dead_lizard

Hi, I just found this article referred to by one of the posters in this thread. Enjoy.

There was a cool little flute bit over one of the wipe transitions that reminded me of TESB. I do think that JJ's method of showing JW the film in 30minute blocks hampered Williams ability to structure a satisfying arc from beginning to finale, despite what he says in the Smiley interview. Also, I don't recall any memorable solo writing. We had the violin solo in Leia's theme, the horn solo in Luke and Leia, the oboe in Across the stars, the violin/cello solo in Anakin's dream, even the soprano solo in the AOTC finale. The closest I can recall in TFA a nice little clarinet part when Finn mentions something to BB8 that makes him sad. I seem to remember a nice little horn moment somewhere as well.

What happened to the Sanskrit translation of the Kipling poem?

Has anyone mentioned the big misdirect they pulled with the 60minutes overtime segment. "This is how the new star wars movie begins", J.J saying it literally makes the opening of the movie, and then they used a completely different version. Well at least they have an extra opening or two up their sleeves should the unthinkable occur before Eps VIII and IX are scored.

His legs looked alarmingly skinny.

I saw the film last night. Good, but not great. scorewise, it's probably the weakest of all seven. no big musical setpieces, although the montage of Jakku at the beginning had some pretty impressive sweep. For what it's worth, the credits list Dudamel as Special Guest Conductor. Conducted by John Williams and William Ross. Orchestration by John Williams and William Ross. No new fanfare to replace the fox logo. Missed opportunity IMHO. even a couple of seconds of 'war drums' would have done the trick. The new crawl was pretty cool, and there were some cool moments. A lot of WTF moments too unfortunately.

I imagine a huge williams biopic will be the first thing spielberg does when he can no longer work with JW anymore. i could even imagine the poster, with spielberg in small letters and williams in huge print. we know he must have a stockpile of countless hours of the man at work and in conversation. but let's not get impatient for that particular project.

If you watch one of the joint interviews with Spielberg, you can hear Steven imitating him making a phone call about having seen a rough cut of Jaws, and you can see that JW gets a little embarrassed at it "no, no dear baby boy.... you've made a pirate movie" or something to that effect.

from the Harry Potter sessions (2001) "Williams is totally professional and focused. He creates a pleasant working atmosphere but does not let anything get past him; he may address people as “angel” or “baby” or even “angel baby,” but they jump when he asks for something."

oh ffs, two words: Gloria Cheng. i also believe the first piano ping from the second trailer links up with the piano and harp setting at the beginning of this one. if you want a real spoiler fast forward to 1:19 and listen closely for the end credits fanfare they failed to dial out. I'll just leave that there.

I believe Williams has stated in the past that he actually doesn't like Wagner's music. edit: oops, i notice that he complimented Dudamel on his Mahler, so it's a moot point.

Just thinking of all the great and unexpected Williams one-liners over the years. Forgive me if there's already a thread for this. My favourite one at the moment is from the USC Q and A. Q. "Do you think there's too much music in films these days?" A. "When I'm writing them I do."

It's nice to finally have official confirmation that John Williams eats Wheaties.

"he (Williams) comes off stage and he was like 'I....uh....don't think they liked it'. And I was like 'that is not what was going on!" Brilliant.

Did anybody catch it or happen to tape it? I was hoping to find out his first reaction to Schindler's List, whether he likes to read scripts in advance and how the ending to ET was recorded....

Found it! It was the Knoxville one. "JW: ...you need an orchestra that's attentive to the conductor not every four bars or eight bars, but every bar. so that after four measures of fast music we're not too soon to the fifth measure or too late to it. if you're too late to it you never can catch up, so.... JR: well i guess the fact the the film runs at a rate of 24 frames per second, and if you were out by two frames, a twelfth of a second, it would feel out of sync. JW: yeah, the eye can see it. and amazingly so. not to be too technical, but each one of those frames has four sprocket holes. and if, for example, a chorus is out sync with the orchestra by as little as two sprocket holes, you can hear it. so it has to be so precise in order to sound natural and right, and when we get it right people won't even notice it."

ok cool. i'm thinking it's either the knoxville symphony one or the bbc one. i'll have a listen to them both when i've got a better internet connection. i'm hoping it's not from some interview which has since had its link removed.

nope, sorry. I'm pretty familiar with the ET features. this was an online interview. fairly recent. one on one. wish i could remember something else from the interview that might help jog someone's memory. i tried searching the forums for "interview" but i only got 50 or so hits, which can't be right. it would be cool if there were a sticky thread just with actual interviews from williams. i know there's a youtube thread, but it would be nice to see and read all of williams' stuff in one place, no performances, just text and dialog. "16 sprockets per second...." Ben.

alas, it's not the BBC doco, mighty as that is. it was audio only. pretty sure it was streaming. from memory it was for a magazine or newspaper article which had a link at the bottom to the full audio.

Long time lurker, think i might have posted like 5 years ago or something. Anyway I'm just trying to find an interview someone posted here last year sometime. The part I'm interested in is where the interviewer asks him about timings and Williams starts talking about how many sprockets there are per second on a (movieola?) projector. Just want to show this to people who think he's just bashing out pop tunes for orchestra. The fact that the depth of the man's knowledge is so vast that it even extends to the mechanical minutia is staggering. hope someone can help, Ben.

How many of you have NOT attempted the reality-augmenting experience of listening to the ET soundtrack on portable media while riding a bicycle?

Just thinking about what JW has done with orchestra that will show up in orchestration textbooks years from now as a new technique that had never been contemplated before. For example the whispering chorus (in canon no less) in TPM. Anyone care to add more?

JoeinAr, where does the Spielberg quote about ROTS come from?

Maybe you could change Vader's mask in the background to the looming shadow of Ben Burtt LOL