Leaderboard

I think it needs to be said over and over - JNH's fantastic beasts score is an absolute masterpiece and 1 of the great scores of the past decade. It is an absolute triumph.

Some anniversary album covers I created for the occasion... in higher resolution than 600x600 Enjoy! Hoth Version: Retro Version: Would be nice if the music owners felt inclined to make this release a reality...

Mstrox bent the very fabric of our reality to the breaking point, all for a questionable bit. Thank goodness the brave forum software stopped him or who knows what unforeseen calamities might have been brought upon our space-time plane.

Exciting update from James TODAY! https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=136694&forumID=1&archive=0&pageID=1&r=585#bottom Yavar

Talking about main titles, what would a JNH Harry Potter main titles sound like

5 episodes of My Brilliant Friend Season 2. Three more to go. KK and Holko are right. I thought episode 4 (island part 1) was the best so far (even bringing back the magic of S1) but episode 5 (island part 2) was almost annoying. That being said, Lila can be quite the bitch (over-the-top so) But I have a question. Why does the music work so well? Let's be honest, it's all basic harmonies and equally basic rhythms, and yet it's so effective, like the scene where the two girls alter the huge photo of Lila for the new shoe shop. I rarely notice or enjoy the score these days, but with this series, I do.

I think Gabriel Yared wrote great music with wonderful themes and for me it plays great without any film at all. I think this is also what the problem with it might have been. Someone did some restorations of the music to pictures some time ago and I didn't think it worked that well. I was initially surprised but there's just something about this terribly dry self-important take the music makes even more smug. Yes, James Horner's score isn't as well crafted but he wrote it on a schedule that is 30 times shorter. Considering that, it wasn't that bad. Like Drax says, there is some clarity to it that is very welcome and speaks to Horner's abilities as a storyteller. The original album is actually very well constructed. What made me realise that is the recent expanded release from Intrada which contains very little more of interest - probably 5 minutes in total. In fact the rest of it is mostly synth orchestra with vocal and solo instrument overlays. This is where you realise time was really short on this schedule and Horner basically wrote the 70+ minutes of orchestral music that he was contractually obligated to supply and the rest just consists of...demos basically. But even with that I think Horner's music works great for this desolate monochrome setting. I went on holiday some years ago and visited certain locations where they filmed it and that music describes this strange barren landscape extremely well. So I still like it. But like Horner himself admitted years later, it wasn't really worth the effort because none of it helped the film much anyway. Karol

Besides what's already mentioned on the opening post, that has been known for ages, Williams played all the piano parts on Images. Williams confirmed that he played the end credits piano on Schidler's List. On the Long Goodbye he performed on one track, replacing Grusin in the trio. If memory serves, it's the first track of the Quartet Records release (it appears later in the film, when Marlowe (Gould) is running after Eileen Wade (van Pallandt). Williams also played a short snippet of The Long Goodbye theme upon request of Rian Johnson for the casino sequence on The Last Jedi.

Maybe you should ask @mstrox

Speaking of Troy, am I the only one who reckons Yared's rejected score isn't all that great? I've tried listening to this thing and I'm struggling to maintain any interest. There's an emotional punch to Horner's version that the rejected score lacks in all its meandering. Sure, Horner's is as derivative as you'd expect, but makes more narrative sense and feels more refined and unified than Yared's unfocused work, which might sound fine in a concert hall, but I doubt it'd work in the film. Ultimately they made the right choice to junk it, but it seems to have attracted a following that's crowned it as some sort of tragically lost masterpiece just because it remains so elusive.

Yes, it wasn't originally from ScoringSessions, but was uploaded to a B-Roll YouTube channel back in December. Since then it has already been discussed and analyzed in depth.

Nigel John Dermot Neill was born in Omagh, Northern Ireland. He moved to New Zealand in 1954. 1989, actually, Lee. @bollemanneke, if you like Sam Neill, check out his Australian accent in A CRY IN THE DARK. Also, Kidman is great in BANGKOK HILTON (and so, for that matter, is Denholm Elliott).

The only one's who'll see it.

picture from @Falstaft's theme collection "The Medallion" theme is a seductive melody full of teasing by minor sixth leaps, triplets, and slow descents, and at first playful, sharpened notes, and then by relaxing flattened notes. It's in a (romantic) key full of flats, and the choice of Eb major in particular over neighbouring keys comes in handy in the finale, when the theme seemingly briefly portrays the 'raiders'' triumph in achieving their objective. Eb major has no significance in relation to the instruments that it is voiced in, as far as I was able to find, so the choice is rather likely to be dramatic than stricte utilitarian. The chord structure seems rather inconspicuous. It follows Williams' trend of harmony accompaniments of love themes, maybe slightly more on the mysterious side. The rhytm change in the pivotal moment of the theme and the "open" ending on a III (G) chord seems to give a glimpse of something; a promise of a shift with an ending left unknown. It is first heard voiced by a voxine cor anglais, lower in pitch and so closer to a seductive direction than an oboe would be. The point of this post is that the interpretation that Williams wrote a rather elaborate theme for the medallion, which does not play in the inscription reading scene in Cairo, or when major Toht shows the mark on his burned hand, or in the map room scene (!) and only plays for a nebulous reason in the finale, is rather suspicious, and that I think I have found a better explanation of what it represents. Part 1: We first hear it when Marion looks at the golden medallion and considers selling it. It starts playing when the medallion is shown, but then she looks at it on one hand and on money in the other hand (literally), and contemplates for a moment. It stops playing when she leaves the medallion on the table and walks away with money. It plays again when Indy and Sallah are carrying the Ark away in the Well of Souls, and the camera follows the shadow cast by them. They look like cartoon thieves. We finally hear it when Belloq, a man who likes luxuries, sells his morality for money, and dreams of possessing a "radio to God" for not exactly pious reasons, is amazed by his apparent victory and the ghostly visions. I am convinced that It is not a motif of the physical object (the medallion), but rather a theme of sin. The weak point of the interpretation is that in the second instance Indy and Sallah have no ill intentions. But a theme of sin playing still makes more sense than an unrelated medallion theme, doesn't it? We can definitely look for clues in why does 'The Medallion' theme play in the finale. We know that Williams likes to plan writing music based on where it is going, based on the end. He did it on larger scale just a year later---in E.T.... So let's analyze the logic of the theme succession in the track The Miracle of the Ark: Following the textbook use of themes in this score and the apparent narrative logic, since Indy and Marion are powerless in the finale, their themes do not play; the only themes at play are those about the active parties: God, the ghost maidens, and... the Raiders, apparently. The Nazi menace theme cannot play, because the goons throw down their weapons and look around scared. The suggestion that the "Medallion Theme" plays simply because it is a part of the Ark magic doesn't seem very convincing to me. I don't think it's the "sounds nice" Yoda's Theme situation in the Cloud City from a year prior either. Yoda's theme was something special for Williams, while the 'Medallion Theme' was confined to the film and never heard from again. The theme is a triumphant statement with extremely agitated strings and proud horns. It plays after the 'mortal danger' rendition of the Ark theme---God's last warning to the Raiders----and is directly preceded by a figure based on a romantic theme from Dracula; a figure which portrays the dance of the beautiful ghost maidens [btw. there was a glimpse of it already in the winds in Map Room Dawn]. I think that in this context the statement of the theme clearly portrays the overwhelming human urges that Belloq feels. It's a seeming triumph of the very worldly desires of the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The final tone is held long, as if God's offer still remained open, until it is proven beyond question that the conviction of the villains is unshakable. The Ark theme responds with a boil [on the album and in the cut that Williams scored, anyway; they clearly later cut out these few seconds of the film for a more drastic surprise value], and a shower of murderous atonal clusters follows; all the villains are wiped out. These clusters do not appear to have any connection to the theme. Raiders of the Lost Ark has some rather obvious symbolism concerning the theme of God punishing or rewarding depending on morality (the Hakenkreuz on the Ark crate is burnt off, people who opened the Ark are killed, ropes of the innocent Indy and Marion are burnt away). And since Williams conceptualised the Ark theme as a devillish tritone inside a perfect fifth, is a theme of a temptation to sin so far away? Some might instinctively object to Williams writing a theme about such an abstract concept as sin, but the entire score is full of beckoning, mystery, and romance, starting already with the jungle opening, and including the Ark theme itself. Secondly, since the love theme is quite bitter-sweet and "bruised", and Indiana Jones's heroic theme is frequently described as overcoming character's failures, we can conclude that the musical themes in Raiders are a bit deeper than, say, Star Wars OT themes. For these two reasons already I don't think a theme of sin in this particular score it is a far-fetched proposition. Part 2: There are no indications in the transcript of the story room discussions whatsoever that the medallion has any significance or qualities other than as a physical McGuffin that leads to the Ark. I doubt Spielberg or Lucas would have asked Williams to write a theme for it. An early draft of the script describes the scene introducing the theme so: It is more likely that they would highlight to Williams that Marion contemplates the artifact and the money. The storyroom transcript says about Marion: and about Belloq: and, for a contrast, about Jones: So a theme of sin might play for Marion and for Belloq, but is unlikely to play directly for Jones. This is consistent with my interpretations of the 3 uses of the theme in the film. The only alternative of what happened in the spotting session I see is that they asked Williams to write a theme highlighting the artifact, and Williams dropped the theme in all further meaningful contexts, but decided to use it in two random moments instead. We all know the fandom memes, but cmon, this would be some sort of a record at the time. Truth be told, the story room conversations of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Larry Kasdan are centered on the pulp adventure and don't touch on the religious or serious aspect of the film too much. The conversations between Kasdan, Phil Kaufman, and Debby Fine, on the other hand, go very deep into literary sources and the historical context. That the thoughts about the mystical elements of the film underwent some maturation over time can be seen in the effects of scenes such as that of the introduction of the Ark to the Washington agents. Initially the agents were supposed to be the ones convincing Jones about a military danger of the Ark, and in the film proper they are the ones slowly realizing that the biblical Ark might be real and have some power when Jones tells them about the wrath of God. But let's return to the composition level. Williams' McGuffin and non-human themes tend to be short (Shark, Death Star, Hoth, The Ark). This one is much longer, and is very voxine and lyrical, as if it was expressing human emotions, or speaking to a character's thoughts. If it was a theme for the medallion, what would his decisions about the content of those bars mean? Why would it be in the romantic Eb major and not in C minor, like the ark theme, or in a mysterious G minor? And why such "whimsical" triplets? The medallion itself has no effect on Marion, other than as a sentimental trinket. I don't think Williams wanted to say that God tries to make Marion desire the artifact, since throughout the entire film God only ever warns people and tries to scare them away from the Ark. What she wants is the money, for which she is willing to sell the semi-sacred medallion (and the Bible really frowns upon such motivations---see: the wrath of God at the end). Williams worked deliberately and for quite some time to make this melody very good, note after a note, and express what he wanted it to express. He probably spent hours working on this. It's tight and on a Tchaikovsky level. Every other theme in the film is constructed very deliberately to express what it accompanies. It would be inconsistent if this one did not. But in the end, there is no definitive proof. It's a leap from the lion's head either way. So... what do you think, gents? Should the "Medallion Theme" henceforth be known as the Theme of Sin?

So last Saturday the 16th, I decided to return to Paper Mario: Color Splash ahead of Origami King. Picking up where I left off on my old save, I beat the game today! First thing, it was surprisingly pleasant and nostalgic to return to the Wii U. That Gamepad is still so comfortable to hold and use, really nice hardware even if the setup is somewhat over complicated. As for the game, what’s frustrating is that I think it’s a really awesome game outside of the annoying battle system. The presentation and writing are just top-notch. The visual presentation is overflowing with charm and humor. The character designs and animation especially are the game’s best feature. I had a really great time going through the rest of the game with my almost-6-yo daughter. It’s hard to recommend but I’m pretty happy that I saw it through to the end.

That's when it started going downhill.

Hey! I like Die Hard 4!

Scanning Intrada's back catalogue, perhaps we can also look forward to (Disney wise): Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! The Journey of Natty Gann Sonething Wicked This Way Comes (both composers) The Black Cauldron White Fang (both composers) The Island at the Top of the World Homeward Bound The Black Hole (expanded) Condorman The Last Flight of Noah's Ark Tinkerbell 1-3 A Far Off Place Night Crossing Return to Oz The Rescuers Down Under (expanded) One Little Indian Witch Mountain 1 + 2 Etc.

Laser effects, mirror balls... John Williams must be rolling around in his grave!

Here's a hi-rez cover without Sissy Spacek... and the river. You can't even notice the cigarette on the 600x600 resolution version.

Romeo and Juliet by James Horner So, I guess I've got to go with the prevailing consensus I guess. Tis pleasant, but not really a classic by any means. It's just Horner being Horner, and he was Hornered better in other places. Similarity and self-quotation abounds in a lot of his music, but here a unique identity, some new musical purpose or thematic tie in with the film seems to be missing. Apart from a couple of cues and the love theme/song, it simply does not sound like it was made to accompany Shakespeare. It kind of feels like the score for a dramatic live action Balto or American Tail or something.

Something like Topaz Gigapixel AI provides much better results.

It was the first 4K movie I watched when I got my OLED TV. I'm still not completely sold on HDR or why it's even a thing. I mean it looks nice, but when I watch a non-HDR blu-ray like Raiders, it looks great! If you listened to these home theatre zealots, you'd think everyone's blu-ray collections all suddenly looked like shit and aren't worth hearing because they don't have friggin' height channels!

There could have been more!

Since this was discussed earlier, I checked the discs I already have from the FSO (the remaining ones should arrive sometime next week) and with one exception, they were all recorded over two different dates on the same venue.

On a related note, I assume most of you were informed in 2018 that all the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts franchise related products were branded under the new official umbrella 'Wizarding World'. Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald was the first film in which the official logo was presented. See the opening (first 10 minutes) below: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them belongs also to the 'Wizarding World' umbrella of course, but the original movie doesn't have the WW logo. Well, Warner Bros put it in there recently in the Movie Preview... Will this edited version become the new version, presented maybe on HBO MAX? I don't know about that. But what I do know is that the opening titles now loses it's effect; it doesn't synchronize with the music and I think it's unfortunate the logo's disappear in air. It's not like CoG and the other HP films with the camera through the logo's. If they want to extend the Opening Titles they should do it like CoG with more build up, camera through the logo's, maybe speed up the camera pan but not too fast and extend the Conspiracy Theme a bit. Anyway, that's my opinion.

Very metaphorical! At least, that is, if it's the beginning of a new Lenu.

Definitely one of the best Harry Potter related choices Warner Brothers have made for a long, long time.

I love Horner's theme for Achilles. It's wonderfully heroic and swashbuckling.

.

Perhaps a topic for another thread, but I’d like to hear more about this; how the Hollywood composing industry became so precarious. In many corners of the gig world, the companies/entities dangling the carrot of future success are the 800-lb gorillas that benefit from the race-to-the-bottom mentality that forces workers to accept inferior pay or 70-hr workweeks to prove their worth or their commitment to their career. Composers would seem to be different to me, not least because they’re represented by unions in an entertainment industry where unions seem highly influential. That composers are struggling like you say is disconcerting. Who is to blame for this? The studios? Surely it can’t all be RCP. Btw, if Hans really is as responsible for commodifying the composer’s art as you suggest (and making composers after him pay the professional price), he should be ashamed of himself.

I wonder if he played the little fragment of Leia’s theme in the credits of TLJ.

Ah cool. Just came across it looking at ScoringSessions and didn't recall seeing it. Disregard!

Same for Eyes Wide Shut, it was only when I tried to watch it through the director's eyes, that I loved the movie. Before that, I didn't gel with the characters, and as a consequence, I felt kinda bored. You can't watch a Kubrick movie the same way you watch Rocky.

That's the theory. They probably had those sequences edited but didn't know which reel they belonged to when JW scored them. I don't have the scoring dates but they might be the first cues JW wrote in late 2016. Rian Johnson said originally the film intercut between the various story threads more regularly than the final cut (which stays with each storyline for longer stretches).

To be honest, the only movie on this franchise I consider great is the first one. I rewatched The Lost World that year and it really doesn't hold up. The action scenes are great, but the script is a mess. JP3 is pretty bad. The first Jurassic World is an objetively bad movie, but I consider it very entertaining, just dumb popcorn fun. Fallen Kingdom on the other hand is just terrible. It would've been the worst movie I've seen in 2018, but Crimes of Grindelwald managed to be even shittier.

I'm well aware, and that Eastman grain plate is actually what I typically use. However for this test I was rendering it in Resolve, using a Fuji grain plate (not digitally generated, it's an actual film scan). I'll perhaps make my own custom grain plate using the Eastman preset and import it into Resolve to see if that looks better.

@TSMefford I like to look at it from a sideways perspective - that is, working with people in your own sphere that are at a similar level that you enjoy collaborating with. I was once obsessed with the idea of moving to LA (I'm from Australia) and working my way up the ladder with overpriced graduate degrees and underpaid internships in the hopes of somehow getting into the big leagues. I've seen past the artifice of that life though, but more importantly I'm fortunate enough to be working with my best friends on a TV show that's airing here in Oz later this year. We started making silly projects years ago and have made the progression together. We're not interested in being famous or making the next big thing (though that would be a nice bonus) - we just want to be able to make a living off this. It's possible, but only when you start to dismantle the myth that all successful people are 100% productive at all times and always hustling. Or that success itself is only measured by creating a phenomenon on the level of Star Wars of Harry Potter. I don't think you have to be exceptionally smart. But it's a language, and learning any language takes time but also has immense value in numerous industries. The applications of coding intersect every single industry on earth, because we're all on devices all the time. It's not just programmers, but designers, composers, marketing people, public servants, educators etc etc. As the world turns more automated there will eventually be more jobs that require coding than cleaning or driving or pulling boxes around warehouses.

No, its not foolish. Williams involvement with these films begins and ends with the spotting sessions and the actual scoring. He doesn't ask prodding questions, read the scripts or anything of the kind. In the prequel trilogy, when Lucas remarked that Duel of the Fates could be useful "for the third film", Williams said "I don't quite know what he means by that" and a similar thing happened with Across the Stars, where Williams didn't bother asking Lucas where this romance was going.

For anyone into this sort of thing, the ost is constructed as follows: 1 Main Title And Escape (7:26) 0.00-1.25 = Opening (fixes 12_11_16) 1.26-2.14 = 1M2A 2.15-2.29 = 1M3 Welcome Poe and Hux 2.29-2.37 = 1M3 Insert David and Goliath 2.38-2.45 = 1M3 Welcome Poe and Hux (contin.) 2.46-3.18 = 1M4 He's Insane 3.18-4.35 = 1M5 Resistance Force 4.35-5.01 = 1M6 We Can Do This 5.02-5.41 = 1M7 Fighter Down 5.42- end = 1M8 We Lose Girl Ace 2 Ahch-To Island (4:23) 0.00-1.41 = 0M1 Tossing the Sabre 1.42-2.27 = 2M10 We Need Your Help 2.28- end = 2M16 Luke's Breakfast 3 Revisiting Snoke (3:29) 1M9 Revisiting Snoke (4 Flutes) 4 The Supremacy (4:01) 0.00-1.20 = 2M12 We Need A New Base 1.20-2.23 = 2M13 Prep for Battle 2.24- end = 2M14 fix Leia Saved (w_ red pen fixes 5-19-17) 5 Fun With Finn And Rose (2:34) 0.00-0.17 = 2M19 Rose Catches Finn (updated) 0.17 -end = 3M22 Rev 6 Old Friends (4:29) 0.00-0.38 = 3M20 Luke in the Falcon 0.39-0.57 = 3M20 Insert Watch The Language 0.58-1.39 = 3M20 Luke in the Falcon (contin.) 1.39-1.59 = 3M20 Insert 2 2.00-2.36 = 0M2 Thought Connection 2.37- end = 0M2A Insert Place to Place 7 The Rebellion Is Reborn (4:00) Rose's Turn 8 Lesson One (2:10) 0.00-0.36 = 0M3 Insert Learning The Force 0.37- end = 0M3 Learning The Force 9 Canto Bight (2:38) 0.00-0.31 = 4M31A Worst People in the Universe 0.31-0.38 = (alternate ending) 0.39-1.22 = 4M31B (Add) More Party Music 1.22- end = 4M31C R.T. Shore 10 Who Are You? (3:04) 0.00-1.00 = 2M17 Old Books 1.01-1.25 = 7M60 Come Closer, Child 1.26- end = 4M38 Codebreaker... Thief 1 The Fathiers (2:42) 0.00-0.32 = 0M6 Fathiers Charge! 0.33- end = 0M7 Crashing The Party 12 The Cave (3:00) 0.00-1.35 = 5M45 Mirror Scene 1.36-1.57 = 5M46 You're Not Alone 1.57- end = 5M47 Young Ren Is Awakened 13 The Sacred Jedi Texts 0.00- 1.34 = 5M48 Yoda Appears (with fixes 02-05-17) 1.35-2.07 = 5M48 Insert 2.08- end = 5M48 Yoda Appears (with fixes 02-05-17) (contin.) 14 A New Alliance (3:13) 0.00-0.10 = 7M60 Come Closer, Child 0.10-1.50 = 7Μ63 Big Fights 1.51- end = 7M65 Fighting Together 15 "Chrome Dome" (2:03) 0.00-1.14 = 7M68 After the Big Explosion 1.14- end = 7M68A Finn Fights Phasma 16 The Battle Of Crait (6:48) 0.00-1.03 = 8M73 Troops And Planes 1.03-3.20 = 8M74 Mechanical Trouble (fixed 4-20-17) 3.20-4.31 = 8M75 Here They Come, Again (w JW fixes 04-03-17) 4.31-5.49 = 8M76 (with Insert 4-6-17) To The Target 5.49- end = 8M77 Finn's Attempted Sacrifice 17 The Spark (3:36) 9M80 Luke & Leia Together [Retimed] 18 The Last Jedi (3:04) 0.00-0.17 = More Fight (probably) 0.18-1.49 = 9M85 Finale Part I 1.50-end = 9M85 Insert (w JW Fixes 04-06-17) 19 Peace And Purpose (3:08) 0.00-1.09 = 9M85A Rey Looks 1.09-1.44 = 9M85 Finale Part I 1.44- end = 9M86 Old Friends 20 Finale (8:28) 0.00-0.36 = 9M86 Old Friends 0.36-1.04 = 9M87 Finale, Pt. III 1.04-1.42 = End Credit 1-27-17 (fixed 2-5-17) 1.42-2.55 = 9M90 (AKA End Credit Part 2) 2.56-5.30 = End Credit 5-15-17 Part 3 Rev 5.30- end = End Credit 5-15-17 Part 4

Arrived in Toronto this morning, 15 days after ordering. Grateful to still be able to have this access and engagement during these times.

Sure...but 40 versions?

The CRs should really be renamed The Incomplete Recordings.

Gonna resurrect this old thread here. I was interested in watching this again, so I dug it up and realized I've never seen this video shared here before and always thought it was an interesting look into the creation process. Here's James Newton Howard breaking down writing the WB Logo / Main Title moment at the top of the movie and he goes through 4 or 5 versions with different themes and ideas, complete with demos from the film and reactions from David Yates. I'd be curious to see what members here think of the other potential versions. This is certainly reflected here:

Anyone else watching?

Again mockup from the Prisoner of Azkaban. This is the earliest version (which was in the score) of 4M3+4 cue. The second half is no different from the final version, so I cut it out. If possible, I will continue to make mockups from POA

This is my piano arrangement of "Stalling Around" from Jurassic Park! Hope you enjoy it

"Portals" is pretty good