Rian Johnson comments on working with John Williams

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Found this interesting minor tidbit from a USA Today writer's twitter.  

 

 

 

[Will 2,215]

Yay!!!! 

 

All is forgiven, Rian baby!

[Balahkay 627]

Might be the highlight of the highlights?? I'm not so sure about this Rian guy...

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

I've probably said this before, but I still can't quite get over the fact that Williams is scoring a Rian Johnson film. Now that it's actually happening it's even more surreal.

[Tom 4,658]

Given Williams' method of working through the themes first and then the scoring proper, the recording sessions probably showcased what will become the concert versions of the new themes, which indeed would be the highlights of the highlights. 

[artguy360 1,843]

This is nit good enough. Rian seems unsure of his own opinion of JW. Watch out, the score is gonna be cut up to hell and nack worse than the prequels!

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

I for one, will only be satisfied when we get a picture of Rian Johnson kissing Williams' ass as Kobe looking on approvingly from the distance.  It will be their decision whether or not to include it in the liner notes.

[crumbs 14,317]

I would immediately fire any Star Wars director who didn't consider JW the highlight of the whole experience!

[mrbellamy 6,287]

Still nuts to think that we waited 10 years (8 of which we didn't even know we were waiting) for a new Star Wars score by John Williams, now it's been barely a year since we had TFA and he's already composing another one. By April he'll have apparently recorded most of it and before we know it we'll have the CD in our grubby mitts...

 

[Tom 4,658]

at which point the complaints will begin. 

[crumbs 14,317]

"The music in the trailer was so much better!"

[Will 2,215]

6 hours ago, Tom said:

Given Williams' method of working through the themes first and then the scoring proper, the recording sessions probably showcased what will become the concert versions of the new themes, which indeed would be the highlights of the highlights. 

 

It is possible thought that the concert arrangements are written last, right? (even thought the themes come first)

 

Do we know for sure? 

[Tom 4,658]

well, I am mostly speculating, but I know Williams has mentioned doing the end credits first for many movies.  That is vague though.  This staggered recording business is fairly new to his scores.  My guess is that the themes are fairly well-developed as concert-type pieces, but if a new subtheme or such develops while scoring the full picture, he would re-record the piece (assuming he recorded it the first time around) or add an insert. 

[crumbs 14,317]

I'm sure JJ said Williams refined the end credits suite for TFA because he found a better way to integrate Poe's motif (which was further refined in concert performances)?

 

There were long and short versions of Rey's Theme too, if you believe the cue titles on the sheet music.

 

It seems TFA was a rare opportunity for Williams to record many concert suites in early sessions then refine and re-record them months later. The scoring featurette seems to indicate Rey's Theme was recorded in the later sessions. Are there recording dates on the sheet music screenshot?

[Jay 37,364]

Multiple different concert arrangements of Rey's Theme were recorded throughout the long recording schedule.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

We need them all!

[Jay 37,364]

Yes!

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Unfortunately...i think that williams would only want to release the final version.

 

I hope mattessino can convince him, if the differences are enough to be heard. (diferent orchestration, passages or bridges between sections...) I mean the early versions of anakin's theme or across the starts are not that different from the final versions, iirc.

[crumbs 14,317]

Imagine if there's a version with orchestration closer to the end credits version!

[TownerFan 4,983]

On ‎16‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 4:51 AM, Tom said:

well, I am mostly speculating, but I know Williams has mentioned doing the end credits first for many movies.  That is vague though.  This staggered recording business is fairly new to his scores.  My guess is that the themes are fairly well-developed as concert-type pieces, but if a new subtheme or such develops while scoring the full picture, he would re-record the piece (assuming he recorded it the first time around) or add an insert. 

 

Williams' usual modus operandi, i.e. writing backwards from the end and "decomposing" the musical material, works best for him when he has a full workprint front-to-end of at least the first or second cut of the film. We know that for EpVII he didn't follow this method, as Abrams' post-production modus operandi is quite peculiar and non-linear, so he got workprint reels of the sequences as they were edited (this way Abrams could rework and refine the cut almost continuously) and he wrote the score in kind of piecemeal fashion to them. We don't know if Johnson is following a similar path or if he's using more traditional/linear method, but the staggered schedule suggests Williams is probably writing as he receives finished sequences ready to be scored (a locked cut this early simply doesn't exist anymore nowadays).

[crumbs 14,317]

Well he sorta indicated he would be sitting down to watch the film, so I'm guessing he at least saw an assembly cut of the whole narrative. After all, Johnson was editing as early as July/August IIRC.

 

It might just be that certain sequences aren't finished enough for Williams to score yet, or Johnson needs some reshoots. Thus it makes sense for Williams to stagger his writing and handle "locked" scenes that are less VFX-intensive until the rest comes together in the coming months. It seems to be different from JJ's style where I think they spotted a handful of disjointed reels, out of order, every few months.

 

In an ideal world Williams would probably be scoring a completed version of VIII next September, but the two Spielberg films probably necessitated this schedule. 

[Romão 2,274]

Anyway, does anyone when is this USA interview with Rian Johnson coming out?

 

At this point, I assume the movie must be edited quite close to its final form, albeit some incomplete SFX work. The movie has been being edited for nearly 6 months now

[Tom 4,658]

1 hour ago, Romão said:

Anyway, does anyone when is this USA interview with Rian Johnson coming out?

 

At this point, I assume the movie must be edited quite close to its final form, albeit some incomplete SFX work. The movie has been being edited for nearly 6 months now

Mostly speculation, but I think the near final edit is done.  Johnson wrote and shot the movie he wanted to make and seemed confident in doing so.  Any other movie would allow for a couple months at best to assemble your near final edit.  This just worked out that there is an absurd amount of time between shooting and release. 

 

Abrams has too much Lucas in him and could not stop fiddling with the edit until the end, which I think betrays a lack of vision/confidence in what you are doing. 

[crumbs 14,317]

Lack of vision is a nice way of putting it. JJ is a very capable filmmaker but you get the sense he needs to see and hear multiple options before deciding what he likes (then changing previously finished scenes to accommodate decisions made elsewhere).

 

It must be maddening to work under a director like that, because they don't have a clear vision about what the film needs to be. Clearly even Williams wasn't immune, being asked to write huge volumes of music for scenes that didn't need it (though if I directed a film with JW doing the score, I'd probably do the same! )

 

Johnson seems like a far more confident, assured director than Abrams, with respect to having a clear vision. I hope this translates to Williams' score.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Will 2,215]

On 1/16/2017 at 0:09 AM, crumbs said:

I'm sure JJ said Williams refined the end credits suite for TFA because he found a better way to integrate Poe's motif (which was further refined in concert performances)?

 

There were long and short versions of Rey's Theme too, if you believe the cue titles on the sheet music.

 

It seems TFA was a rare opportunity for Williams to record many concert suites in early sessions then refine and re-record them months later. The scoring featurette seems to indicate Rey's Theme was recorded in the later sessions. Are there recording dates on the sheet music screenshot?

 

On 1/16/2017 at 9:30 AM, Jay said:

Multiple different concert arrangements of Rey's Theme were recorded throughout the long recording schedule.

 

Below is what I believe you are referring to (unless you have some extra inside info Jay ).

 

I don't think this is necessarily evidence, however, that there were multiple versions of the concert arrangement recorded beyond what we've heard (besides alternate takes, of course). It's possible that the "shorter version" was simply that heard in the end credits, which may have been recorded in sections. 

 

I have no idea how things actually went down, of course. I'm just speculating, and your theory is just as plausible as the one I put forth here. Perhaps the date on the sheet music is evidence that this version had to be differentiated from many past versions. 

[Jay 37,364]

On 1/17/2017 at 2:53 PM, Romão said:

Anyway, does anyone when is this USA interview with Rian Johnson coming out?

 

It came out 2 days before the tweet did

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/01/09/star-wars-episode-viii-rian-johnson-mark-hamill/96351428/