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Harry Potter 7CD Collection - SAMPLES and clips discussion


Jay

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1 minute ago, bollemanneke said:

I'd want to know which cues were recorded very late in the process.

 

I suppose it would be fun to know which cues were recorded at Abbey Road vs the other location for PS for example.

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42 minutes ago, Jay said:

No.  And I can't even think of the last specialty label release that listed that stuff.  Maybe Intrada's Alien from 2007 and the blue box from 2008.

The AI release has the recording dates of each cue listed in the booklet.

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

I've been working for a while on a way to get this sort of information out in a way similar to Mike's article on EOTS I link to above, but it hasn't gotten off the ground yet with everything else going on

 

That would be very cool. I'd love to see something like that when you have the time Jay. 

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8 hours ago, Incanus said:

You obviously haven't read my analysis of the score then. ;) 

 

Presuming you aren't joking, could I have a link to that please? It sounds fascinating.

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3 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

It's a very, very interesting read, I loved it. (Please do 2 and 3, Incannus...)

 

Seconded. I'd love what you have to say about "The Diary" cue. That's one of the ones I'm most excited for.

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2 hours ago, Jay said:

Yea, which originally made me wonder if it was a theme he didn't compose until later on into the process (like the Past theme from HPPOA), but 3m3 Writing On The Wall was one of the first cues recorded, so it was there all along

 

Which lines up with my assumption that they were possibly written based on the book/script earlier. Some fit better than others. 'Transformation Class' is a good example where the variation of the stone theme works better than the different components of the Chamber theme would have for the scene, its sinister minimalist build was better suited for a lot of scenes (it would have made for a great Voldemort theme in the later movies, much better than the Hook-ish one from PSS). Also i never found the Phoenix's theme and its development a great match for the bird. It sounds more like a Home Alone christmas theme or some kind of friendship theme.

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What I find weird about HP2 is that the concert arrangements contain really curoius material that seems unrelated to the story. Like, what purpose does the chaotic and/or loud material in Fawkes or The Chamber have?

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5 hours ago, Jay said:

... the interesting thing I figured out while working on this set was that Williams actually wrote another little motif relating to the chamber and the general mystery of the film; You can hear it at the end of the "Petrified Colin (Alternate)" sample (it was removed from the film version), but it was introduced earlier, in "The Writing On The Wall" and reappears later too, in "Ginny Gets Snatched".  I imagine he would have embellished on this as well as the Chamber theme he had time to rewrite every cue that currently uses the Stone theme.  Alas.

 

I guess you mean the three half stone steps followed by the prolonged second phrase of the Chamber theme? Like at the 2-minute mark of Writing On The Wall, compare that to the phrase at The Chamber Of Secrets at i. e. 00:55. Same phrase, just with two more notes.

 

 

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Just now, publicist said:

I guess you mean the three half stone steps followed by the prolonged second phrase of the Chamber theme? Like at the 2-minute mark of Writing On The Wall, compare that to the phrase at The Chamber Of Secrets at i. e. 00:55. Same phrase, just with two more notes.

 

Hmmm, true, nice connection

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3 hours ago, publicist said:

 

It's just Williams giving the orchestra a workout, there are tons of such examples in his concert pieces that do not really fit a movie narrative.

 

Really? i've never seen that. Then again, I've only seen Jaws and SWESB, but still, that seems a bit odd to me.

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5 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

What I find weird about HP2 is that the concert arrangements contain really curoius material that seems unrelated to the story. Like, what purpose does the chaotic and/or loud material in Fawkes or The Chamber have?

 

Williams is a show-off. And a lot of the Harry Potter material is outrageously show-offy. The music in the first two films is so elaborate a lot of the times that it draws attention to itself constantly. And that's a great thing according to me. 

1 hour ago, Josh500 said:

 

Really? You think this sounds like it might be a Christmas theme for Home Alone? Seriously!? 😂 

 

It's subtle, maybe, so some people apparently don't understand what JW was trying to achieve, or maybe you haven't given this enough thought. Basically, "Fawkes the Phoenix" represents all that's good in the score (and the movie), it's the polar opposite of the fear, threat, and evil of "Chamber of Secrets". With "Fawkes the Phoenix," JW perfectly captures the wisdom, the dignity, the pride, the comfort... and ultimately the fragile goodness of things. It's just that the bird represents all those things in the movie, so the two bridges rather mimic the movement of birds, i.e. flutter of wings....

 

In my opinion it's a perfect match. It's one of JW's most recognizable, memorable, and powerful post-2000 themes. I would call it even a masterpiece. One thing that might be a little jarring is that JW wrote such a perfect little full-fledged theme for a bird that barely features in the movie (except in the end)...

 

But then, of course, JW wrote the "Hedwig's Theme" for an owl too. Apparently JW was inspired a lot by birds... with amazing results. But Home Alone Christmas theme? No way!

 

Listening to it now: 

 

 

It is a masterpiece of music. To listen to, it is amazing. As a story device it doesn't work. The theme in no way suits the bird or its purpose in the film.

 

I think for Fawkes, Williams did it backwards. I think... normal scoring technique would be.. you spot the film... figure out what themes are needed, write those themes, write the score and as a bonus expand the themes into concert versions for general playing and audience enjoyment.

 

With Fawkes, it feels like Williams had the concept of a good theme and constructed a killer concert suite around it. He had a fantastic track on hands. And then he worked to retroactively adapt the theme to fit the concept that he had named the suite after. So he half-heartedly incorporated some versions of the theme for a handful of scenes featuring Fawkes. 

 

It kind of makes sense. Think about it. Williams was tight on CoS. Maybe he did not even do the whole spotting and let Ross do it. He just thought of some concepts and wrote concert suites and left the awkward business of adapting them to Ross.

 

I am pointing out so many reasons because Williams is of course and extraordinarily story-teller. I can't find any other example in his work where a theme was so mismatched to the concept it was supposed to represent.

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4 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Williams is a show-off. And a lot of the Harry Potter material is outrageously show-offy. The music in the first two films is so elaborate a lot of the times that it draws attention to itself constantly. And that's a great thing according to me. 

 

It is a masterpiece of music. To listen to, it is amazing. As a story device it doesn't work. The theme in no way suits the bird or its purpose in the film.

 

I think for Fawkes, Williams did it backwards. I think... normal scoring technique would be.. you spot the film... figure out what themes are needed, write those themes, write the score and as a bonus expand the themes into concert versions for general playing and audience enjoyment.

 

With Fawkes, it feels like Williams had the concept of a good theme and constructed a killer concert suite around it. He had a fantastic track on hands. And then he worked to retroactively adapt the theme to fit the concept that he had named the suite after. So he half-heartedly incorporated some versions of the theme for a handful of scenes featuring Fawkes. 

 

It kind of makes sense. Think about it. Williams was tight on CoS. Maybe he did not even do the whole spotting and let Ross do it. He just thought of some concepts and wrote concert suites and left the awkward business of adapting them to Ross.

 

I am pointing out so many reasons because Williams is of course and extraordinarily story-teller. I can't find any other example in his work where a theme was so mismatched to the concept it was supposed to represent.

 

Wow. Totally 100% disagree on Fawkes’s theme.

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43 minutes ago, TSMefford said:

 

Wow. Totally 100% disagree on Fawkes’s theme.

 

Ditto.

 

By the way, some people get so hung up on "story-telling"! It's not JW's main job to tell a story! His job is to accompany and enhance the story on the screen. One effective way he does that is to create different themes for different characters and creatures, to make these musical associations in the viewer's mind. Star Wars is probably the best example. That's what he did here, as well. Nothing more, nothing less. And it works perfectly! 

 

I don't hear anybody complaining Yoda's theme doesn't tell a story! Or the theme for Jabba the Hutt!

 

 

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3 minutes ago, King Mark said:

That's what's unique about JW. He re-writes the story  in music.

 

It's more like his music is so well-written and deep and complex (in a good way), it develops a life and story of its own! 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

 

Ditto.

 

By the way, some people get so hung up on "story-telling"! It's not JW's main job to tell a story! His job is to accompany and enhance the story on the screen. One effective way he does that is to create different themes for different characters and creatures, to make these musical associations in the viewer's mind. Star Wars is probably the best example. That's what he did here, as well. Nothing more, nothing less. And it works perfectly! 

 

I don't hear anybody complaining Yoda's theme doesn't tell a story! Or the theme for Jabba the Hutt!

 

 

 

I mean I think that is part of the role of a composer. And the good ones do tell the story with their music I think. That’s what makes it interesting to listen to outside the film as well (besides just being awesome music). I think a great score grows and develops along with the characters and the story (in the same way other aspects of a film do)

 

This is typically what I try to do when I occasionally score. I want the music to accompany and grow with the story of course. By doing so, and creating a cohesive score, the music tells the story as well. And many times more than what we can see or hear in the picture and sound design.

 

This is why I find it really hard to connect with scores nowadays that don’t rely on themes. Themes and motifs are like characters to me. If you don’t have good ones...or any at all, then you can’t hope to tell as good of a story. That’s my opinion at least.

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Not so much in melody but more in feel, I get a lot of similar vibes from Fawkes Theme and Yoda's Theme. To me, they both speak to a graceful wisdom which I find fitting for Fawkes even though he(?) is a non-speaking animal. I've never felt that the theme didn't fit the character.

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I think Fawkes as presented in the film isn’t really a character.  Dumbledore is like, “CHECK OUT MY BIRD” and the majestic theme plays, and then half an hour later Harry is like “OH DAMN, THERE’S THAT BIRD AGAIN!” and the theme plays again.

 

The theme has kind of got a majesty that the film doesn’t appropriately convey otherwise.

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3 hours ago, Josh500 said:

I don't hear anybody complaining Yoda's theme doesn't tell a story! Or the theme for Jabba the Hutt!

 

But that's the point: those fit, Fawkes with its waltzy, Tchaikovskian feel, doesn't. As my esteemed colleague above pointed out, the bird and ITS ROLE IN THE FILM just are not well represented in such a gooey theme - the main melodic phrases, i mean. Let alone the the dramatic flourish following it that sounds like, i don't know, an army of bats flying over Hogwarts castle.

 

I'm not faulting Williams here, the theme is very good, better than many he wrote throughout the 2000's, it imho just doesn't fit the movie ver well and others share the same fate, to differing degrees, as we discussed above (the Dobby tune imho also feels rather vague). 

 

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30 minutes ago, mstrox said:

I think Fawkes as presented in the film isn’t really a character.  Dumbledore is like, “CHECK OUT MY BIRD” and the majestic theme plays, and then half an hour later Harry is like “OH DAMN, THERE’S THAT BIRD AGAIN!” and the theme plays again.

 

Yeah, some of Rowling's early "setup and payoff" structures were... unfortunate, especially when becoming highlighted in an abridged screenplay.

 

I adore Fawkes' theme as a standalone piece, and the 5 times it plays in the film fit fine. I don't feel the need to think about it more than that. The theme fits a majestic bird's flight well, maybe with those darker sections Williams was trying to reflect on a phoenix's cyclical self-immolation and rebirth?

 

Now with Yoda... I think the quiet but building Force theme scoring his "surrounds us and binds us" speech fits him better than his theme (or the two of them, really) ever does. I'm not even the biggest fan of its concert arrangement, I feel it doesn't really go anywhere and continues for 1.5 additional minutes after a perfectly fine finale, adding nothing else to it.

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3 minutes ago, Holko said:

Now with Yoda... I think the quiet but building Force theme scoring his "surrounds us and binds us" speech fits him better than his theme (or the two of them, really) ever does. I'm not even the biggest fan of its concert arrangement, I feel it doesn't really go anywhere and continues for 1.5 additional minutes after a perfectly fine finale, adding nothing else to it.

 

There's the cheerful interlude after its first statement of the theme that imho fits the characters two sides, the wise part and the more playful part. I sure understand better what Williams was getting at than in any of the new themes in COS.

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Never listened to Fawkes' theme that often, but the cue I heard in Tim Burden's interview, when that theme was intertwined with Hedwig's,

was totally unexpected in a good way: it really gave me shivers and made me remember how great it is.

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It's too much sing-along in style for him, but the Stone motif is better than anything later composers on the series came up with to denote 'evil'. Williams would have probably abandoned most of his themes except for oblique references (Moaning Myrtle, Dobby), the Bridge to the Past may fit the later movies, as of course would the main theme. Given the darker nature of those, i guess the spooky mood of COS and POA would have been furthered.

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

It's too much sing-along in style for him, but the Stone motif is better than anything later composers on the series came up with to denote 'evil'. Williams would have probably abandoned most of his themes except for oblique references (Moaning Myrtle, Dobby), the Bridge to the Past may fit the later movies, as of course would the main theme. Given the darker nature of those, i guess the spooky mood of COS and POA would have been furthered.

 

Didn't realize there were people who really don't think this theme fit, much less could not have been adapted and cleverly shifted throughout the series.

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I don't think you find a lot of cases where that happened. Motifs yes, laborious themes, much less so. The way films are constructed just doesn't lend itself well to re-stating stuff that runs longer than 8 or 10 notes. 

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5 minutes ago, publicist said:

I don't think you find a lot of cases where that happened. Motifs yes, laborious themes, much less so. The way films are constructed just doesn't lend itself well to re-stating stuff that runs longer than 8 or 10 notes. 

 

I think there could've been moments appropriate for the full theme to return, but they don't even bring back the full Hedwig's Theme most of the time in the series. So who's to say couldn't have used partials of Fawkes theme?

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It's a pipe dream. Williams abandoned all his themes apart from the big one for POA and with the series further shift away from the Columbus style, most of the more operetta ones - save the most adaptable, like the Stone motif, and Hedwig - would have been lost. Fans always think of those brilliant variations only they imagine and in reality these things never happen, apart from the odd 2-second cameo here or there. In reality, the later scores probably would have used a fair share of atmospheric material and been much less dependent on themes than the first two.

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2 minutes ago, redishere said:


Well, POA was a bit of a challenge, with the shift in tone, a different director, darker themes, long takes and all, so the soundtrack morphed accordingly. But I doubt Williams would've missed the chance to bring old themes up in the latest films: he did reuse the Ark theme for a few seconds in the warehouse scene of Indy4.

 

Exactly.

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