My James Newton Howard interview...

[Thor 9,362]

...will be posted soon (in audio), in this thread.

For now, I wanted to share these pictures, a great moment in my film score life:

http://sphotos-h.ak....774893265_o.jpg

http://sphotos-a.ak....200848460_o.jpg

http://sphotos-f.ak....006076573_o.jpg

[alicebrallice 134]

that is amazing, thor! looking forward to hearing it

glad to see you did get to interview him after all... I read about all that rescheduling stuff.

[Delorean90 47]

Very cool! Looking forward to the interview.

[publicist 4,650]

JNH seemed very moved when attending the concert. He really sold himself rather short (especially with some criminally undernourished selections from his best scores, i. e. THE VILLAGE, KING KONG etc.)

There was a choir added to scores like SIXTH SENSE, which somehow reminded me of all the left-off choirs of his more recent scores (LAST AIRBENDER). All in all, it was a good concert played with gusto by the Brussels Philharmonic, but then you have to ask yourself if you really enjoy listening to music you already know well, because most of it was straight soundtrack selections, only SNOW WHITE got a special suite which worked wonderfully.

One puzzling moment was the addition of a DARK KNIGHT cue complete with Zimmer's terrible stomping rhythms which was in no way, shape or form from JNH, even if he wrote it from Hansi's 'sketches'.

[BloodBoal 8,711]

[Ollie 1,375]

Hah!

[Jay 46,241]

ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO

!!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 12,385]

Best post this week!

[JoeinAR 1,957]

except when John does them like Jaws and ET and they are so superior to chronological releases for the anally obsessive.

[Thor 9,362]

He, he, BloodBoal, that was cute.

Yeah, publicist, the SNOW WHITE suite really surprised me. I didn't like the film and didn't really notice anything particular about the music either (except the scenes for the royal court and the fairyland sequence). However, here it really shone, so I've obviously been missing SOMETHING. Need to check out this one now.

You should have given a holler, by the way...would have been nice to meet you in person.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 12,385]

I can't even look at you right now!

[indy4 160]

Can't wait to hear it, Thor! Congrats on getting such a cool opportunity.

[Thor 9,362]

It's only 9 minutes, but it's all I could "stunt" due to the scheduling conflicts that alice mentioned. Sadly, I couldn't dwell so much on individual scores the way I had intended.

[KK 3,313]

Congrats on the opportunity. I can't wait to hear the interview!

[Koray Savas 2,260]

Awesome, Thor. Looking forward to it. JNH barely does any interviews.

[publicist 4,650]

You should have given a holler, by the way...would have been nice to meet you in person.

I was happy enough to find my colleagues at the concert with 800 people attending. Sadly, there was no 'fan lounge', although i hung around the Marriott lobby saturday afternoon and saw a lot of the composers...not that i knew anyone except Newton Howard, who naturally was locked away in a hotel room. My fried got to interview him for half an hour and was surprised how honest he answered his questions about blockbuster scoring and its ill effects on his work.

[Incanus 5,890]

Great to hear that you got to interview JNH! From what I have heard from him previously, he is an interesting interviewee.

And it will even better to hear the actual interview.

And BloodBoal, that was pretty clever what you did right there with the pictures. Your chances for winning the Golden Biscotti next year are on the rise.

[A24 5,155]

[Incanus 5,890]

Are you suggesting Thor accidentally interviewed Bob Balaban?

[alicebrallice 134]

JNH seemed very moved when attending the concert.

[Thor 9,362]

My interview won't be up untill over the weekend, I think (too busy with other things), but Francis has posted a video of the press conference in two parts. The first (at about 5:00) features my improvised question about horror scores and melody. I was just trying to think of something that tied Howard, Heffes and Donaggio together. Not my best question, but it spawned some interesting answers, I think.

First part:

Second part:

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_164912&feature=iv&src_vid=781OB-AdO10&v=gVuAedwAjDc

[mahler3 548]

It's only 9 minutes, but it's all I could "stunt" due to the scheduling conflicts that alice mentioned. Sadly, I couldn't dwell so much on individual scores the way I had intended.

You're welcome!

[Thor 9,362]

Hey, alice, this is dedicated to you....an excerpt from "The Egg Travels" that I shot from the balcony. I'll be using this clip in my upcoming review of the event:

And although it has nothing to do with James Newton Howard, here's a brief excerpt from the Pino Donaggio/Brian de Palma/CARRIE-suite:

[media=]

Pino was a cool guy, even though he only spoke Italian (he had brought a translator):

[alicebrallice 134]

aw! that is sweet of you, thor. "the egg travels" is definitely in my top 10 favorite JNH cues... must've been amazing to hear in concert!

[Thor 9,362]

It was; it definitely was. JNH has always been in my Top 10 list of film composers...maybe as high as 4th at some point....so to hear his music live was amazing. I know he's probably even higher up the list for you.

I also shot some footage of JNH himself conducting the GRAND CANYON overture, but sadly it's very blurry (something fudged up with the camera at this point). So not really worth putting out there, I think.

[Thor 9,362]

OK, the interview is finally up. It can be accessed here:

http://montages.no/2012/11/en-samtale-med-komponist-james-newton-howard/

[Incanus 5,890]

Very interesting interview and you got some great responses from JNH, especially when you had so limited time to do the interview.

[Thor 9,362]

I wish I'd had the time to dwell on the individual soundtracks the way I had intended, but still....the guy knows how to give interesting answers.

[alicebrallice 134]

a very interesting and enjoyable interview indeed!

[Koray Savas 2,260]

Nice little interview, Thor. I never realized until now how much Howard sounds like Damon Lindelof lol.

[publicist 4,650]

He is a very engaging interview partner. Truth to be told, i would have liked to ask him why he spends so much time on routine assignments with often just functional musical results. Workhorse like Jerry?

[Koray Savas 2,260]

Well he did say he'll keep working as long as they keep offering him films.

[publicist 4,650]

It's just a touchy subject; 'Please, JNH, work less and do better scores' might end the interview on a bit of a sour note.

[Thor 9,362]

Yeah, I didn't want to be too confrontational. But indirectly, the question about ostinato-based action scores as opposed to his more melodic stuff in the 90's was a comment on his changing approach (in the guise of "Hollywood as a whole").

[publicist 4,650]

Yeah, as a whole they all agree but then proceed to single out how great working on i. e. BATMAN action cues is - listening to this without artifical enhancement in the DARK KNIGHT-Suite only made it clear how basic and musically empty this stuff is. It works in Zimmer's 'overproduced' style for the movie but for a 'real' composer, to write simple rhythms like that must be rather disillusioning.

[Thor 9,362]

Well, it works for certain movies (like the new BATMANs). The problem is that it's become a fad (as he himself says) and even he has gotten caught up in it....and IMO, that isn't his strength as a composer. Maybe in a kind of circumstantial way, he admitted to that in the interview, although not upfront. He's too polite for that (esp. the bit about him getting along with everyone he's worked with).

[publicist 4,650]

Anyway, good you used the short time to get some interesting lines out of him, i seldom read this interview stuff because most of it reads like PR stuff, maybe they open up more in Europe. A journalist friend of mine got some quite naughty stories from Zimmer last year...i doubt he would care repeat them back in L. A.

[KK 3,313]

Great interview Thor! I really enjoyed it and liked the stuff you managed to pull out of him in the brief time you had. It was especially interesting to hear his view on writing more of the modern ostinato-based scores in comparison to his more old-fashioned brassy stuff.