movie as much as the book). The problem though is that even when fully paid for, you're still at the mercy of licensing agreements so if I understand correctly, if Amazon loses their agreement for the movie you've lost access even though you paid for it. Hence I'd never buy a streaming movie for something I cared about. Hence I'd be a lot more open to a service where you paid the fee and then got to download a full HD file (20GB or so doesn't take too long on a good connection) but I suspect no studio will ever allow that because it leaves the door wide open for you to just give that file to someone else. Closest I've seen is a performer over here who films most of his shows and puts full HD copies on his website for sale. Hence for films that are important to me for one reason or another, I have to own the disc.

I never saw a rental disc that had the special features stripped - certainly I never saw any messages that a feature was unavailable. Add that to the list of dumb ideas studios have made in the name of wanting more money from you. This weekend I received two things - the complete Alan Partridge box, as I'm constantly watching compilations on YT and finally decided it would be easier to just own the damn thing. Also the blu-ray of Shrek as it has a certain nostalgic importance to me and it was getting oddly difficult to find even a used copy in the usual places (I've never owned it in any format), whereas other animated movies of the period don't seem to suffer similarly. Now due to streaming I've found a lot of movies from the 90s and 00s are very difficult to find on Blu-ray whereas DVD copies are littering the planet. Hence Shrek is the first case where I decided to get a copy while available, and it won't be the last. I also have an external USB DVD drive set to region 1 so that it doesn't matter if I have an American-sourced DVD (and I have several).

Thomas Newman talked in an interview once about the soloists and specialists he works with, and he had a really relaxed attitude when it comes to the musical acumen of the people he works with. Paraphrasing, he said that if someone is really good at playing <instrument> but can't read music or has difficulty in that area, he's (exact words) 'grateful to have you'. I'd imagine finding composers or players who have that magic combination of a great talent at music theory and a knack for memorable music (such as, but absolutely not exclusively, Williams) is like gold dust. The majority of creatives are likely to be one or the other - studying music theory and taking great pains to write music that's structurally inspired by the greats or writing from the heart and creating music that works for the picture, regardless of how simple it may be.

Yep, I rented a heck of a lot of DVDs and Blu-rays from LoveFilm, and was very disappointed when they stopped as they had pretty much everything. Particularly as you could see all the extras and special features and generally see how good the release was, and I'm fairly sure I bought a few Blu-rays after having rented them. What's just occurred to me is why Netflix (and others) clearly have a long-term issue with licensing agreements with the studios for streaming when they could rent out films/series/etc to their heart's content as long as they had the disc. Evidently the licensing model must be very different for streaming.

Nah, I don't think pearl clutching is warranted - this can hardly be compared to other cases of composers coming on late in a project and composing a massive symphonic score in a few weeks. It's a sugary family drama that quickly needed some fairly understated music which any good Hollywood composer could have done. Compare it to Rosewood where Williams provided an actual score (after that bizarre jazzy stuff which was never going to work) and delivered an excellent, thematic, celebrated score.

I guess the cue list posted above might give an indication, but it doesn't tell us whether all the missing bits are 1 minute long, or whether the OST only has half the score. The reason for the replacement wasn't musical, I don't think - at least there seem to be (in the words of Torn Music) 'conflicting stories' regarding why Doyle was dropped, except for Doyle being unwell and Williams taking over. I didn't sense any suggestions that Columbus was unhappy with Doyle's music so it's unlikely to be a case where Williams saved the day. I never found the full album overly engaging outside of a few highlights - maybe it's just not my style; maybe it's an indication of time constraints to rewrite an entire score.

Between this and Nosferatu, based on samples the latter probably struck me a bit more, but it's nice that this will be on streaming so we can evaluate it properly.

It's fine, but at least the cues presented here don't really do anything for me... somewhat unfocused orchestral meanderings. I rather liked the film when I saw it a few decades ago, but I always thought it wasn't necessarily the sort of drama that needed that much music. Williams' score more focused with that nice guitar theme and a couple of nice tracks, but in my view if we consider the overall pantheon of scores that are awaiting proper official presentation and are worth Mike and others spending their time on, this isn't near the top.

TWINE is my favourite, but partly for nostalgic reasons. It's also more balanced between the string/piano material and action which makes it an easier listen. I know TND is probably the most popular around here but for my tastes it's too loud and overbearing for the most part - I've never gotten into it. The problem for me with QoS is that I think the film is absolutely goddam awful - I sat through it once with my brother, then twice more I tried again and neither of us had a clue what was going on, what the story was, and were both thoroughly bored. Arnold absolutely did the best job anyone could have done (and I'm sure he found the film more intesting than we did) but it remains a concept album for me - 20 minutes or so of decent action music. I also unpopularly side with JNHFan2000 in that I like Newman's scores in general. The action music is a bit mixed given that (a) action is not his forte imo, and (b) some of the material at the end of Spectre is just generic fluff (considering Mendes knows how to use music well, I really question what he was thinking here) but the overall sound he gave to the scores is refreshing - his more ambient/rhythmic approach working particularly well with the early action sequences in Skyfall and the Scotland scenes later on.

A luxury no doubt earned from decades at the top of the industry, but I suspect that a lot of directors/producers would be hesitant to hire him nowadays due to the lack of instant, realistic demos. Didn't Williams remark that Cuaron asked him for demos for PoA, and Willams told him it would take weeks of work? I think JW was lucky in this respect that SS/Lucas/etc were understanding of his process, and that he was active before demos were the norm. Happy to be corrected, but I wonder if this has more to do with composers wanting to be in the booth and discuss the music with the filmmakers, instead of worrying about the conducting side. However, this does go along with my general stance in this area that the effectiveness and suitability of a score for its film significantly outweighs any need for said score to be technically complex.

Which track are you referring to in this set?

The only part of Jay's thoughts above I'd disagree with is presenting the entire 24 minute battle sequence as one track. Each part of that has a unique feel and occasionally there's a part I'm drawn to listening to, and I don't like the idea of navigating within a nearly half hour track to find the bit I want. I think it works great as it is on the set and that once you're approaching anywhere near the 10 minute mark, you've got to be dealing with something like The Quidditch Match where it's obvious the cues were written to segue into each other as one piece of music. I don't get the same sense with this sequence. (and if Williams did intend these cues to form a much longer musical sequence, I don't get that sense as strongly as with HP). I'd certainly disagree with Williams on his usual insistence on having album versions in the main program, no doubt due to listenability, but at least this set allows things like that to be corrected according to individual wishes. Clearly still some small hurdles to be had with him on the odd occasion, that these sets are intended to showcase the entire score and not retain edits or versions he made for the album. At least he doesn't ask for film versions like that to be omitted entirely.

The music in the latter part of one of the clips above was nice but I'm not vested in the project enough to pledge - hopefully the end results will make it onto streaming, and if it doesn't, I still have that clip to enjoy.

If you haven't read the liners, they contain quite a bit of thematic information and where the themes appear at a high level. At some point I'll give them more than a cursory skim.

I thought this particular one was in reference to issues with completing the checkout process which they resolved a day or two ago. Or their website software has an 'apologetic message' template.

Realistically, KS would want creators to either set a goal a certain % higher than they need, or have a backup source of extra funds to handle unexpected extra costs. The only argument I can see against making additional funds more transparent is that had these guys set the goal at $50,000 but stated that Young is prepared to put down $5,000 in the event that there are extra costs, you might get rumblings once it's passed $45,000 that they've got what they need and that any further pledges are just going into the pockets of the creators. I don't personally have any issue with that though. Either they can comfortably cover their costs for this project, or they have more for their next one.

I live with the released main program unless there's something I really don't like, such as a version of a track they put in the bonus section being superior. Such things don't bother me anyway - quick switcheroo. The only recent exception would be our ol' favourite Sleepy Hollow. Took me ages to work out how to make a playable long-term set without winding myself up with endless repeats of cues. And not I should add, because I was worrying about what were film versions, but just deciding which versions I liked most and which alterate takes had value. But scores as complicated as that are quite rare.

I basically want the main program to be as close as possible to what's in the film without replicating tracking or similar editing. If that means putting a version the composer revised against their wishes in the main program... sucks to be them. The problem indeed is when the film uses two versions and switches between them, so there is no single film version. I don't particularly care what they do in those cases as long as the material is released, i.e. put one in the main section and the other in bonus.

3 CDs already, and the added tracks are logo music and a piano rendition on top of the existing alternates - hard to see what more there would be for another version. I saw this years ago and it was great fun but strangely the music mostly kind of passed me by a bit, except maybe the death scene on the bridge.