[The Adventures of Tintin MOVIE Anticipation thread (News, Interviews, Images, Posters, etc)]

And something about the "next" John Williams:

Let me say, however, there is no "next" John Williams. Sadly, he is unique--- a figure who simultaneously embodies and transcends the music of all the masters of film music who preceded him. ( Much like Brahms and Wagner of the Romantic era). He comes from a time when the craft of music in film was still one of the ear, heart and mind. Today, sadly, the craft is largely technical. Most composers do not conceive their music "inwardly" but rather at the computer--- and with rather limited skills, musically, at that. The inner spirit knows no boundaries--- our plastic abilities, sadly, do. John is a man of spirit, heart, intellect and soaring music.

Lofty praise indeed, but it is as much an excoriation of Williams' contemporaries as it is a tribute to his talents. I wonder how many up and coming composers in Hollywood would agree with Pope's blanket characterization of their work and the state of the industry.

I think Mr. Pope is completely correct and he explains well why film music quality has diminished so much.

[Rate "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"!]

One of my fave JW and also one of the best sounding scores of all time. By that, I mean the actual sound quality of the recording by Shawn Murphy. It is just transparent, clear and glowing.

The Snowball Fight has some really great harmonies in it, which remind my of Mussorgsky a little. And Aunt Marges' Waltz has some crazy polychords and JW just makes it all sound so perfectly pompous. Not to mention the medieval feel of Double Trouble which is also filled with some wild and crazy chords and counterpoint. And Window to the Past is such a great, deceptively simple, perfect tune as only JW can write, it seems.

Musically superior, for sure. A magnum opus without a doubt. Much better than anything written after he was done with that film franchise.

Yeah, I like that one...

Alain

[John Williams To Possibly Compose Deathly Hallows Films]

With talent, strong musicianship, knowledge of lots of music, intelligence, good intuition and plenty of experience I think a composer can do what he wants and knows when it's right.

There is no "paint throwing" with Williams. He has all the traits I listed above.

How come so many of his themes are so good? His orchestrations always top notch?

(How long did it take for Williams to score Superman. I remember hearing he did it in three weeks. If that is true, then he didn't have time to throw any paint there...!)

I also felt that Nicholas Hooper was not up to the challenge, but most composers pale in comparison to JW, let's face it!

Broughton would be a great choice. He's top notch.

Alain

Really composition can very much be a trial and error process. You do what you feel works, then you come back to it later, revise, etc. I do doubt that any composer can get it absolutely right the moment they put it on paper the first time.

They say Mozart could. Although I have seen changes in his manuscripts also.

[Pixar's 'Up']

Well, I finally saw "Up".

I really liked the film! The music seemed to fit very well, at least it didn't get in the way.

But my first impression of the music was that it wasn't as strong, melodically speaking, as I was expecting. Some of the action material was also quite formulaic.

You know, Giacchino showed some real promise for me with The Incredibles and Ratatouille, and that short Pixar film with that little girl playing the violin at the end to get her money back. But now, perhaps he is doing too much work too fast, but his melodies seem, well, far below what JW has been doing.

Anyway, I don't like criticizing things at that level too much, it is still a great accomplishment, isn't it? I am about to embark on my own scoring adventure now, I will be scoring a CG animated feature film as well (not Pixar, this one comes out of China, believe it or not, but it looks great) and we will see how my music compares to these guys at the top!

Cheers,

Alain

[Star Trek versus Star Trek]

Horner's Wrath of Khan as well.

Lately I have been wondering where the great melodies are? Star Trek should have one, but I don't think Giacchino's theme qualifies as a great theme.

I was expecting perhaps too much from his score? I really loved Ratatouille and really looked forward to his Trek score. But now I see that he perhaps tends to write very short melodies that don't play out well as stand-alone tunes, but are easily developed in a film? In any case, his very short Star Trek theme was not well suited to a franchise which has a history off sweeping themes, so he suffers in comparison, in my view.

Also, I felt that the new Star Trek was poorly spotted in a few places, again surprising especially since Ratatouille feels so perfect.

Alain

[Elmer Bernstein vs Hans Zimmer]

But, let's face it, the man has had tremendous success. Even though his success baffles me, obviously his music has connected with many people.

Just not me.

At least you acknowledge his success and appeal, which is a damn sight more than some around here would ever do.

Well, I am no arbiter of taste. I love Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev - but many people just "don't get it".

How can someone be unmoved by "The Rite of Spring"? I don't know, but there you have it.

But I remember as an undergrad in music, a singer said of Stravinsky "No wonder his name is Igor, it's a name just as ugly as his music."

I do however feel that there is much less quality in modern film music than there used to be when Timokin, Salter, Bernstein and others of the Golden Age of cinema were working.

Now THAT was music.

I have been listening to Benjamin Frankel, and even this somewhat unknown composer had a tremendous grasp of the orchestra, basically rivaling Bartok (for my money.)

And JW spent his early years as a film composer doing TV, writing 20 minutes of music a week, by hand, on paper, without the aid of an orchestrator.

Can any of the new bunch do that? Most of them can't and it shows in their music.

[Elmer Bernstein vs Hans Zimmer]

I find it very sad how people can put down a composer just because he has a background on "pop music" which can have the same emotional impact and be as well crafted as any other kind of music. Let me know when Williams makes an album like Sgt. Pepper or Pet Sounds.

Of course, you are right, but the Beatles sought out modern music, attended Stockhausen concerts and really composed some great music. I have analyzed "Yesterday" for some composition classes I have given. This type of writing is no accident. The Beatles are almost in a different world when it comes to song writing, let's face it.

Beatles orchestration skills were superior to Hans Zimmer as well.

But I was just generalizing before about Zimmer being a "pop musician". Generally speaking, pop musicians know a few chords on their guitar or piano and that is the extent of their learning.

On the other hand, a jazz musician - and JW was not only that in his career before he started film, he wrote and arranged for concert band and was a film pianist and more ... like I was saying, a jazz pianist/musician operates on a whole other level of musicianship than your typical pop musician. The discipline and musical knowledge required to play jazz does not even compare to pop music.

Zimmer's melodies tend to plod along (which some people like, admittedly) and his orchestrations sound like a guy playing his synth with one finger and then copy and pasting the tracks to his different samples.

I am curious, how skilled of a musician is Zimmer on his instrument?

But, let's face it, the man has had tremendous success. Even though his success baffles me, obviously his music has connected with many people.

Just not me.

[Elmer Bernstein vs Hans Zimmer]

Has Hans Zimmer written anything even close to The Magnificent Seven?

I long for the days when film composers were actually good musicians. Elmer was a child prodigy on piano and student of Aaron Copland! His music has substance. Zimmer is a pop songwriter turned film composer and his music is infinitely weaker.

There are few things in the world I dislike more than a Zimmer melody and orchestration, which is why I am on this list!

Long live musical erudition! Long live Elmer Bernstein (and JW, of course!)

(Was I being too opinionated here? )

[A few questions regarding cue timing]

Totally! It's gonna take some time, though...I'm only on page 4 of 31.

Well, thank you sir! I look forward to seeing that greatly!

[A few questions regarding cue timing]

Pretty much. I'm slowly but surely going through and inputting the entire cue into Finale to produce a quasi-professional-looking engraving, since the original is handwritten.

Wonderful! Well, since I helped you out with that streamer information, perhaps you'd share the fruits of your labour?

[A few questions regarding cue timing]

The arrow looks like it could be an indication for a streamer.

(And yes, this IS an exciting topic!... well, to me at least!)

[Jerry Goldsmith vs James Horner]

Goldsmith has more guts and power of invention that Horner.

Horner is less to my liking (always seems somewhat flimsy to me), but with Brainstorm and The Rocketeer he surely hit the bulls eye in my view.

I find Horner to be more slick. His music is so well spotted to a film, his orchestrations are also top notch, but I also find him slightly more banal and saccharine that Jerry.

Jerry on the other hand was often quite forceful in his music, for better or for worse, which sometimes made him a bit heavy handed to my taste. but only sometimes. I can hear the force of his personality in his music, and that is good.

Let's face it, nobody's perfect. Both of these guys are wonderful. But Goldsmith wins it for me because he was himself, not a copy-cat looking for a paycheck, which sometimes pisses me off about Horner.

But when I watch "The Rocketeer" or "Appolo 13" or "Sneakers" I must admit I am impressed by Horner as well.

Ah, well, this ain't no kind of answer!

Alain

[Properrated]

Hello, my first real post!

I personally think the Hook soundtrack deserves more attention. Some of Williams' best melodic writing as well as fantastic orchestrations.

As for E.T., well, it is indeed one of the best of all time.

Alain