Composer Threads The Bear McCreary Thread

[Richard Penna 3,679]

It's about length, length and length. No matter how long the season is or how much music was written, it must be condensed into one 50 minute presentation, even if only a tiny fragment of the composer's work can be heard.

 

.... even when you know that music you would enjoy listening to has been omitted, and that this is how the composer wanted it to be heard, and entire themes have been left off.

 

I can see what you're getting at. I just think it's a terrible approach for someone who wants to discover good new music.

 

Talking of which, who thinks Setting Sail is awesome? (hint: it's from volume 2, so it's clearly disposable)

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Its been almost 20 years, and Thor can still drive his fellow filmscore fans to the edge of insanity!

 

Kudos my friend!

[Thor 7,490]

14 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

By this logic, A.I. would be a bad album because it doesn't contain any music from the first act of the film. Yet that is what Williams chose to put on the album, and thus the artistic listening experience you desire. I don't see how McCreary did anything different with Outlander.

 

I'm confused by this comparison. Williams picked his representative cues from the entire score into one album (doesn't matter if he left out much of the first act). McCreary did not. He picked his cues from the first half on one album, and then second half on another. Big difference. There are very, very few TV series seasons (or films, even) that can stand up to two whole albums.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Your comparison with Twin Peaks is equally inaccurate. Since that show had a lot of music that was tracked. Meaning far less was composed for it than for Outlander.

[Thor 7,490]

4 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

It's about length, length and length. No matter how long the season is or how much music was written, it must be condensed into one 50 minute presentation, even if only a tiny fragment of the composer's work can be heard.

 

Absolutely, yes! Although I'm not married to the 50 minutes per se. The important thing is to rid oneself of the notion of 'big quantities' and instead focus on the 'condensed quality'. McCreary seems like a 'quantity' guy, and so a fanboy's dream in this day and age.

[Richard Penna 3,679]

Yes, there is, but doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the listening experience delivered by either one.

 

If McCreary made a season 1 CD, cutting out half of both volumes, you'd get your 50 minute presentation, but you'd also lose an hour of music that McCreary himself considers worthy of release, just because you can't stand to listen for that long. Take a coffee break!

 

4 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Absolutely, yes! Although I'm not married to the 50 minutes per se. The important thing is to rid oneself of the notion of 'big quantities' and instead focus on the 'condensed quality'. McCreary seems like a 'quantity' guy, and so a fanboy's dream in this day and age.

 

So if not 50 minutes, what about 90? Why can't you sit down for an hour and a half and lose yourself in Outlander, with a break halfway through?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Thor 7,490]

3 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

If McCreary made a season 1 CD, cutting out half of both volumes, you'd get your 50 minute presentation, but you'd also lose an hour of music that McCreary himself considers worthy of release,

 

But that's the big problem today. It's not about individual cues being worthy of release. It's about how the whole thing comes together as ONE piece.

[Richard Penna 3,679]

But surely that's as judged by the composer?

 

And how, exactly, can you say that the two volumes don't come together as a nice companion piece, when you haven't bothered to listen to the other one? Despite the fact that (putting aside your time constraints for a moment) it's arranged exactly how you like.

 

I'm surprised you don't demand that composers make up new names for the tracks which have nothing to do with what's on screen.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

That's a strawman, Marian.

 

No really. It's what you clearly seem to be saying, and you're repeating it. You say you're happy with the album, it's not too long, you like the assembly. Then you learn that there's a second one. Suddenly you don't like the assembly, and you think it's too long, because there's another one you haven't even heard yet (which anyway doesn't affect what's on the first one, which you already liked, length and content).

 

You argue that because McCreary released more music, he should have dropped some other music to keep the album you already liked at the same length. So the fact that there's more music - no, actually the fact that he *released* more music makes some of the music you liked before suddenly not worthy of a release. Because it must be kept at 50 minutes, give or take. By that same logic, only 50 minutes of John Williams music should ever have been released, because every additional piece that comes out makes a previous one irrelevant.

 

And no, I'm not being sarcastic or funny. That's actually what I read in your posts.

[Thor 7,490]

8 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Your comparison with Twin Peaks is equally inaccurate. Since that show had a lot of music that was tracked. Meaning far less was composed for it than for Outlander.

 

How is that relevant? It's a 50-minute album covering the musical highlights of the show, period. And as such, a spectacular concept album. There is tons of unreleased music, btw.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Thor 7,490]

13 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

No really. It's what you clearly seem to be saying, and you're repeating it. You say you're happy with the album, it's not too long, you like the assembly. Then you learn that there's a second one. Suddenly you don't like the assembly..

 

Where did I say I didn't like the assembly? I only said it would have been nice to have the whole season's music considered for making that ONE season album.

 

Quote

, and you think it's too long, because there's another one you haven't even heard yet

 

Yes, I think two volumes of this kind of music is too much (btw, I have indeed heard the second volume; I got an IFMCA promo awhile back that apparently didn't leave much of an impression). But the Vol. 1 is not too long. I made that clear.

 

Quote

You argue that because McCreary released more music, he should have dropped some other music to keep the album you already liked at the same length. So the fact that there's more music - no, actually the fact that he *released* more music makes some of the music you liked before suddenly not worthy of a release. Because it must be kept at 50 minutes, give or take. By that same logic, only 50 minutes of John Williams music should ever have been released, because every additional piece that comes out makes a previous one irrelevant.

 

No, you either keep making strawmen or missing my points. Let's see if I can make this easier for you:

 

OUTLANDER, VOL. 1: Fine album in and of itself. Shame that it only includes half the season, so not quite representative of the whole work (the whole work being the first season).

OUTLANDER, VOL. 2: A couple of cues from this should have taken the spots of some from 1 to make it representative of the whole work, while still keeping listening pleasure in focus. 

So OUTLANDER, THE "IDEAL": Cues from 1 and 2. Length? Whatever makes it flow. Could be 40, 50, 60 minutes.

[Richard Penna 3,679]

Why do you suddenly care about volume 1 not being representative of the whole work if the listening experience and length is all that matters?

 

Would it make a difference if it turned out volume 1 only represented the first episode? You've already said you don't care that the A.I. soundtrack doesn't represent the whole score, because it works as an album.

 

Your definition of 'listening experience' is based entirely on your magic 50 minute limit. Who the hell gets to decide that?

[Thor 7,490]

What I care about is for a composer to have ALL the music of a work in front of him, and then make informed decisions about a) what are good cues that should be included, b) what cues represent the work as a whole and c) how do I put them together to make the most musical sense (not filmical).

 

Williams had all the music in front of him and decided that the cues he chose were representative of the work as a whole. Perhaps he felt that some of the cues in the first act weren't that strong, or that thematic material here was repeated and properly covered in later segments.

 

In McCreary's case, he did NOT have all the work's music in front of him to make those calls (I consider a whole season a work, not half a season). He DID make some judgements about how he could present the halfseason cues on album -- but then well aware that he would do a vol. 2 later on when the rest of the work's music was ready. In other words, QUANTITY was a high priority for him rather than focussing the music into a proper, singular listening experience.

As I said to Koray earlier -- big difference in ideology, approach and mindset.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Isn't that rather presumptuous?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

But at the time of Vol. 1's assembly, that was ALL the music in front of him to make an album. Per this discussion it does seem you care purely about length over the composer's vision. If McCreary felt the best representation of one of his scores was a 2CD set, it would technically fulfill your stringent requirements for a score album. Yet you come up with these weird reasons like he only cares about quantity when in fact you have no idea how he thinks or feels.

[ChrisAfonso 186]

From reading his blog posts about album releases, i get the impression that McCreary takes a middle ground on this issue and weighs the wish to release more music that he thinks is worthwhile against presenting a good album experience. Some of his releases are more on the expansive side (human target, da vinci - although n that case there are normal and collectors editions), some are more compact (agents of shield with 2 seasons on one disc). Many are roughly, but not slavishly, in sequence, others really jumbled up. Perhaps we could agree that in some cases his albums fall more on this, in others more on that side of the great divide?

[Thor 7,490]

8 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

But at the time of Vol. 1's assembly, that was ALL the music in front of him to make an album. 

 

That's not what I said. 'All', in this case, refers to the whole work. Half a season is not all the music, it's half the music. You may define it differently than I, which is fine, but for me one whole season = one whole work. So your comparison to A.I. would only be relevant if Williams only had access to half of the movie's music when making his decisions, which clearly wasn't the case.

 

I wouldn't even mind if a whole show was boiled down to one album, but in this TV series renaissance I'm open to individual seasons having individual albums. The 'season 2' album certainly offers a slightly different concept than the first, at least the baroque part of it.

 

Finally, while 'length' isn't the be-all, end-all aspect I care about, it's certainly a great way to structure creative thought. Think about filmmakers. The average feature film is 90 minutes, which is the time you have to organize your story. Sure, some movies are longer and shorter than that, but the rough time estimation provides a great way to focus and lay out your story. So length has some relevance, although it would be absurd to set a finite number of minutes for everything. I long for the LP days!

[MedigoScan 324]

more music in my eyes is always better

there's always that one track I want and never get to have because of 'listening experience' albums

intolerable!

[Richard Penna 3,679]

There are two 'crises' here:

 

Thor: Two listening experiences exist. Panic!

 

Us: that favourite cue from the show was left off. Damn.

 

Which of those is the bigger problem?

[Jay 37,336]

Well, I think what Thor isn't understanding is that this is't a case where they wrote, shot, and released an entire season, then Bear decided to release the score in two halves.  Not at all.

 

They started with an order to make 8 episodes, and those were written, shot, finished, and released in 2014.  Then Bear put out an OST CD of their music.

The show was a hit, so they got to make 8 more episodes and those were written, shot and released in 2015.  Then Bear put out an OST CD of their music.

 

It got renewed for a season 2, so they made a 13 episode second season, and those were written, shot, and released in 2016.  Then Bear put out an OST CD of their music.

 

To think that Bear should have waited until 8 more episodes were made in 2015 before releasing an OST CD at all is quite ludicrous.  The situation that ended up happening is win-win for everyone.

[Richard Penna 3,679]

I didn't actually know it was only 8 episodes to start with. I watched the whole season at the start of this year on Amazon Video.

[Jay 37,336]

It's true!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Outlander_episodes

[Richard Penna 3,679]

Clearly we need to wait for the show to end, then ask McCreary nicely to put together a 50 minute compilation representing everything he wrote.

 

Meanwhile Thor can listen to most of volume 1 for the last time, as most of that's going.

 

I can't imagine having such a lack of attachment to music I've already heard, just because it violates a completely artificial length limit.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Wojo 2,453]

Why does Outlander have three score albums but The Walking Dead has zero ? 

[Jay 37,336]

Supposedly Bear wants to release music from TWD, but AMC isn't interested.

[Thor 7,490]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

They started with an order to make 8 episodes, and those were written, shot, finished, and released in 2014.  Then Bear put out an OST CD of their music.

The show was a hit, so they got to make 8 more episodes and those were written, shot and released in 2015.  Then Bear put out an OST CD of their music.

 

That doesn't really make much of a difference, does it? It's still one season separated in two. The whole first season (8+8 episodes) is based on the first novel in the series. It's one entity.

 

Also, it seems to me that Starz ordered 16 episodes from the get-go, so it doesn't matter that the production was cut in two "sessions":

 

"In June 2013, Starz picked up the Outlander project for a 16-episode order...."

 

Bizarre that this is even a point of argument.

[Jay 37,336]

Yes, it is!

[ChrisAfonso 186]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Supposedly Bear wants to release music from TWD, but AMC isn't interested.

 

Without really knowing any details, I'd have guessed it's a licensing/exclusivity thing, because some other label than his Sparks& Shadows is putting out song compilations and perhaps doesn't want any competition on the merchandise front?

[Wojo 2,453]

39 minutes ago, Thor said:

Bizarre that this is even a point of argument.

 

It's you. Bizarre arguments are basically what you're good for. 

[Thor 7,490]

Oh well, much ado about nothing, anyway. I've re-listened to the second volume, and it isn't very strong. So although it's unfortunate that not both parts were represented on one disc, I'll just continue playing my vol. 1 and pretend the second never happened.

[Wojo 2,453]

You have that right . 

[Thor 7,490]

Good to know.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Oh well, much ado about nothing, anyway. I've re-listened to the second volume, and it isn't very strong. So although it's unfortunate that not both parts were represented on one disc, I'll just continue playing my vol. 1 and pretend the second never happened.

 

Be happy then that he released it in two parts. If he'd followed your plan, you'd like half of the stuff on the disc, and find the other half irrelevant.

 

[Wojo 2,453]

If you like the artist , nothing he writes is irrelevant . 

[Jilal 569]

Can you stop leaving some space open before punctuation marks? It's killing the OCD maniac deep inside me.

[Wojo 2,453]

I wish I could . It's some glitch between my browser Chrome and SwiftKey . It's supposed to automatically pull the punctuation against the previous word, but it's not working . I just don't care anymore . 

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

Hmm. Even without Chrome, SwiftKey insists on doing that with colons. There doesn't seem to be an option to turn it off.

[Wojo 2,453]

It used to work flawlessly for me , but stopped one day. I uninstalled it and tried a few other keyboards , including the built-in . This still feels the best , even though that glitch makes it fundamentally broken . I need to keep looking , I guess . 

[JWMike 117]

These Outlander albums continue to sell well with the latest album following on from the other two in making the Billboard Top 200, charting at #122, also #4 in the Soundtracks chart.

 

Development of the same themes through long-form narrative television is incredibly satisfying. I don't get how somone would be satisifed with a highlight or write off subsequent season's developments as re-threads. Thankfully we are getting a good deal of the music and hopefully will continue to do so!

[Jay 37,336]

Indeed!

[Richard Penna 3,679]

On 11/3/2016 at 11:03 PM, Thor said:

Oh well, much ado about nothing, anyway. I've re-listened to the second volume, and it isn't very strong. So although it's unfortunate that not both parts were represented on one disc, I'll just continue playing my vol. 1 and pretend the second never happened.

 

If the two volumes represented two 'sweeps' at the whole season, then you could argue that volume 2 was his second attempt at finding good cues, and hence they were less interesting. But they represent two halves, which means you're implying that you find the music from the second half of the season less interesting.

 

Hence, your point suggests again to me that it's not a lack of 'reconceptualising' or too much music - you just don't find the music itself as interesting.

 

I'm still trying to get my head around anyone being disappointed when they hear more music has been released than they thought. You must be in pure horror at the X-Files releases.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Songs In The Key Of X was a great release, really all that was needed from that show!

[JWMike 117]

 

[Jay 37,336]

Dude!  http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/26197-10-cloverfield-lane-bear-mccreary/&do=findComment&comment=1299890

[JWMike 117]

I've just placed my order for some new glasses!

[JWMike 117]

The studio behind the new God of War game has made the live performance from last year's announcement available for download as an mp3. Pretty cool.

Bear has 3 films appearing at Sundance this year. Colossal, Rebel in the Rye and the documentary Unrest. Unrest is the only one of these 'in competition'. Also on the horizon for this year are Animal Crackers and Revolt. Really exciting to see him finally diving into film scores in a big way. 10 Cloverfield Lane was one of my favourite scores from last year so I'm looking forward to seeing what he can come up with in these projects.

[JWMike 117]