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Williams orchestrating The Force Awakens himself?


mstrox

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The Horse Doug Adams tweets:

"It's being reported that Bruce Broughton has let it slip that #JohnWilliams is going to do all his own orchestrations on #StarWarsVII"
"If true, that's pretty cool."
"This staggered recording schedule thing may be a great boon in the day of compressed post-productions. Wonder if it'll become the new norm."

http://twitter.com/dougadamsmusic

This was today, not yesterday, BTW, so no April Fools ;)

I know Jason likes direct links, but I can't access Twitter from my work PC. Jason, SOURCE ME SOME TWEETZ!

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I believe this story. For one, Williams sketches are already so detailed, all the orchestrator was really doing was copying it out to the different format. It of course made sense to hire orchestators to do this for most movies, to free up Williams time to keep writing during a movie's tight deadlines.

But for this score Williams started a year before the film's release date, and he even turned down a Spielberg movie to solely work on this. He has the time, so why not do everything himself to make sure everything is exactly the way he wants it.

I think he feels like the Star Wars Saga will be his biggest legacy, and also is very excited about this particular movie.

Which makes me excited!

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Neat!

Makes sense too, given the schedule. And I agree with Stefan, he seems to putting a lot into this score.

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It's nice to know that he will orchestrate himself, but it wouldn't have made much difference to me if he got someone to help him either (Conrad Pope, William Ross, you name it). As others have said, he's so detailed, the job is closer to being a 'copyist'.

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Given his relatively comfortable schedule, and the fact that least some of TINTIN and REVENGE OF THE SITH was comprehensively sketched on 16 staves instead of the usual 8, this story is definitely very likely to be true.

As others have mentioned earlier, it doesn't make much of a(n eventually audible) difference, but the fact that Williams, an octogenarian, is completely writing and orchestrating a score for a full-lenght feature film solely with pencil and paper at his disposal, is quite astonishing.

By the way, didn't our beloved composer orchestrate THE BOOK THIEF by himself, too? I think the orchestra score was directly produced from his manuscripts, but I could be wrong. That would explain the picture of the JKMS staff proofing his sketches.

EDIT: Indeed, there's no orchestrator listed for THE BOOK THIEF over at IMDb.

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Perhaps I am too focused on the Tanglewood concert piece, but this is good news for it. If Williams has extra time for SW, he must have already completed that piece.

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Color me excited! Glad to see Williams is putting so much work into this score. I hope he also wrote some original music for the trailer, too.

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The Horse Doug Adams tweets:

"It's being reported that Bruce Broughton has let it slip that #JohnWilliams is going to do all his own orchestrations on #StarWarsVII"

"If true, that's pretty cool."

"This staggered recording schedule thing may be a great boon in the day of compressed post-productions. Wonder if it'll become the new norm."

http://twitter.com/dougadamsmusic

This was today, not yesterday, BTW, so no April Fools ;)

I know Jason likes direct links, but I can't access Twitter from my work PC. Jason, SOURCE ME SOME TWEETZ!

Only took him 60 years to finally learn what he has been paying others to do for decades.

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The studio paid the orchestrators not him. A composer's salary doesn't change based on size of the composer's team.

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The Horse Doug Adams tweets:

"It's being reported that Bruce Broughton has let it slip that #JohnWilliams is going to do all his own orchestrations on #StarWarsVII"

"If true, that's pretty cool."

"This staggered recording schedule thing may be a great boon in the day of compressed post-productions. Wonder if it'll become the new norm."

http://twitter.com/dougadamsmusic

This was today, not yesterday, BTW, so no April Fools ;)

I know Jason likes direct links, but I can't access Twitter from my work PC. Jason, SOURCE ME SOME TWEETZ!

Only took him 60 years to finally learn what he has been paying others to do for decades.

Williams has orchestrated all his concert works you know...

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It's nice to know that he will orchestrate himself, but it wouldn't have made much difference to me if he got someone to help him either (Conrad Pope, William Ross, you name it).

Not from a technical point of view, no. But it might just make a lot of difference in regards to how much importance he puts in this score.

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John Williams orchestrating the score himself is a great tip of the cap to the franchise that essentially forms his main legacy (though he has many!), but let's not kid ourselves. The orchestrations that you hear are truly from Williams. He has his hand in every aspect of the notes you hear and the instruments performing them. From video sessions you can see him making real-time changes.

I recall a specific example in the AOTC score featurette when the principle horn was playing a F or something, and Williams noticed and told him it shouldn't be there. He's clearly aware of what his orchestral intensions are at all times.

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I think it's more proof of his failing health, personally. Also falling out with Spielberg = confirmed.

Wouldn't not using orchestrators be a sign of better health? The Spielberg bit is nonsense.

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I think it's more proof of his failing health, personally. Also falling out with Spielberg = confirmed.

Wouldn't not using orchestrators be a sign of better health? The Spielberg bit is nonsense.

He's clearly contagious and therefore can't work with orchestrators anymore. He probably blames Spielberg for getting him infected.

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