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The Last Jedi recording session video


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1 hour ago, Ricardo Mortimer said:

JW recorded all his best scores with LSO...it wasn't respectful against him. Btw in art doesn't matter what a nation you are. 

Uhhhh... ET. Close Encounters, Jaws, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, Memoirs of a Geisha were all recorded in LA....

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16 minutes ago, Fal J. M. Skywalker said:

Uhhhh... ET. Close Encounters, Jaws, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, Memoirs of a Geisha were all recorded in LA....

 

Star Wars, Superman, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi,  Schindler's List too!, Harry Potter 2

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Any cue with with Itzhak Perlman was recorded in Boston, the rest of the underscore was recorded in LA

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JW does seem to have an interesting facial expression when Mark makes that comment, then awkwardly starts pointing out the other celebrities attending the sessions.

 

I'm sure if JW were 10 years younger and London half the distance to LA, he would happily have reunited with the LSO for the sequel trilogy. But circumstances change and he stipulated recording the score in his hometown; perfectly understandable. Clearly the director's penchant for constant revisions of the film edit played a part as well. But that combination of JW, the LSO and Abbey Road will always be my ideal acoustic for Star Wars.

 

Interesting quote on the subject from one of the musicians who played on TFA:
 

Quote

 

"It was in London because (director) George Lucas never wanted to pay any kind of back-end royalty to anybody working on the film, and music is one of those things which has a contract which requires him to pay," Dukov said.

 

The current Star Wars film was directed by J.J. Abrams, and that is one of the reasons the film came to be scored in Los Angeles. "J.J.'s way of working require him to be here in L.A. with his whole team, and that worked in our favor," Dukov said. "Besides that, John (Williams) doesn't want to travel like that any more. So that's how it came to be here."

 

 

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What about Anvil?

 

Anvil has been gone for almost 50 years.  They were evicted by the owner of the building that the studio rents to.

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He was asking why Anvil wasn't his ideal room for Star Wars music.  The answer is probably crumbs loves the prequel scores more than the OT.

 

I've always really liked the acoustics of the Sony Stage.  That doesn't mean I think the sequel scores are better, I just like how the Sony stage sounds, particular with John and Shawn producing.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/31/2019 at 9:30 PM, crumbs said:

I'm sure if JW were 10 years younger and London half the distance to LA, he would happily have reunited with the LSO for the sequel trilogy.

 

 

It was also a scheduling issue. The LSO just wasn't available for all the staggered recording sessions.

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On 8/31/2019 at 9:11 PM, crumbs said:

TFA is probably my least favourite recording & mix of the lot. I'm not sure if that's just Sony (TLJ is a huge improvement in the same room) or was a creative choice, but it doesn't work for me on the OST.

 

I’m with you. I almost never listen to this soundtrack, because I can hear how good the music is compositionally and how amazing it would sound with the LSO/Abbey road treatment.

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26 minutes ago, Montre said:

 

I’m with you. I almost never listen to this soundtrack, because I can hear how good the music is compositionally and how amazing it would sound with the LSO/Abbey road treatment.

Yeah, I know.  I sleep on the lawn because I cannot live in my house knowing a better builder could have followed the blueprint just a bit better.    

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17 minutes ago, crumbs said:

I still wonder if Galaxy's Edge was meant to be conducted by Williams on his ill-fated trip to London last year...

I am pretty sure the Ross interview mentions that it was recorded late summer, and thus prior to William's trip, but he may have intended to re-record it.  

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7 hours ago, Chen G. said:

I don't think there was ever such a distinct change in sound between two Star Wars scores within the same trilogy. With The Force Awakens, I forgot there was music in the film until the very end. With The Last Jedi, the music was a presence from the very first minute, and really throughout the picture. Delightful.

 

Ya know, I still don’t understand the purpose of having staggered scoring sessions for months on end for JJ’s films. Why doesn’t J.J. just work with a temp score during editing? Seems like an absurd request to ask JW to write and create hours of ultimately unused music just because you can’t figure out the film you want to make. 

 

And for all that extra time, TFA still managed to be pretty hacked up in the end. Especially compared to TLJ, which feels much more coherent and smooth (not like sand).  I do wonder if JW requested anything different this go around (process wise). @karelm have you heard anything through the grapevine about his honest feelings of working on these new films?

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I’d say TLJ is as hacked up as TFA is, but in a more subtle way I guess, there’s not a lot of obvious tracking. ‘Escape’ is the worst offender, but in general the ISO score is full of noticeable splices. 

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Yeah, in all fairness to Williams, the most important thing is to get the edit of the film right. If it causes some other post-production departments - including music - to work overtime or make compromises, so be it.

 

Editing down to the release date wasn't entirely unheard of during the film-cutting days: Sir David Lean did it on virtually all his epics.

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IMO it just goes to show JW's willingness to keep abreast of the changing nature of filmmaking. He could easily have said he'd only do the scores on his terms, i.e. with a locked picture edit a few months out from release, but that could've meant (as pointed out above) having his music butchered in the process, or him walking away altogether. As it stands he was willing to make the compromise to deliver the best product possible. 

 

The bonus is having him still insist on producing the OST albums his own way so we can get a sense of the musical intent away from the film's editing needs. The complete music inevitably ends up in our hands anyway so I'm glad we get the best of both worlds.

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21 minutes ago, Docteur Qui said:

IMO it just goes to show JW's willingness to keep abreast of the changing nature of filmmaking. He could easily have said he'd only do the scores on his terms, i.e. with a locked picture edit a few months out from release, but that could've meant (as pointed out above) having his music butchered in the process, or him walking away altogether. As it stands he was willing to make the compromise to deliver the best product possible. 

 

Yes, I admire him for rolling with the punches (and feel a bit bad for him).  However, I do not think he could demand such terms--not if he actually wanted to score the movie. 

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