Tintin's Score took 16 months to write/record?

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

God! It is an extremely complicated score, but is such a long time normal?

I think it might be because they were constantly fidling with synchronization or something and re-orchestrating material.

Compared to this Desplat writes his score is 3-4 weeks (and it shows, or rather sounds). Among contempraries I think Howard Shore (LOTR films) and Horner (Avatar) are the only ones who have taken so long to write a score.

Is this Williams longest development period for a score?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

You can be sure JW did not write continuously for 16 months. He composed and recorded in late 2009 and early 2010. Then after the film was fully edited and rendered he adapted his fully to the new cut of the film, making some changes. Some big, some very small.

[Jay 37,366]

God! It is an extremely complicated score, but is such a long time normal?

I think it might be because they were constantly fidling with synchronization or something and re-orchestrating material.

Compared to this Desplat writes his score is 3-4 weeks (and it shows, or rather sounds). Among contempraries I think Howard Shore (LOTR films) and Horner (Avatar) are the only ones who have taken so long to write a score.

Is this Williams longest development period for a score?

And what is your source of this 16 months figure?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Well if he started composing in late 2009 and finished recording in autumm of 2011....

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

http://www.variety.c...e/VR1118049792/

"...over the 16-month period..."

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

God! It is an extremely complicated score, but is such a long time normal?

I think it might be because they were constantly fidling with synchronization or something and re-orchestrating material.

Compared to this Desplat writes his score is 3-4 weeks (and it shows, or rather sounds). Among contempraries I think Howard Shore (LOTR films) and Horner (Avatar) are the only ones who have taken so long to write a score.

Is this Williams longest development period for a score?

And what is your source of this 16 months figure?

This article -> http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118049792/

And the figure might be legit because it has actual quotes from Williams. It says he recorded it over a 16 month period.

Also I read this interview with Kathleen Kennedy, the producer of Tintin and War Horse and she said that they began recording the music of Tintin even before War Horse had been green-lit.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Well they had recording sessions in 2010 and then again in 2011. But JW did not work on this Howard Shore-style...

[Incanus 5,715]

As mentioned by Stefan above Williams worked on the score on and off during those 16 months, a roughly year and a half. He composed the score for the first cut of the film Spielberg showed him in 2009 or 2010 and then later revised his score to fit the final cut. We do not know in what state the animation was when Williams first got to see the film but I am sure significant improvement had been done by the time he did his pick-up sessions to fine tune the score in 2011. So it was not continous 16 months of writing for Tintin, rather the whole length of time during which Williams worked on it.

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

I could easily imagine it taking 9-10 months to write. Its is a score extra-ordinary dexterity and monumental articulation. Not to mention how diffiuclt to perform the entire score is. It must have taken quite a few trials to perfect these recordings.

The rest of the time must have been spent in fine-tuning.

I think the fine-tuning of this score might have over-lapped with the writing of War Horse's score.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

John Williams has never took anywere close to a year to write a single score. And as complex as Tintin is, for a composer of John Williams talent it is no big deal to write something like this.

Why would JW finetune before presented with a more or less finished edit of the film.

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

Don't forget that animated movies are usually scored at a very early stage or perhaps even before any actual animation is done. It seems reasonable that Williams scored an early work cut and then came back for rewrites on the near-finished film.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Marian, we already know that this is exactly what happened.

The leaked sheet music and the FYC promo speak volumes in that regard.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Yeah, it's because of the complicated effort of capturing and editing. Most likely he composed themes, perhaps scored some kind of rough cut (or, like, animatics), then a more finished film.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

John Powell worked on Happy Feet for 4 years.

[Quintus 5,399]

What a waste of time.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

So's your face!

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Tintin sounds like Williams composed it in a couple months.

[KK 3,307]

Tintin is a fantastic intricate, complicated intellectual work, but John Williams doesn't need 16 months to do that (as he has shown before). As Stefan and others have pointed out, it was simply a matter of a large gap between the original recording and the restructuring of the score to adapt to the changes made in the film.