What exactly did William Ross do in Harry Potter the Chamber of Secrets

[Brónach 1,302]

Some of the score is composed by John Williams, it's just arranged by John Williams.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

2 hours ago, Bellosh said:

I'm not making this about 'taste', clearly you have the first one that sets the tone and PoA is great....but I think CoS is my favorite of the 3, the renditions of some of the themes are just unreal.  And Fawkes theme is a huge reason I chose it.

 

In terms of an album listening experience I think it's easily the best of the three, and there are some set pieces which are some all time favourites.

 

HP:PS overall is on a whole other level of quality for me and PoA has such a unique sound, although both albums suck. I'd put 2 higher than 3 for overall enjoyment though, mainly as PoA has a few areas that don't quite do it for me, considering that it's 100% an original score.

 

Also, I think that CoS was the first Potter score where I watched the film with some sort of pre-existing interest in scores - that started sometime in 2002 as I know I wasn't into them at the end of 2001 for the first movie, and I had a collection of mp3s from perhaps 20-30 films by the start of 2003.  I still have a copy of the CD-R I burned of that collection, and the films span from 1997 to that point.

[Edmilson 7,439]

Honestly, the Quidditch music from HP2 is not even the biggest mystery about that score.

 

Look at this cue for example:

 

 

Much of this cue are adaptations of HP1 cues and HP2 themes. But then, starting on 1:35, there is a completely original and un-thematic part. So, who wrote it?

 

And it's not exclusive to this cue either: there is a lot of other cues who include substantial original (as in, not being adapted from HP1 or 2 concert suites) material.

 

Did John Williams managed to write these small bridges between thematic arrangements before being forced to begin working on CMIYC? Or are these William Ross compositions? If they are Ross', then this is enough to warrant him an "Additional Music Composed by" credit, right? If Ross actually wrote 1:35-end of Petrified Justin, why did he says Chamber is a John Williams score through and through? To preserve Williams' image?

 

I fear this mystery won't be resolved until the actual sheets leak. Sigh...

[Datameister 2,042]

@Edmilson I'd bet big money that virtually all the new material in that cue came from JW in some way. Some of it may have been communicated in simpler sketches than usual, perhaps mixed with conversation and piano demos and handwritten fixes. I'm sure it takes a very skilled and experienced collaborator like Bill Ross to do this in a way that both saves the composer time and sounds right. But ultimately 95% of the final product is JW.

[Holko 9,526]

All I can say is I don't believe something like Eat Slugs with the bland loops of the same bit of a HP1 cue and no real musical structure came directly from JW's pen or his exact instructions. But it's all still just wild speculation without any source other than the recorded music.

[Datameister 2,042]

6 minutes ago, Holko said:

All I can say is I don't believe something like Eat Slugs with the bland loops of the same bit of a HP1 cue and no real musical structure came directly from JW's pen or his exact instructions. But it's all still just wild speculation without any source other than the recorded music.

 

The less new music is involved, the less involvement JW probably had. But I'm sure he at least signed off on the end product, and there was probably guidance in the process—again, to varying degrees.

 

Like you said, without footage of the whole process, we're never going to know for sure who did exactly what in each passage. But based on interviews and on how the two men have collaborated in more recent years, I think it's pretty clear that the new scoring generally came from JW.

[Holko 9,526]

In the LLL booklet there's a Ross quote that JW just kept writing and writing and writing, couldn't stop. And also he says it's a JW score through and through.

[mrbellamy 6,286]

Ross isn't even credited on the engraved orchestrations, right? I mean, we do have those from Pope and Karam, they look pretty normal and are credited to JW....idk what I'm missing there. 

 

The mystery to me is how Ross's adaptation work manifested itself on paper. Like was he himself combining Williams' old and new material into a single combined sketch in his own pen that then went to the orchestrators? Or was he just giving them photocopied excerpts from the first score with instructions along with new JW sketches and they were the ones who had to make sense of it? Or some other process I can't think of. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,524]

Oh, man! "What exactly did William Ross do?". It's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Even the orchestrators don't know!

[Jurassic Shark 12,073]

23 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Even the orchestrators don't know!

 

Ross doesn't know?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,524]

Eejit.

Even the other orchestrators don't know.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

I get the sense that on the very basic level, the end process was similar to tracking in the first score where it will save time and composing new music where they don't have something suitable already. However, instead of just giving the music editors the first score's sessions and the new music and having them build the final score, Ross took the instructions and new elements and used his orchestration skills to meld it all together into a score that fit the film and could be recorded as a new score.

 

I'd personally be amazed if at no point during that process, Ross didn't have to modify something or compose a few moments of material to make a cue work in the film, and he may have had Williams on the phone describing how he would solve a particular issue and guide him.

 

The entire scoring process entered a doomed phase as far as dedicated fans are concerned the moment that Williams realised he couldn't complete the score solo.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,524]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

The entire scoring process entered a doomed phase as far as dedicated fans are concerned the moment that Williams realised he couldn't complete the score solo.

 

... and yet, I still think that it's a deeper, richer, and more satisfying score than PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 

[Holko 9,526]

Really? Chamber of Secrets?

[Edmilson 7,439]

10 hours ago, Datameister said:

The less new music is involved, the less involvement JW probably had. But I'm sure he at least signed off on the end product, and there was probably guidance in the process—again, to varying degrees.

 

That's my usual train of thought as well. Still, JW certainly had the final saying on what HP1 cues would be used and where, and Ross followed his instructions.

[Datameister 2,042]

11 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

Ross isn't even credited on the engraved orchestrations, right? I mean, we do have those from Pope and Karam, they look pretty normal and are credited to JW....idk what I'm missing there. 

 

The mystery to me is how Ross's adaptation work manifested itself on paper. Like was he himself combining Williams' old and new material into a single combined sketch in his own pen that then went to the orchestrators? Or was he just giving them photocopied excerpts from the first score with instructions along with new JW sketches and they were the ones who had to make sense of it? Or some other process I can't think of. 

 

For passages that were literally verbatim quotes, Ross probably would have just said C.S. [come sopra] HP1 5M2 mm. 5–21 or whatever. (Made-up example.) I suspect he would have completely re-sketched passages that involved any significant degree of alteration. And then new original material would be sketched by Williams. But yeah, Ross would have been the one sketching out the bits of connective tissue between quotes, with the orchestrators performing their usual duties on a JW score of the era: expanding and transposing the condensed notation into a neat, legible, standard full score, perhaps with occasional suggestions for different doublings or what have you.

[mrbellamy 6,286]

4 hours ago, Edmilson said:

That's my usual train of thought as well. Still, JW certainly had the final saying on what HP1 cues would be used and where, and Ross followed his instructions.

 

The obvious exception to the "less original music = less Williams involvement" maxim is "Reunion of Friends," though. Which is probably the most wholesale reuse in the movie but doesn't make sense that he would just trust Ross to nail that.

 

This is making me wonder if we could have given Williams an extra day to work on one cue, what should it be?

 

I guess Quidditch Second Year is obvious but I might pick the Pixies. I also would have just liked to hear something new for the reveal of the Chamber. I'm guessing some cues (like "Reunion of Friends") would have stuck either way. 

[Holko 9,526]

20 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

I also would have just liked to hear something new for the reveal of the Chamber.

The chamber opening (only a new opening recorded as an insert for the tracked HP1 cue), the Voldemort reveal and Riddle's Death are the most baffling trackings to me. They spent time on arranging and printing Eat Slugs and Ransacked Dormitory but not these???

[Richard Penna 3,687]

I think you're seeing it the wrong way round. I'd expect them to look for scenes which could most easily be scored using HP:SS material and then JW writes music for the remaining bits. The convenience and availability of suitable music may come first priority to how prominent the scene is.

[ragoz350 450]

There is also an alternate version of Reunion of Friends, in which some quoted bars from Leaving Hogwarts (HP1) are simply repeated again (to match the length of the final shot). Either JW was unsure of his own expansion of the material, or Ross made two versions, both were orchestrated and then JW chose one of them.

 

34 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

I'd expect them to look for scenes which could most easily be scored using HP:SS material and then JW writes music for the remaining bits.

Riddle and Harry's long dialog doesn't look very easy to use tracking from SS. The editors found only two suitable snippets, and played around with them for several minutes (including a little overlap that is even recreated in the LtP version). Although it's possible that this scene simply wasn't originally planned to have music in it. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,524]

6 hours ago, Holko said:

Really? Chamber of Secrets?

 

Yes, CHAMBER OF SECRETS.

[bollemanneke 3,346]

14 hours ago, Holko said:

In the LLL booklet there's a Ross quote that JW just kept writing and writing and writing, couldn't stop. And also he says it's a JW score through and through.

Which is a really odd thing to say because it begs the question: why were you involved at all then?

[Jay 37,355]

Ross conducted the orchestra in London while JW was back home in LA

[bollemanneke 3,346]

Sure, but that's just conducting. I was referring to the adapting/arranging he may or may not have done.

[Jay 37,355]

He definitely adapted and arranged, because while Williams kept writing beyond what everyone thought he initially would, he clearly didn't compose new music for every single second of this very long film

[Edmilson 7,439]

Anyone else thinks that WB should've pushed the release of Chamber of Secrets from November 2002 to Summer 2003 to give JW time to score the whole thing? 

 

Goblet of Fire should've been released in 2006 instead of 2005 as well so JW could score it.

[Holko 9,526]

Just accept the great scores we got.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,524]

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

Anyone else thinks that WB should've pushed the release of Chamber of Secrets from November 2002 to Summer 2003 to give JW time to score the whole thing? 

 

No. The Harry Potter films are Christmas films. If PIECE OF ASS was released in November, 2004, then I'm sure that it would have performed much better, at the box office.

It's a curious irony that the best (by far!) Harry Potter film, was the least successful.

 

 

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

Goblet of Fire should've been released in 2006 instead of 2005 as well so JW could score it.

Come on, dude, we all know why JW didn't score GOF.

[iamleyeti 114]

4 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Come on, dude, we all know why JW didn't score GOF.

Oh. Did I miss a cool piece of gossip???

[Richard Penna 3,687]

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

Anyone else thinks that WB should've pushed the release of Chamber of Secrets from November 2002 to Summer 2003 to give JW time to score the whole thing? 

 

Goblet of Fire should've been released in 2006 instead of 2005 as well so JW could score it.

 

There's no way that the schedule of a film and the resources and costs surrounding its release are going to be casually shifted because the composer needs a few more months to write music.

[Jay 37,355]

Yup.

 

If the film didn't even have an original score and was instead entirely tracked with HP1 recordings, it likely would have ended up with the exact same final box office figure as it did with the score it has.

[Edmilson 7,439]

27 minutes ago, iamleyeti said:

Oh. Did I miss a cool piece of gossip???

Believe me: the less you know, the better.

 

6 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

 

There's no way that the schedule of a film and the resources and costs surrounding its release are going to be casually shifted because the composer needs a few more months to write music.

In a perfect world, this wouldn't be a problem for JW and he'd have all the time he needed to score CoS  But then again, in a perfect world, Williams would've scored all 8 HP movies.

 

5 minutes ago, Jay said:

If the film didn't even have an original score and was instead entirely tracked with HP1 recordings, it likely would have ended up with the exact same final box office figure as it did with the score it has.

Maybe some John Williams fans would've boycotted the movie and its final box office would be exactly $80 less than it is 

[Richard Penna 3,687]

In the RotK documentary they talk about needing to ask Shore for 5-6 minutes of composing every day (as opposed to 2 mins of music that's fully orchestrated). Barrie Osborne is seen telling other departments that if they miss the given dates, they miss release, and that's not acceptable.

 

JW isn't the only revered veteran who won't get any slack if deadlines are approaching.

[Jay 37,355]

2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Anyone else thinks that WB should've pushed the release of Chamber of Secrets from November 2002 to Summer 2003 to give JW time to score the whole thing?

 

Nah - Spielberg should have delayed Catch Me If You Can to Oscar season 2003, so it wouldn't compete against Minority Report for any oscars, Leo wouldn't compete against himself (Gangs of New York) and Johnny would have a shoe-in for a 2003 oscar nom (still would have lost to ROTK)

[Jurassic Shark 12,073]

7 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

In the RotK documentary they talk about needing to ask Shore for 5-6 minutes of composing every day

 

That probably explains why I don’t find the score particularly interesting. Do we know how much time he had for FotR, a superior effort?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,524]

58 minutes ago, iamleyeti said:

Oh. Did I miss a cool piece of gossip???

 

31 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Believe me: the less you know, the better.

 

My dear @iamleyeti, the fact that JW didn't score GOF is all down to one person: Mike Newell.

He had worked with Doyle before, and he made no secret of the fact that he didn't like JW's music.

To put it bluntly, the filmmakers went with Newell, over JW.

[Edmilson 7,439]

Newell might be a Williams hater, but at least the Doyle score is really good.

 

People say Goblet of Fire is one of the worst HP movies, but I really liked it when I saw in theaters at age 12. I haven't seen it since the 2000s, so I don't know how it holds up.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

17 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

That probably explains why I don’t find the score particularly interesting. Do we know how much time he had for FotR, a superior effort?

 

The RotK documentary is the first time it's mentioned him having to exceed the normal 2 minutes per day.

 

Rewatching this bit, it's clear the last few months of post for RotK were hell for every single post production department and yet no consideration at all was given to moving release. If you want Williams to be protected from this level of chaos because of who he is, then he shouldn't be working in film.

[TolkienSS 407]

38 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

That probably explains why I don’t find the score particularly interesting. Do we know how much time he had for FotR, a superior effort?

 

I don't agree with this take at all. Considering the amount of editing and re-scoring required for RotK, the level of quality in the music, especially setpieces, and especially within context, is insane.

[Jurassic Shark 12,073]

You don't agree about my subjective opinion regarding my appreciation of the score?

[Brónach 1,302]

On 19/08/2023 at 3:46 PM, Edmilson said:

Honestly, the Quidditch music from HP2 is not even the biggest mystery about that score.

 

Look at this cue for example:

 

 

Much of this cue are adaptations of HP1 cues and HP2 themes. But then, starting on 1:35, there is a completely original and un-thematic part. So, who wrote it?

 

And it's not exclusive to this cue either: there is a lot of other cues who include substantial original (as in, not being adapted from HP1 or 2 concert suites) material.

 

Did John Williams managed to write these small bridges between thematic arrangements before being forced to begin working on CMIYC? Or are these William Ross compositions? If they are Ross', then this is enough to warrant him an "Additional Music Composed by" credit, right? If Ross actually wrote 1:35-end of Petrified Justin, why did he says Chamber is a John Williams score through and through? To preserve Williams' image?

 

I fear this mystery won't be resolved until the actual sheets leak. Sigh...

 

my interpretation is that this is a score with two composers.

[Jurassic Shark 12,073]

3 minutes ago, Brónach said:

 

my interpretation is that this is a score with two composers.

 

Some people think un-thematic --> not original. 

[TolkienSS 407]

41 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

You don't agree about my subjective opinion regarding my appreciation of the score?

 

I can't disagree about subjective interest in a particular piece of music.

However, one can appreciate the accomplishment of something without having interest in it.

I can, for example, appreciate the fact some people climb mountains without oxygen. However, my interest in it is 0.

[Jurassic Shark 12,073]

I only said I don't find it particularly interesting. I'm sure Shore did a herculean job.

[iamleyeti 114]

2 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

 

My dear @iamleyeti, the fact that JW didn't score GOF is all down to one person: Mike Newell.

He had worked with Doyle before, and he made no secret of the fact that he didn't like JW's music.

To put it bluntly, the filmmakers went with Newell, over JW.

Ah. OK

 

I'm not the biggest Doyle fan and I would have loved to hear what Rachel Portman could have brought to the franchise.

Personally, this is the only score I never listen to

[Edmilson 7,439]

17 hours ago, iamleyeti said:

I'm not the biggest Doyle fan and I would have loved to hear what Rachel Portman could have brought to the franchise.

 

She could've been a great choice for the franchise had Hollywood not typecast her as composer of period dramas/romances.