Jon Broxton reports on the Fellowship EE music recording sessions

[Kühni 485]

Here's something from ages ago, and I'm sure not even Jonathan himself has this saved anywhere anymore!

 

Way back before he and I became good friends for a while, Jonathan Broxton (of Moviemusic UK fame) was invited by Howard Shore to attend one of the rec sessions for the EE of FotR. Jon wrote a report about this on the old version of his site: apparently, I saved a copy of it TO FLOPPY DISK, one that I unearthed today. To make sure his write-up doesn't completely go into oblivion, and because I believe it to be of interest to the group here (partly because it's from near the beginning of the saga), here it is. (Note that there are some incorrect bits here and there, but I haven't corrected them.)

 

Howard Shore Revisits Middle Earth for DVD
Movie Music UK | April 2002 | Jonathan Broxton 

 

It's not often you have the opportunity to hear an Oscar-winning score being recorded after it has already received an Academy Award - but it was my good fortune to be present at the recording sessions for the Special Edition Lord of the Rings DVD at Abbey Road Studios in London with composer Howard Shore. More often than not, the great film scores are performed just once: given voice by dozens of talented performers in a studio, destined never to be heard "live" by the public outside of the film. It is a rare privilege indeed to experience first-hand the creativity it takes to bring this music to life.

 

You can feel the great sense of history as you walk through Abbey Road's hallowed hallways. Posters for some of the great film scores recorded there adorn its walls: the original Star Wars trilogy, Lawrence of Arabia, Braveheart, and more recently, Titus, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Shore, the composer of the most recent score to join that exalted list, recorded the vast majority of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring there last summer, and the scoring crew had returned once more to add the musical accompaniment to Peter Jackson's director's cut of the film, due to be released on DVD in time for Christmas 2002 (and to coincide the release of the trilogy's second instalment, The Two Towers).

 

Although the final cut of the movie ran for almost three hours in total, Jackson felt that, for the DVD release, a number of previously deleted scenes needed to be re-included to provide a new, "definitive" version of the film. This decision provided Shore with a tricky musical task: as well as the film now featuring completely new sequences, some scenes were now longer than they had been before. As such, Shore took a three-pronged approach to re-scoring the film. Completely new music was written for the brand new scenes; music previously written but not recorded was performed for the first time to take account of scenes deleted from the final print; and existing cues were adapted and re-recorded to allow for the additional footage inserted into existing the scenes to be scored. With me so far? Good.

 

Sunday April 14th 2002 was Hobbit Day at Abbey Road. Shore had gathered together almost 100 members of the London Symphony Orchestra in Studio One of the great building to record new music for additional sequences taking place in Bag End, and in and around the Shire. In the control room, recording engineers John Kurlander and Toby Philpot and the Abbey Road technical staff were working hard under the watchful eye of music producer Michael Tremante and New Line Cinema's music executive Paul Broucek. In addition to the traditional symphonic complement, Shore had a Celtic band in an isolation booth, led by virtuoso Irish fiddle player Dermot Crehan, and consisting of a fiddle, two guitars, a pennywhistle, a bandoleon and a bodhrán drum.

 

Shore's first cue of the day was the film's new opening sequence, which now featured narration by Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins, reading from the introduction to his book "There and Back Again: A Hobbit's Tale". As amusing new footage of hobbit life flashed across the screen - accompanied by Bilbo's musings of how hobbits are well known as eaters of food, drinkers of ale, and smokers of pipes as opposed to great warriors - Shore's jaunty Hobbiton theme rang around the studio. Crehan's fiddle sang, and the strings rose in unison to perform a beautiful new version of the "Concerning Hobbits" cue, highlighting Shore's obvious but little-heard talent for musical elegance and lightness of touch.

 

A further sequence, elaborating on the conversation between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) as they travel in a cart to Bag End, in which Frodo tells Gandalf of the strange behaviour he had noticed in his uncle Bilbo, was the next to be attempted. To capture the uneasy dichotomy of Bilbo's love affair with The Ring, Shore combined the lovely Shire theme with a new sequence of quite harsh dissonance as Bilbo, fearing that his beloved Ring has gone missing, ransacks his own home. Having heard nothing but Shore's gorgeous Gaelic tones for almost two hours, to suddenly be exposed to the most savage (and loud!) string-led chaos was a quite jolting experience, and drove home the talent that Shore - and indeed every other composer - has to elicit polar emotions through their writing.

 

Amazingly, it took almost four hours for these two cues to be recorded. Shore's meticulous rehearsal procedures, coupled with and the engineers' desire to recreate the same sonic atmosphere they had had previously at Air Lyndhurst Studios by opening or closing the door to the isolation booth, was not helped by the fact that, half way through one cue, one of the studio laptop computers exploded in a massive explosion of static over the studio speakers and the player's headphones! This event caused some uproar, and also led to the afternoon's funniest quote from Dermot Crehan who, having been conversing with Shore in his lilting Irish brogue all afternoon, eventually came over with sound system with the now-immortal line "Howard, its Dermot... there are brains on the floor in here".

 

The previous day, Shore told me, had been Lothlorien Day in Abbey Road, in which Shore had recorded new music for additional sequences taking place in Galadriel's magical Elven settlement. As in the original score, Shore used the usual symphonic orchestra, augmented by a group of Asian and Oriental percussion devices, as illustrated by the vast array of gongs and Gamelan bowls still hanging at the back of the studio. Most interestingly, Shore described to me one particular instrument he used which was made out of a whole, hollowed-out tree-trunk with strings stretched along the underside of its base. Apparently, the ethereal-sounding instrument was most commonly used in musical healing therapy - the patient lays inside the instrument, and the vibrations produced by the plucking of the strings are supposedly considered beneficial to the soul.

 

We left the studio while the orchestra were on a break, and as the engineers were setting up for a further new sequence in which Ian McKellen as Gandalf sings a song at Bilbo's 111th birthday party (which, sadly, I did not hear). Howard told me that he and his crew would be recording at the Colosseum in Watford during the following week, where the acoustics for recording the choral elements of the score were better. New music for Moria, the conclusive battle at Amon Hen, and additional choral overdubs would be recorded there, before they returned to Abbey Road the following weekend to finalise the mixing.

 

I feel truly privileged to have been present at this session. I was watching, at 3am, when the Best Score Academy Award was presented back in March. As Shore's name was read out, I literally leapt from my chair with delight, little-knowing that I would be talking to the man himself, and listening to the music live, little more than a month later. I would like to offer a huge thank you to Michael Tremante and Paul Broucek, for allowing me to experience this wonderful event; to Shullie and Lou Horsfield-Porter for keeping me company; to the Abbey Road canteen staff for one of the best bacon butties I have ever eaten; and of course, to Howard Shore, for his warmth, generosity, and abundant talent. Here's to another Oscar in 2003!

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Since everyone else has some anal desire about these scores, here's mine: a listing of where every bar of music was recorded between Abbey Road/AIR/Watford (and Henry Wood?). 

[Jay 37,287]

Wow, that was great! Thank you so much for posting!

 

I guess I didn't realize before how many different recording studios FOTR was recorded in...

[Barnald 365]

6 hours ago, Kühni said:

We left the studio while the orchestra were on a break, and as the engineers were setting up for a further new sequence in which Ian McKellen as Gandalf sings a song at Bilbo's 111th birthday party (which, sadly, I did not hear).

 

Mistake or possibly dropped from the final edit? Not sure what else he could have confused this with.

[Jay 37,287]

Sounds like a deleted scene.

 

Though if true that would mean Shore wasn't writing his EE cues to a locked cut.

[Faleel 5,340]

Could be a corruption of the scene where Gandalf sings The Road Goes Ever On and On as he first arrives.

[Jay 37,287]

Oh, right. That's probably it. It is after all his birthday already when he arrives 

[Barnald 365]

7 hours ago, Fennel Ka said:

Could be a corruption of the scene where Gandalf sings The Road Goes Ever On and On as he first arrives.

 

I did think that, and I suppose it would make sense given that he didn't actually see/hear the scene. I just wondered because it sort of seemed like they were scoring the new scenes in order (or at least, the Hobbiton stuff).

[Jim Ware 526]

On ‎31‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 11:41 AM, Barnald said:

 

I did think that, and I suppose it would make sense given that he didn't actually see/hear the scene. I just wondered because it sort of seemed like they were scoring the new scenes in order (or at least, the Hobbiton stuff).

 

I believe that is the case.

 

On ‎30‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 5:45 PM, Kühni said:

Amazingly, it took almost four hours for these two cues to be recorded.

 

It's tremendously unusual to have the time and the budget to be able to spend so long obsessing over minute details when recording a film score - and this was just the extended DVD cut!

[Barnald 365]

1 hour ago, Jim Ware said:

It's tremendously unusual to have the time and the budget to be able to spend so long obsessing over minute details when recording a film score - and this was just the extended DVD cut!

 

As the situation with the Hobbit EE's demonstrates unfortunately. We probably didn't realize just how spoiled we were at the time, but then the DVD/home video market was much bigger back then.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Barnald 365]

I refer not to the quality of the films themselves, but rather the recording process, whereby separate blocks were set aside in the spring.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

BOTFA's EE music is an unsalvageable mess.

[crocodile 7,984]

That it is.

 

Karol

[Jim Ware 526]

The decision to not use the only composition explicitly written for the EE baffles me.

[Jay 37,287]

PJ really made one  baffling decision after another once post production hit

[Barnald 365]

32 minutes ago, Jim Ware said:

The decision to not use the only composition explicitly written for the EE baffles me.

 

You almost have to laugh at such a decision (else you'd probably cry)

[Jim Ware 526]

15 minutes ago, Barnald said:

 

You almost have to laugh at such a decision (else you'd probably cry)

 

The decision not to restore any of the windlance stuff in the opening sequence (which was scored) baffles me too!

[Jay 37,287]

Yup, truly mind-boggling that one.  That was something setup in the TC of DOS!

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Barnald 365]

That's our first actual confirmation of the windlance stuff! Another set-up from DoS without any pay off in BotFA (and one I forgot to mention on the other thread).

 

Jim - do you happen to know of any other reasonably significant BotFA bits that were scored and yet not restored for the EE? I've probably asked you this before, forgive me if I have.

 

 

[gkgyver 1,645]

19 hours ago, Jim Ware said:

The decision to not use the only composition explicitly written for the EE baffles me.

 

Could you describe the length, content and orchestration of that funeral piece a bit more in depth? To me it seems like Shore worked towards a payoff of intertwining Thorin, Erebor and possibly House of Durin, like in Beyond Sorrow And Grief, but never made it into the film.

[Faleel 5,340]

From what I heard it was Choral only, and was all three of those themes.

[gkgyver 1,645]

But that can't be, only choral, because the EE snippet has light strings and solo cello if I remember right.

[Faleel 5,340]

Gk, Peter Jackson happened.

 

 

90% of the EE cue in the film used tracked music from DOS.

[Barnald 365]

Was it really choral only? I really can't wait to hear it someday (surely we will?).

 

Can you tell us how long it is Jim? I recall something like four minutes being mentioned?

[Faleel 5,340]

I heard it was as long as the scene in the film.

[gkgyver 1,645]

Around two and a half I think, because Gandalf's speech was cut as well.

[Barnald 365]

Ah so about half that then? (I can't remember how long that scene is, though could it be possible that Shore scored it when it was longer, with the full Gandalf recital?)

[Faleel 5,340]

I heard it was for the final edit.

[Barnald 365]

I trawled through an old discussion and found this post from Jim (I hope he won't mind me re-posting it here), who also confirmed that the orchestral bits are tracked from DoS:

 

Quote

Less than half of the funeral composition is used. As written, it starts with House of Durin and turns into a contrapuntal interweaving of the Durin, Thorin and Erebor themes. It's entirely choral.

 

And because that post contains the word 'contrapuntal', you can be sure I didn't make it up. I think he clarified that the scene wasn't any longer when Shore scored it.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Incanus 5,713]

I just wish they had used Gandalf' eulogy. It was pure gold that one and McKellen nailed it.

 

I am really hoping Shore's original composition will someday be released.

[gkgyver 1,645]

I want Shore's team to leak the sessions out of pure spite.

[Jim Ware 526]

1 hour ago, Barnald said:

I trawled through an old discussion and found this post from Jim (I hope he won't mind me re-posting it here), who also confirmed that the orchestral bits are tracked from DoS:

 

This is still accurate.   It's about a minute and a half in total.  Shore wrote an alternate composition for this scene way back in 2012 but it was never recorded.

[Barnald 365]

Did the 2012 composition involve the same themes? I guess what I'm getting at is, was it substantially different?

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

Believe me, lossless audio files are amazing, and a leak would contain more alternates than a CR.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

CD's are lossless