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John Williams to Score Kobe Bryant short film "Dear Basketball"


pete

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  • 2 weeks later...

Wow, Kobe just finished another (really strange) project:

 

 

 

The second video seems to be scored with classical music - maybe the "Sorcerer's Apprentice"? I guess that just shows how into orchestral music Kobe is, since you so rarely hear extended bits of classical music in a sports video these days. 

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4 hours ago, Will said:

The second video seems to be scored with classical music - maybe the "Sorcerer's Apprentice"?

 

Not "maybe".

 

And Will, could you please stop posting videos about yourself? This is a John Williams forum, not a Kobe Bryant forum, thank you!

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Glen Keane just visited the Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast (always an amazing listen if you love animation, and especially so if you love hand-drawn animation, as I do), and he spoke a bit about "Dear Basketball" toward the end of the show.  It's the most recent episode, titled "Animated by Faith," and the Williams discussion (which is several minutes long) comes about fifteen minutes from the end.  I don't have time to transcribe it, but it's worth a listen:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bancroft-brothers-animation-podcast/id911802874?mt=2

 

As an aside, it's fascinating that Keane and Williams finally got to work together on something. (I always dreamed the Maestro would find his way to scoring a proper Disney movie; Star Wars and BFG don't count.)  They seem to share the same gentle self-effacement in light of their titanic contributions to their respective art forms, and everyone who works with either of them gushes about their humility.  Can't wait for this collaboration!

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Cool comments, thanks! No clues on the actual music, though, at least in the little bit you directed me to. 

 

When asked what the crowning achievement of his career was, Glenn starting talking about John Williams, noting how just "yesterday" he and Williams' assistant (and maybe Williams himself?) had mixed the sound at Skywalker Ranch, before using Williams' assistant's comments about how Williams lives a "calm life," playing golf, writing in the living room, etc. to lead into a discussion about his own life. 

 

"Dear Basketball" discussion begins at 1:01:00, roughly. 

 

EDIT: Whoops, turns out there were more Williams comments than I noted above! Listening now...

 

EDIT #2: So, if you start at 1:01:00, you should hear everything, I think. He said some interesting things:

 

- Apparently Williams only finished writing the piece on the Saturday before the Tuesday recording session.

 

- He said there were 80 musicians. 

 

- He says the music was "so beautiful," and he said that he and Kobe just kept looking at one another and thinking how beautiful life can be.

 

So I guess we know this isn't going to be some crazy percussive cue haha. 

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10 hours ago, Will said:

- He says the music was "so beautiful," and he said that he and Kobe just kept looking at one another and thinking how beautiful life can be.

 

 

IMG_3910.JPG

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On 3/12/2017 at 4:31 PM, Muad'Dib said:

Glen posted this on Facebook a couple of hours ago

 

glen.jpg

 

Kobe Bryant closes his eyes and listens for the first time to John Williams beautiful and emotional score for "Dear Basketball".

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Tribeca festival begins today.

 

We already know the film will premiere on Saturday, at 3 p.m. U.S. Eastern time (https://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/dear-basketball-2017).

 

But what I didn't realize was this:

 

Apparently it will be shown again on Sunday afternoon, and following that screening there will be an hour-long discussion with Bryant and Keane about the film. Maybe they will mention Williams and we'll get more insight into the process. It's at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, I wonder if it will be live-streamed. 

 

See here for more info: https://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/storytellers-kobe-bryant-and-glen-keane-with-michael-strahan-2017

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I'm worried right now that we will get reports about the film and then it won't come out publicly until the fall or something. 

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On 4/20/2017 at 8:03 AM, Will said:

Apparently it will be shown again on Sunday afternoon, and following that screening there will be an hour-long discussion with Bryant and Keane about the film. Maybe they will mention Williams and we'll get more insight into the process. It's at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, I wonder if it will be live-streamed.

 

Looks like the Q&A tomorrow actually will be streamed on Facebook.

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Shorts program will wrap up around 4pm EST so hopefully we'll get some comments then.

 

Also hoping we get an announcement soon when we'll actually get to see/hear the thing ourselves. Maybe they'll mention that at the Q&A.

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Kobe Bryant said:

We won't make the film nor its music available to the public. We wanted this event to be something really special, so we decided to make it a one-time thing. After this, the copy of the film will be kept away, never to be seen again.

 

 

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Slightly gushing.

 

I hope there's a score release, since it's Williams, but i have no interest in the film. Basketball is such a third rate sport. A minority interest. 

 

Yet another American game where one isn't allowed to kick a ball.

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1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

Slightly gushing.

 

I hope there's a score release, since it's Williams, but i have no interest in the film. Basketball is such a third rate sport. A minority interest. 

 

Yet another American game where one isn't allowed to kick a ball.

 

Aye. Ya can't shoulder a fella in it. It's not a sport. 

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Looks like a couple days ago, Kobe Bryant's website was updated with a "coming soon" blurb for the short, so it may be uploaded there too? No date yet but there is another still.

 

19 hours ago, Stefancos said:

I hope there's a score release, since it's Williams, but i have no interest in the film.

 

I have no inherent interest in watching a film about Kobe Bryant's career, but I'll definitely watch it for Glen Keane's animation and just to see what Williams was writing for. It looks expressive and he might do some nice musical things with the imagery. It's only 6 minutes after all, and if there's no score release it'll be the only way to hear it, anyway.

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Nice, I tuned in just in time for him to talk about Williams.

 

They talk about how Williams was very energetic at the session. "Like a little kid. Charged" was how the animator put it.

 

Oh and we were assuming it, but it was confirmed that it was borrowed time from the first "Last Jedi" sessions.

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EDIT: 

 

The bulk of the Williams talk starts around 11:55 and continues to around 16:50

 

1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

Nice, I tuned in just in time for him to talk about Williams.

 

They talk about how Williams was very energetic at the session. "Like a little kid. Charged" was how the animator put it.

 

Oh and we were assuming it, but it was confirmed that it was borrowed time from the first "Last Jedi" sessions.

 

I don't think it was during an actual session, but yeah, it sounded like it was pretty much the same group for Episode 8. 

 

Some other things I remember, Kobe said he asked Williams to do the film and Williams said he doesn't do short films, but then agreed after watching it.

 

They did refer to the score as having a "Kobe theme" and it seemed like during the sessions he revised some of it a bit, Williams thought it was "too big" and made it more understated. Keane referred to a delicate, emotional opening. 

 

They had some nice anecdotes about watching Williams prepare at the sessions, as Stu said they mentioned that he was full of excitement and energy "like a kid" getting ready. Keane was impressed by Williams asking the violinists to move a bit so that he could see everyone's eyes. And at the end Williams in his characteristic modesty said "Well, I just hope this helps the piece" to which Kobe playfully scoffed and said "I told him it'd probably be fine."

 

Kobe kept impersonating Johnny's soft-spoken way of speaking when talking about him, pretty funny. 

 

Keane just said they made a rough demo of the film with storyboards early on and scored that with Empire of the Sun (I would assume "Cadillac of the Skies")

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26 minutes ago, Mari said:

A small segment of the movie -- the music is beautiful!

 

 

 

Neat, thanks!  Nice Williams music!

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