BigMacGyver

There was a time when I was a fan of his stuff and from that time i still own the following (some of them were among the first score albums I ever bought in a shop before I got internet): As Good As It Gets M:I 2 Gladiator Gladiator vol. 2 The Rock Apart from these, I am still owning stuff on mp3 and CD-r which is pretty much only stored away for trading purposes as I can't get myself to sit through over two hours of... say... King Arthur. Since i have grown to disagree with his way and approach of scoring films, I might even consider to sell the original copies to people who enjoy them more than I do.

As much as it saddens me if his death was the reason for the halt of releases, I still have to wonder why nobody thought about picking up where kamen left. I mean, we havent really seen much of kamens scores coming from the labels and its not like his unreleased scores are all impossible to release. It's also strange that his last great work back to gaya remained unreleased despite the london recording. On the other hand, you have composers like Bernstein and goldsmith, whose deaths seemingly didnt put much of a halt to releases. In the case of goldsmith, it even seemed to work the other way around since we now have the vanishing which goldsmith never wanted to release in the first place. Maybe it has to do with the rights being tied to kamens label or some sort of kamen estate that prepared releases but stopped that when he died.

Well, yeah but that does not automatically defunct the label, does it? When did the lethal weapon CD actually came out?

Well, then just say you don't care As far as I am concerned, I can't point out these discrepancies in modern scoring and the misunderstandings that come with it often enough because I see that as a very serious issue of todays filmmaking. I am not saying its forbidden to like such stuff. People are free to like whatever they want. However, that still does not cancel out the discrepancies.

And that's where I say that a score does not have to play a prominent part to be better and more effective than the original score for batman begins. And at least to me, that wall of action droning was damn prominent. It's not like it wasnt there in terms of presence, more like in terms of effectiveness.

But my point is that the batman begins score is not even serving the picture in any way but just playing along at best. I know very well that the movie comes first but when the score is as effectiveless as for Batman Begins then why bother to have a score at all? The movie would have worked the same without that score. The problem with your argumentation is that you see the way the score is conceived as an enhancement of realism when it actually would have been much more realistic to have no score at all. However, if you go through the trouble of having a score in your movie, why not letting it do anything to make the experience a better one?

Which is because it was a good movie and those are hardly hurt by a terrible score.

I am not talking about what i expect from a superhero score. I am talking about what i expect a score to achieve in general regardless of its genre. The score for batman begins is a wall of sound without focus, development or depth and I dont see how this is working in favour of more realism when it actually achieves the opposite. The whole thing did not feel any more realistic because the music was just dull and did nothing than just sitting behind sound effects. It just made a good movie a little less exciting but did not add to realism. And i think kamen's x-men score is much more superior than batman begins as far as effectiveness is concerned.

However, it required more than just plain droning without dramatic development as it is still a movie that follows a dramatic line and has dramatic twists and turns that need to be acknowledged by its accompanying score. The original batman begins score perfectly avoids to do anything at all apart from just droning in the background. I don't get that argument. Even with a score that is fine-tuned, has a decent depth in orchestration and enhances key moments in the picture, the movie and setting can still be perfectly believable. By your argumentation, a functional effective score would render a movie unrealistic. You know, when i watched batman begins in the theatre, I even got to a point where I was just so terribly taken out of the movie by the music's obviousness, repetitiveness and lack of direction or dramatic outline that the whole thing just did not work for me and actually bored me to hell. It's just a wall of sound and i don't see how a wall of sound makes a movie or its plot or premise or anything more realistic. In fact, it does quite the opposite.

I hope that when they are so generously giving away licenses that the music will be licensed to a responsible label, too.

Kamen's own label? He had a label? That's interesting. How come nothing more came out from his label?

Man this was wonderful. Just perfect as far as timing is concerned and it actually enhanced the drama and humour that happens in that scene. Maybe a bit too light at times, however, still superior to the monotonous droning stuff it got from zimmer/howard because it not only creates a steady drive but actually DOES something with whats going on in the scene. Try winamp or vcl media player.

Funny, I always noticed the same thing. Upon first hearing it I thought it was some sort of star wars laser cannon sound effect that I had no idea how it got there or what its purpose could have been. But after closer examination i came to the conclusion that this is some weird combination of light percussion and woodwind (maybe even something else) which just accidentally happens to sound like such a sound effect. You may have noticed that it follows a quick woodwind performance and a rattling percussion sound which is probably the source. Its like in some odd song lyrics when you believe someone is singing something but the lyrics read completely different and your brain just interpreted a meaning into something it wasnt able to identify in the first place. I also have that when listening to Barry's Kidnapping from CEOTTK. You know the moment when the vacuum cleaner is going on a rampage, I could swear I am hearing the sound of cannon fire in the distance but it is just a percussion effect that I associate with that sound.

Certainly. I am just wondering how many big releases there will actually be. Amazing Stories, Percepto's Box... and maybe something else? Remember there is also an FSM box set coming up.

In less than one hour this should be announced. And screenarchives indicates that they will announce more big releases along with the announcement of amazing stories. Here is the announcement of the announcements:

I did not realize there was so little response from the jwfan.net members regarding this concert. At least some people from the silvestri forum will be there too. I am looking forward to seeing you all in madrid! BTW, I still need to figure out which covers I will take to have them signed. There are too many to choose from

Yeah i will be there! Actually, I was already there from the moment I heard about this concert for the first time

Alan Silvestri will premiere his Beowulf score at the soncinemad 2007 concert! Have a look at the programme: FINAL PROGRAMME 30 June 2007 Teatro Monumental de Madrid Orquesta Filarmonía y Coro de RTVE 1. Back to the Future 2. Fools Rush In 3. Mouse Hunt 4. Judge Dredd 5. Contact 6. The Quick and the Dead 7. Father of the Bride Intermission 8. The Mummy Returns 9. Night At The Museum 10. Castaway 11. The Polar Express 12. Forrest Gump 13. Beowulf Encores

I won't fall into the trap of high expectations again. It's enough for me to know that Williams is a musical genius and that whatever will come out of indy 4 musically will be at least good. The only question is how good it will really be. So I will patiently sit back and wait for may next near when we will find out how good the score is.

Not only soundscapes. Your comment just indicates that you have simply heard the wrong scores by these gentlemen. I don't see how judge dredd for example qualifies as soundscape or atmospheric writing apart maybe from one cue. Then, there is the Polar Express, Back To The Future, Cast Away, Forrest Gump, Siegfried & Roy, Mouse Hunt, The Mummy Returns... the list goes on and all these scores are well constructed, effective and perfectly orchestrated. Even though Silvestri is using orchestrators, he is always 100% involved in the orchestration process and loves to do it on his own if the time schedule permits this (watch for example the tomb raider 2 scoring featurette, where you can see him sitting at the piano and changing a score sheet with pencil). As you will probably know, orchestrating for an ensemble larger than 100 players can take quite a while, so it's no wonder that even people who know how to do it need a helping hand sooner or later. I am sure with Howard it's not much different and he also composed several scores that go far beyond soundscapes or mere atmosphere. So, I kind of agree with you that picking these two as examples is a bit... off.

Yes the music from the website is Silvestri's! Dan goldwasser confirmed this at the fsm board and so did emile brinkman (owner of alan-silvestri.com). In late may this year, Alan Silvestri recorded 20 minutes of score already for usage at the comic-con 2007 where they will show the first excerpts of the film and there is some source music which he recorded in 2005 already. Glen Ballard is also involved again.

I am worried because there might be a chance that I like it or that it is a dream come true release and then I would notice that something's missing. Well, i certainly hope that it means "lots of alternate tracks".

I am more worried about what he means by "very complete form"... one would think that a score can't be "very complete", just "complete", so I guess he means that whatever they are releasing will be as complete as possible which might not be the complete score in the end... But hey, I would take a "very complete" obscure bernstein western score any day. Just keep them coming! There is certainly some great bernstein music for john wayne movies out there that hasn't seen the light of day yet. For some reason though I guess this will be nothing from elmer. Maybe Ford made a special deal with universal and was able to get a handful of goodies out. There is a lot of great golden age music in universals vault.

This is what ford said earlier this year when someone asked about prometheus records upcoming releases: According to his more recent comments, the classic golden age score comes out first and then... well, count 1 and 1 together: One of Ford's absolute favourite composers is williams, the family plot score is over 30 years old since last year and i am quite sure its one that he was dying to release! I think that answers all questions.

I have heard them all and I don't think what you say is true. You are mistaking a strong melodic voice and musical persona with self-plagiarism. I think you are the one who should listen more closely before making such uneducated comments or accusing others of inaccuracy. Good point.