Superman: The Movie 40th Anniversary

[Naïve Old Fart 9,496]

 @El Jefe,  were you six years old when you first saw it, or did you see it six times?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

BOTH!

[Ollie 1,059]

5 hours ago, Richard said:

 @El Jefe,  were you six years old when you first saw it, or did you see it six times?

  

 

No I would have been 10 when it was released. I was referring to Ricard’s post were it said 5 members had saw it. I’m the 6th.

[SyncMan 313]

Here is a 10-minute sequence from the film's theatrical edit feature my music-edit with some dialogue and sound effects from the film's sound-mix.

Chasing Rockets/Superfeats with dialogue and sound effects

Here is the same sequence with isolated music track of my audio edit.  

Chasing Rockets/Superfeats Isolated Music Track

As I was assembling the music edits, I see in certain shots why Donner had eliminated the music in his final-edit.

For example, between 3:24 and 3:34 mark of this video: Lois pulling into the gas station and honking her horn for an attendant. 

Although the length of that footage, by sheer coincidence, fits the portion of the music where we hear the love theme followed by a trumpet melody, I don’t think it’s the footage that Williams had in his working copy of the film--especially when you hear the source music over the car radio and the car-honking sound.

[SyncMan 313]

Here’s another scene from the theatrical cut where music was dialed-out later.   I’ve added music from the original sound track recording to the un-scored footage.  This scene, too, was trimmed from the version that Williams was working out of.

Luther's Lair: Music with Dialogue and Sound

Luther's Lair: Isolated Music

1:03 through 1:21: I wanted the full statement of the Luther melody to be heard, uninterrupted, but the duration of the CD track wouldn’t allow it, so, I had to decrease—or speed-up--the duration of that track.  I’ve put the tempo change at the 0:57 mark.

[SyncMan 313]

Destruction of Krypton/Kryptonquake 

Yeah, I’m going to leave it to someone else to do the music-editing for this other sequence that was trimmed down from an alternate edit that John Williams was using to score it. Maybe @Disco Stu or @Holko would like to take a crack at.  You guys get the idea: You will have to trim the music to fit the sequence but make it listenable—keep the music at the same tempo.   

I’m backing-out of this, because I like the Kryptonquake cue so much.  I feel that if I worked on the music, I’ll know every note of it and, as a result, my enjoyment of it will diminish.

I do have a request, though

Here is the music edit for these three shots from the ending of the Kryptonquake sequence, as heard in the film’s TV-broadcasted version.  This may have been how Williams originally scored these footages.

According to Mike Matassino’s track-by-track analysis of the score published in a January 2000 FSM article, the cue, Kryptonquake (Rhino CD: Disc 1, Track 4/FSM CD: Disc 1, Track 5/LLL CD: Disc 1, Track 4), is actually two separate cues—the first 2 minutes and 3 seconds is one cue and the final 20 seconds that has the timpani roll and chord is another cue.   The reason for that is because there is a reel change between the last two shots.  In the clip, the second shot is the last shot of reel 1 and the next shot—the explosion--is the first shot of reel 2.  In audio post-production practice, there shouldn’t be any music over the reel change. 

Quote

Source: The Reel World: Scoring for Pictures by Jeff Rona. Published in 2009 by Hal Leonard

That is why Williams made a separate music cue of 20 seconds for the explosion shot because it is the start of a new reel. 

Since the film that will be screened at this considered-Superman-L2P concert will likely not come from print reels, some freedom with the music-editing can be applied.  My request would be that the tail-end of one cue and the head-end of the next cue can overlap each other for these last two shots, like this:

Notice how the woodwinds, string plucks, and cymbals are heard over the timpani roll of the other cue.  Both of them end at the same time, then, the clash follows.  I feel that the music ending, there, sound much better when merged together.

Whoever works on this, I hope that my edits will inspire you to make a great presentation.

 

[SyncMan 313]

On ‎5‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 10:35 AM, SyncMan said:

Here is that video of the new end-credits roll featuring the Superman march and the complete Love Theme cue with the “dedication” clip spliced-in after the credits.  

 

I left a 23-second space between the march and the love theme cues so that the audience can give a cathartic applause, for which I’ve added the sound of that to realize the imagination.   After the orchestra plays the march at the concert, I figured that the house lights would go up for the applause as the conductor takes his bow. Then, the house lights would go off to signal the conductor in leading the orchestra to play the love theme cue.  In alerting the audience that the love theme piece will follow after the march, the conductor, at the start of Act Two, can simply tell the audience that they’ll be an encore piece as the credits continue. 

 

Come to think of it, the break between the two cues--the end credits and the love theme--should be 45 to 60 seconds, instead of 23 seconds.  The extra time will serve these purposes:

 

1) Audience members who would come to the venue in cars can leave during that break so that they can have a head-start in exiting the venue's parking lot.  I've been to auditoriums like the Kennedy Center in DC and Wolf Trap in Vienna, VA where during the night, the lights on the road glimmer like a Christmas tree, but upon a closer look, getting out of a concert parking lot at the same time is chaotic.

 

2) The names in the dedication-clip can move-up slower so that the remaining audience members can have a chance to read all the names on the screen and take them all in.