Richard Penna

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.

The spirit of it is right, but they say themselves in their FAQs that one of the most crucial aspects of starting a project is choosing the right threshold, and that's not going to be easy in some cases. You might set it a bit low to make it more likely to reach the goal, but knowing you're going to personally make up whatever shortfall there is in the end. And what if you do your best but costs are just higher than planned? You'd need to use some of your own or other money sources anyway. Hence they don't forbid using other cash sources as part of the project in ther T&Cs, but they'd just prefer you didn't - they can only emphasize the nature and spirit of the financial backing they want to give you and obviously make it clear what's expected in return to backers.

Indeed. Note I said film takes, not edits. The butchering in the film varies from creative to downright unlistenable as music, but you want to at least have the compositions and takes that the editors started with before all hell broke loose. I replicated two tracked moments in my set because I love how they work in their respective scenes, much like how a handful of tracked moments in Potter 1 work really well.

The bigger problem with that set is some missing film takes such as the ending, iirc. Putting album/original versions in the main program is pretty far down the list of priorities for me compared to that.

Now that I'm effectively paying a nearly reasonable shipping cost due to LLL's sale, it was time to get this bad boy.

I echo Fellowship of the Ring. It's beautifully directed but also feels so real given PJ's usage of real locations where he could. The film for me has become very synonymous with the UK countryside, particularly places in Wiltshire and Somerset, and also Wales where I spent a lot of time as a kid. The FotR OST is probably my favourite thing to listen to if I'm doing a cross-country journey - I can picture people from Middle Earth wandering around, Ringwraiths stalking the countryside at night - PJ created something that for me trascended a movie and mirrored the simple pleasures of visiting beautiful rural places. My parents took us to a lot of castles and historical places as kids, so I felt pre-disposed to become attached to many locations that PJ brought to life.

The major things I bought in the last 5 years or so are the Johnny English/Bean movies, Oceans (all four), the Conjuring universe, and the two most recent Alien movies. I tend to want a physical disc when I really like a movie or franchise, and I got the Bean films on Blu-ray as I got a sense that it was getting difficult to find copies and an exchange store over here has some at a steadily increasing price (meaning they don't have a ton left). That same place has a lot of lower demand BDs going for £1-1.50 or so; often less, so sometimes I buy one if I just want to watch a film a second time, as it's obviously vastly cheaper than renting a stream. By that method I discovered that the Hangover trilogy was a bit meh second time round, but it cost about £2 for all three.

It was a firm favourite for me as soon as I heard it, and a wonderful album. A quick skim through the film once suggested to me it was an overachieving score in general.

I was nosing through the FAQs and if they raise the full $50,000, ~$5,000 of that goes to KS and card processing fees so they've actually raised the amount they will receive and just need some more backers to cover KS's cut. Also talks about picking the right target and considering what funds they may be getting from friends/family/others so they don't have any rules about being the sole source of funding.

I'm finding DVDs/BDs an increasingly desirable thing given many streamers' inability to keep a particular title on their service for more than 5 minutes. I guess it's more stable with Disney as they own the rights to their own stuff, but when Netflix and Prime can't keep consistent catalogues due to licensing agreements changing all the time, I tend to start looking on the used marketplace for things. At time of writing, the Hobbit movies (for example) are on Prime, but I have low confidence they'll still be there in 6 months.

I'd go further - it's impossible to prevent any additional outside funding unless it were in the T&Cs that any product directly resulting from KS were not permitted to use any other source of funding. IMO that would be wrong of them to dictate, and I also don't see how they would ever know or check. Particularly if it's a company involved that decides to get public funding for a specialist product line, they're going to be using some of their own resources and costs. Hence I'd be amazed if KS somehow thought they could dictate the entire funding structure of a project. I can picture creators who have decided they can put a bit of their own money in but need public help with the rest, so they set the project goal to XX thousands with the knowledge that if they hit the goal they can realise the project using whatever they've privately decided to invest. If the project goes over its goal - great, the creator doesn't need to put any of their own funds in.

Interesting. I'm sure there's a good reason behind that (stopping some sort of misuse); I just can't immediately think of what it is.

I got the e-mail way earlier this morning and I seem to get them on a regular basis. Now if they could at some point get TLW back in stock, that would be very helpful.

Ah, neat, thanks! It bugged me a little that I had Dragon 2 and 3 in full 3000x3000 but not the first one, plus the imminent arrival of the RoP box obviously required those 9 covers to be given proper treatment. Wouldn't it be neat if the CD format allowed (and if it does, were more exploited) high-res album art to be included when put in a PC. Isn't that what those 'enhanced' CDs from the early 00s did, with screensavers and such? I have just one case where it's a bit of a mess, and I came up with a naming that isn't tidy in itself, but does the job: Robin Hood (BBC) Robin Hood '10 Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves In all other cases, I have at most the OST and an expansion, so Score XYZ: OST for the OST, then whatever takes my fancy for the expansion. If it's Varese I usually do Score XZY: The Deluxe Edition and if it's another label, Score XZY (LLL) or Score XZY (Intrada) I can't think of any cases where I've got more than two versions, because it's not in my collecting nature to keep multiple expansions, so for JP for example, I just have the 2016 box - not the OST, anniversary set, nor the new one. Unless a fundamentally different listening experience is offered between expanded releases, I just keep the one I like the most (usually the most recent).

I'm definitely lacking understanding of the more techy details, but doesn't phase inversion rely on the two tracks in question being based on the same digital content? I.e. if you digitized some tape to a digital file, then created a copy of that digital file with some other element on top of the music, the music element of both would be the same because the digitised content is the same. Whereas the same musical material heard in the film and from a tape transfer is going to result in a different digital end result, like if you recorded some tape to digital twice in a row - it will sound the same but the resulting files won't be identical, digitally.

I meant more along the lines that in terms of content for that we don't need anything from Disney. If you really wanted an official pressed CD with all the FYC material so that it's all 'official', fine I guess. We should be aiming our sights far higher than that though. Given that JW will ruin something with eventual expansions, and I hear talk of people wanting literally everything JW recorded, isn't a session dump actually what you want? Problem is, what you really want is a tightly curated, MM-produced, JW-rubber stamped set in an embossed, deluxe box set, but I'd say it's almost certain such a set would omit something, particularly as JW has a tight hold over what he wants released. I don't think one product will deliver both wishes.

There's one cue from RotS that never seems to have leaked that I'd like clean (funeral/vader reveal), but other than that I just added ~10 minutes including that bit, to the end of the OST. The opening battle track is a better listening experience for me than the full intended sequence. Indy... it would be nice to have the full score for Crusade but most of what I want is on the Concord set. Not overly interested in the other Indys, and certainly not the other SWs. But I know many are praying for complete/remastered sets and I hope they happen just like I pray my grails are coming. But I'll be as detached from the associated mania as bolle.

Oh I'm in no doubt they're putting out stuff they love, but in the wider soundtrack community and for fans of more modern stuff, it feels rather niche. If we get to June's flyer and I don't recognise any composers, then I'll start to ask what's going on

Possibly the first time that not only have I never heard of either film in a flyer, I've not sure I've heard of either composer. They're the sort of thing I'd normally expect to see from someone like Quartet, not LLL. I'm assuming that they've got lots of bigger titles waiting in various stages of development/approval hell.

Huh? You don't mean literally merging the OSTs and FYCs and pressing a disc do you? What a pointless exercise - any of us can do that. At a minimum they should release expanded prequels - surely not too much editing or mastering needed, relative to the work involved for the OT.

That would seem to me as more than a disagreement but a fundamental issue with anyone except a seasoned, well-oiled TV composer team trying to take it on. Had Shore said he's happy to do it, but needs a year to write the score but the producers come back and say they can't give him that sort of time... that's just the nature of TV scoring and schedules, and Bear can do it because he's built up a team and workflow, but does mean that for most of his projects we're hearing music from others too. Definitely a whole situation best avoided. I can't imagine approaching a composer who has completed several trilogies, amassed dozens of themes and told that he's not allowed to use anything that he created just because the copyright is owned by some other entity.

I found this interesting video which I'm just about able to understand, musically. I'm still in the camp that finds his piece a bit simple in comparison to most stuff he did in LotR, though, and if many people reacted how I did (i.e. a little bit 'meh'), does that not indicate that Shore composed a main title that drives other composers and scholars crazy, but doesn't make much impression on Joe Public? Sure, he absofuckinglutely did that with LotR (it's quite literally the reason I'm writing this now) but that doesn't mean he did the same here.

I suspect the initial report that Shore was in talks to score the show didn't help in terms of expectation management. The moment it's suggested that he might be writing any actual score, the pitchforks were primed for when another composer is announced. I love Richards' interpretation, saccharine or not. Plenty of Shore's RotK material gets far too sugary for me when everything is wrapping up - I think they're all guilty of it.

That's just bizarre. Could it therefore be as simple as Shore (and co) didn't like what Bear composed, as in they were as annoyed at some are here about the compositional differences?

I'm not at all averse to discussing what might have happened as long as it resolves around attributable quotes or news, rather than one of the several fanboys we have around who just couldn't handle Shore not doing it, and were searching for the smallest bit of evidence of the showrunners having betrayed Shore and hoping for some weird comeuppance. (some very amusing cognitive bias going on with one or two people, given they were at the same time arguing that soundbites praising the score were in no way to be taken seriously) My personal suspicion is that perhaps Shore offered to do some more themes and maybe even write some of the score, but that the showrunners didn't like his demos. I just can't think of another reason why him and Doug Adams would be clearly so agitated by the situation. I think it might've been better to just ask Bear to do the main titles and avoid this sort of comparison from the beginning. Non music people like me respect the compositional differences but don't understand them enough to know why so many are annoyed.