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Disco Stu's Isolated Score Videos - Non-Williams Edition


Disco Stu

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It's especially the stuff from those tracks that are over 10 minutes long.  Isolating them against picture has focused my listening on the details where listening to just the OST my attention could wander a bit.  There's so much great stuff in those huuuuuuge cues!

 

But I'm gonna go in film order so I won't be posting videos from those tracks for a while yet.

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Ok!  Tell your friends!  It's Willow!

 

This is one of those scores, like Star Wars, that completely works as a silent film of music and imagery.

 

Elora Danan

 

 

Horner had some darn long cues with this one, that's for sure.

 

1m1 Elora's Birth / Titles

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Hey Stu, I haven't had a chance to check out your newer videos yet, but I hope to real soon!

Willow is great, and I'm glad you tackled this one!  To answer your question from a couple days ago, I'd say one video per CD track makes more sense than a giant 50 minute video.

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4 minutes ago, Jay said:

Hey Stu, I haven't had a chance to check out your newer videos yet, but I hope to real soon!

Willow is great, and I'm glad you tackled this one!  To answer your question from a couple days ago, I'd say one video per CD track makes more sense than a giant 50 minute video.

 

I ended up breaking up "Tir Asleen" and "Bavmorda's Spell is Cast" into 2 and 3 parts, respectively.  I also broke up "Willow's Journey" into 2 parts, mostly because it's two distinct, separated cues in the film.  They're all already uploaded on Google Drive so I ain't changin' it now! :) 

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I just made the first post in the thread like the Williams subforum version, with a summary of all posted videos in spoiler tags.

 

As a bonus for anyone who might care to watch them, this includes many more Star Trek III videos (every cue) than I posted in the thread individually!

 

56 minutes ago, Jay said:

Hey Stu, I haven't had a chance to check out your newer videos yet, but I hope to real soon!

 

I totally get it.  This whole Star Wars remaster debacle has the entire forum at DEFCON 1 ;) 

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Willow's Journey - Part 1 (Saying Goodbye)

 

The lovely goodbye scene with Willow and his family and the beginning of his adventure.  The track "Willow's Journey" on the OST is actually 3 shorter cues:

 

3m1 Saying Goodbye

3m3 Search / Travel Montage

4m2 Crossroads

 

Essentially the track just cuts "3m2 Bavmorda & Kael" out.

 

I'm fairly sure that the last 15-30 seconds of the 3m1 cue on the soundtrack (2:06 - 2:40 in the OST track) is an alternate from the film version, which is why I cut to the film audio for the last bit of the video above.  I probably could have stayed with the first 15 seconds of that bit as isolated score as it's really just the last 15 seconds in the film that's different from the OST.  Oh well.  If it's not an alternate, then it's tracking in music from somewhere that is not on the OST so I couldn't recreate the edit.  But I think it's an alternate.

 

Great cue!

 

3m3/4m2 coming tomorrow!

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Escape From the Tavern

 

5m2 Escape From The Tavern

 

The most famous cue from the score!  The first example of how masterfully Horner scores the rhythms of action scenes in this movie.

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Tir Asleen Part 1

 

I thought it made sense to cut this one off with the death of the giant monster.  Seemed the most natural break in the music.  I wonder if that's also where the 9m1 Tir Asleen Battle Pt. 1 cue ends as well.  I don't have the sheet music, so I've no idea.

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Tir Asleen Part 2

 

The music that accompanies Kael making off with Elora Danan, Willow's despair at losing her, and the arrival at Bavmorda's castle

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Bavmorda's Spell is Cast Part 1

 

This covers Bavmorda turning the army into pigs, Willow removing Raziel's curse, the start of Bavmorda's ritual, and right up to Willow launching the army's surprise attack.

 

If I'm honest, Horner could have removed a lot of the random improvised shakuhachi stuff from the OST and it would not have suffered.

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Bavmorda's Spell is Cast Part 3

 

Raziel battles Bavmorda, Kael kills the blonde guy, Madmartigan kills Kael, and Willow fights.... er, some sort of pot

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I might as well go ahead and post the final video since it's Friday and the actual 30th anniversary of the movie's release is this weekend!

 

Willow the Sorcerer

 

Willow uses the old disappearing pig trick, Bavmorda destroys herself, Willow has an emotional homecoming.  Fin.

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I'm going to start posting isolated score videos of James Horner's The Rocketeer soon and regardless but I would like to know: did, uh, any one watch any of the Willow videos?  I'm not needy for attention on them or anything but I was hoping to talk about the Willow score with somebody!  It's great!  Tracks like "Bavmorda's Spell is Cast" especially opened up for me when isolated to picture.

 

There was actually a fair bit of audio editing required for the last couple of tracks.  Some are pretty obvious, like when I just had to cut in some movie audio, but I'm a little proud that I think some are covered up relatively well.

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Sorry, Stu.  Not that big of a Willow fan.  (Although maybe if I watched your videos I would be.)

 

OTOH, I am foaming at the mouth for The Rocketeer.  One of my favorite scores of all time!

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This weak scene might not be the best way to show off, though (Mount Doom it ain't). The prologue (Elora Danan) and the dragon fight are much more thankful pieces.

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Stu I LOVE the Willow score and had been meaning to find time to sit down and watch your videos but just haven't had the time.  I'd love to do so and give you feed back, on them and all your videos, as soon as I actually have time to do so!  Based on the ones I've already seen, you're doing great work here!

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Yeah it's a little busy in the soundtrack world right now what with Solo and Alien 3 and Superman and whatnot.  That's one reason I'm holding off on posting the Rocketeer videos.

 

Also, all of the Willow videos are now in the initial post of the thread

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I have to admit, this is my favorite kind of scoring.  All of the music MEANS something.  It changes with characters, with edits.  It tells a story, not just underscores an emotion or mood.  It teases out themes and motifs before a big center stage presentation.  Like the little hint of Cliff's theme as he runs for the hangar.  The part with the child-like music box as Peevey explains he controls to Cliff is one of my favorite parts of the score.

 

Horner scores this in two parts, kind of.  The first part is driven by action and events, weaving in music specific to what's on screen.  Then after Cliff rescues Malcolm it turns into an almost concert presentation of The Theme.

 

I like the inclusion of the unscored portion because it shows how the movie lets drama and story build without music before really laying on the gas.  (I've come to really appreciate unscored scenes to allow an audience to hear an environment.  A fairground, a spaceship, a waterfall, etc.)

 

I forget how much I love this score and this movie.  I took a road trip that summer and we listened to this CD on a loop.  (This was also the summer I got my pilot's license.)

 

Hey, at 4:01, is that a Graflex flash mount?

 

Great job, Stu!

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Thanks @Tallguy!  I thought it was so interesting how Horner presented the theme after the rescue.  There's lots of chaos happening on screen with the reporters rushing to get the story to their editors and the crowd running around, but Horner keeps all the musical focus on Cliff's elation with the freedom of flying.

 

I guess I'll just go back and start at the beginning now.  Obviously much of this music isn't exactly hard to hear in the movie, being the main title, but it is cool to watch the isolated score for once the music would normally have to start competing with the sound effects of the plane about halfway in.

 

Main Title

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22 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Thanks @Tallguy!  I thought it was so interesting how Horner presented the theme after the rescue.  There's lots of chaos happening on screen with the reporters rushing to get the story to their editors and the crowd running around, but Horner keeps all the musical focus on Cliff's elation with the freedom of flying.

 

 

I noticed that too.  As many times as I've seen this film I've listened to it more.  And sometimes I do my own editing in my head.  It was interesting to see how after Cliff drops off Malcolm the action stays with absolutely everybody EXCEPT him.  But it works and the music keeps him in mind.  Movie making is funny stuff.

 

I think it's safe to say that someone (Johnston or Horner) was listening to The Right Stuff.  When this came out I had to learn how to hum this without going into Conti.

 

The music at 2:40 is actually better music to take off to than the actual takeoff music.  :)  I've never seen a Gee Bee Z but I've seen an R1.  Crazy little plains.  They're all engine with just enough wing to fly.  Good practice for rocket packs.

 

Are there any modern movies that do the 1930's better than this one?  If The Shadow had been more like this it would have been one of my favorite movies ever.

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Some nice world-building underscore today, including the introduction of the Nazi/Neville Sinclair motif at the end.

 

The Gizmo (music starts at 0:38)

 

I should also mention the fun trivia for the Star Trek fans on the forum that the actor who plays the injured gangster being questioned by the federal agents would go on to play Rom the Ferengi on Deep Space Nine.

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Stu, outstanding work!

Horner's technique rally shines through here.

His approach seems to be balletic rather than operatic, especially with the passage that underscores Cliff punching the FBI man and the ensuing scuffle.

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This is a lovely track from the expanded score.  (The original album was pretty darn complete.)  I love his FBI motif.  Horner dug doing 30's.  It comes back again during the shootout at the house, but I believe that was dialed out in the film.  (Or at least buried under gun fire.  I don't remember.)

 

Alan Silvestri (intentionally or not) wrote a theme for Lilo and Stitch that sounded just like the Jet Pack theme.  (Nazi theme?)

 

The cast in this movie is amazing.  Other than the astonishingly attractive leads the rest of the cast is this character soaked assembly of grizzled veterans.  It's terrific to watch Alan Arkin pull off the trick of this detailed subtle character work covered in over the top scenery chewing cheese.

 

This was the movie that got me interested in Howard Hughes (and to a lesser extent Doc Savage).  Unfortunately that meant that anytime Hughes is on screen he bugs the daylights out of me.  Hughes was 33 in 1938.  And he was CONSTANTLY trying to get military contracts.

 

Oh and Max Grodénchik (Wilmer) is apparently a pretty good baseball player.  (He was in Apollo 13?!?)

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5 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 It comes back again during the shootout at the house, but I believe that was dialed out in the film.  (Or at least buried under gun fire.  I don't remember.)

 

 

Look forward to it when we get to "Bye Bye Bigelow / Begin the Beguine" :D 

 

5 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

The cast in this movie is amazing.  Other than the astonishingly attractive leads the rest of the cast is this character soaked assembly of grizzled veterans.  It's terrific to watch Alan Arkin pull off the trick of this detailed subtle character work covered in over the top scenery chewing cheese.

 

Oh yeah I love all the great character actors in the movie.  Including Character Actress Margo Martindale herself!!!

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Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

OK, I tried doing things a little different with The Rocketeer, starting with today's video.  I decided to combine some of the shorter cues together as it made sense, but I also decided to do some mild editing to cut out parts of the movie with no score.  I think this video flows perfectly fine with several minutes missing, even cutting into the middle of a big dialogue/exposition scene, but please let me know if you think it doesn't work.  I also included Neville's call to Lothar since it sets up the hospital room attack cue coming tomorrow!

 

Finding the Rocket / Neville and Eddie / Testing the Rocket (music starts at 0:26)

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Stuey, I had a chance to start watching your Rocketeer videos recently!  I still haven't watched the Willow ones, but really want to as soon as I can find the time!

 

Main Title - God this is gorgeous, such wonderful music, and pairs so nicely with the nice flying visuals.  I have one suggestions for you, though!  Earlier, we had talked about leaving a bit more of the film in before/after the music to put the score in context.  Here, I think the opposite would make the video stronger!  The music in this video is all primarily focused on flight, and ends with such calm music over the final shot of the sky.  To SUDDENLY interupt that at the end by cutting to a car-chase / shootout with full sound effects pretty much ruins the effect and intent of Horner's music.  A stronger video, in my opinion, to better showcase what Horner is doing here, would be to cut to a black screen as soon as the final flying shot ends, and let the full clean ending of the cue from the CD play out over that black screen, showing none of the car chase - and, especially, HEARING none of the car chase.  Let the video show the same calm ending Horner's music scores.  (You could also leave the car chase visuals in as the CD track ends, just with no sounds effects).  Anyways, just my opinion!

 

The Gizmo - Haha, this was great!  I haven't seen this film in a while, certainly not since after the Intrada release came out, so really didn't remember what any of this music scored.  It's interesting to see how "busy" the music is for the little fist fight!  And also that the Nazi theme at the end actually scores Howard Hughes throwing documents in a fire?  I need to see this film again.

 

 

I didn't watch The Flying Circus yet because I want to wait for all the other videos that lead up to it first, but GOD I can't wait for it - it's literally one of my absolute favorite film score tracks of all time!

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

A stronger video, in my opinion, to better showcase what Horner is doing here, would be to cut to a black screen as soon as the final flying shot ends, and let the full clean ending of hte cue from the CD play out over that black screen, showing none of the car chase - and, especially, HEARING none of the car chase.  Let the video show the same calm ending Horner's music scores.  Just my opinion!

 

You know, I considered doing this actually.  In the end though, I decided that Johnston wanted that sudden change in tone and sound coming out of the credits as an intentional jolt, sort of setting up the winking/comedic tone that he takes with much of the movie.  I dunno, it made sense in my head.

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6 minutes ago, Jay said:

And also that the Nazi theme at the end actually scores Howard Hughes throwing documents in a fire?  I need to see this film again.

 

I don't consider myself an expert on the themes of this film even after making these videos.  Maybe that's more of a "mystery of the rocket" theme?  It certainly seems to get used a lot with Neville and the Nazis later in the movie.

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Yea I always thought it was a theme for both Neville and the general Nazi threat.  Maybe Horner/Dante just wanted the Hughes scene have a dramatic finish and the theme sounded good there?

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A whirlwind of a video today, combining four short cues into a 5.5 minute video.

 

Lothar Gets Wilmer

This cue is kinda cool in context, as it cuts back to film audio for when the sound of the radio drowns out the beginning of Wilmer's screams as Lothar murders him.

 

The Helmet

I then cut a very large chunk of the movie out to this very short scene

 

The Laughing Bandit

Which then cuts right to this super fun homage to the scores of Korngold and Steiner.  It's funny because this is NOT diegetic music, but it almost functions like it as it's scoring the fictional movie within the movie being filmed.

 

Neville Eavesdrop

I cut out the bit where Cliff destroys a section of the set (it goes on too long and isn't necessary to understand the context of the next cue) to jump straight to when he's telling Jenny about the rocket and Neville listens in

 

Lothar Gets Wilmer / The Helmet / The Laughing Bandit / Neville Eavesdrops

 

 

So @Jay, I'm caught back up now and you can watch "The Flying Circus / A Hero is Born" after this one.

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On 4/25/2018 at 9:51 PM, Disco Stu said:

Tomorrowland (Michael Giacchino)

 

Pin-Ultimate Experience

 

Thanks for this!  You know it's funny, I didn't remember thinking there was bad special effects when I saw this in the theater, but boy, that guy flying around at the beginning is kind of cheap looking CGI!

 

Watching this again, I'm reminded of how much passion Brad Bird put into this project.  This 5 minute scene along must have took months and months of planning!  

 

I think Brad Bird inspires Giacchino in a special way; The music here is so fantastic and so perfectly suited to the images, and the entire score as a whole is one of his best and so perfect for the film.  Watching this made me even more excited for Incredibles 2!

 

Thanks again!

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5 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Thanks for this!  You know it's funny, I didn't remember thinking there was bad special effects when I saw this in the theater, but boy, that guy flying around at the beginning is kind of cheap looking CGI!

 

Watching this again, I'm reminded of how much passion Brad Bird put into this project.  This 5 minute scene along must have took months and months of planning!  

 

I think Brad Bird inspires Giacchino in a special way; The music here is so fantastic and so perfectly suited to the images, and the entire score as a whole is one of his best and so perfect for the film.  Watching this made me even more excited for Incredibles 2!

 

Thanks again!

 

It's funny how much the sequence makes me think of the Yorktown introduction in Beyond now.  Of course with a very different musical approach.

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Hmmm, I would never make that connection.  Of course, I saw that film once in the theaters and haven't seen it since.  What resemblances does it have to the Tomorrowland commercial?

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8 minutes ago, Jay said:

Hmmm, I would never make that connection.  Of course, I saw that film once in the theaters and haven't seen it since.  What resemblances does it have to the Tomorrowland commercial?

 

Watch this from the timestamp I have it at.  The similarity is self-evident to me.  As a portrayal of a multicultural, futuristic utopia.

 

 

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On 4/23/2018 at 3:21 PM, Disco Stu said:

 

Back to the Future Part III (Alan Silvestri)

Here is the full train sequence from Back to the Future Part III, all 3 cues.  They must have had the final edit for BTTF3 locked down early, because I'm pretty sure I had to make ZERO micro-edits of Silvestri's score for the whole movie.  Every track could just be laid straight over the picture pretty much.

 

The Train

 

Wow!  This was exciting, thrilling, and romantic!  Really showcases how wonderful of an action/adventure director Zemeckis used to be.  I still like his recent films, but they are a bit different.


It was so wonderful to watch a full, long action sequence like this with a great score synced to it the whole time.  Silvestri really pulled out all the stops for this!  

 

It's funny how as a kid I never noticed the obvious stunt doubles for all the train hopping during part one :)

 

I think if you were to make this video again now, you'd leave in the whole train wreck in at the end instead of cutting it off :)

 

Wonderful wonderful work!

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Watch this from the timestamp I have it at.  The similarity is self-evident to me.  As a portrayal of a multicultural, futuristic utopia.

 

 

Huh, you ain't kidding, a lot of similarities for sure!

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Silvestri really pulled out all the stops for this!  

 

 

It remains the highlight cue(s) of Silvestri's action scores for me.

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