David Coscina

The Academy acknowledged that the score shouldn't have been nominated and shouldn't have won. They're excuse was that they didn't do enough research. They thought everything was by Santaolalla and didn't take into consideration re-used music and Ryuichi Sakamoto. All you needed to know that is the actual CD, you bunch o' retards. Then he should be stripped of his Babel Oscar and the next nominee with the biggest # of votes should have gotten it.... I think it would not be so hard to swallow except this a-hole thinks he DESERVES these bloody awards. Intoxicated by his own self importance. and I never will like him because Williams deserved an Oscar for Geisha hands down. I think, of all the times he lost, he was pretty disappointed losing Geisha especially to some musical retard who only knows a handful of chords. I may not love Zimmer but at least he's a real musician who's had his own impact on film music. Santaolalla is er was a crappy flavor-of-the-month whose legacy will be that of a fart in the wind. Smells for a few moments, then is gone in a refreshing gust of clean air. Harsh? Perhaps. True? You betcha.

Yes, he is ignorant. Toru Takemitsu was applying this type of scoring ideolody long before this twit ever twanged a single guitar note. The difference is that Takemitsu was also capable of fantastic full orchestral scoring. And this is the point: the fact that Santaolalla is not making a decision to score a scene or film with a modest amount of instruments. It's the plain fact that it's ALL he can bring to the table, and yet people laud him for it. The craze around Santaolalla's "genius" is on par with Peter Sellers' Chauncy the gardener from "Being There".

Yes, but that's a script for those who want to quickly do rapid spiccato passages so it's not a real problem. If you listen through the 'auto script', I'm sure you will admit they sound pretty fantastic. I would pay good money for the spiccato strings alone. Alex I find the RR settings on the cellos for EWQLSO to be quite good. Better than VSL although not quite as sexy as Symphobia RR strings.

I have heard LASS but I found the example with the cello spiccato too mechanical. It needed to be better rendered because it really turned me off- it actually sounded quantized. There is also another string library that is being released called Cinema Strings by a guy in Australia. Much cheaper than LASS. I will wait for EW before I decide which one I will buy. Because I have bought into a lot of EW products, I'm sure I will find these Hollywood Strings quite good. I also use VSL but I primarily use them for the legato winds and brass. I do not care for their strings- the VSL SE string always need to be tweaked in their ADSR (the release is too short). I prefer using Symphobia to double Prime Sound Session Strings which at $99 were the biggest steal- they sound awesome! Jesse, I noticed you mentioned Sibelius 6. Did you give up on Overture? I downloaded Overture 4 (*purchased it!) and then discovered it will NOT run VST's on the Mac. WHAT A RIP! And they have been promising this since 2005. For most orchestral scoring, I use NOTION because I do not need to have ultra realistic samples. Also, I'm part of the Beta Testing team for NOTION 3 which promises big improvements. I will let you know how it is (er, I think I will re-read my non-disclosure form first however). With all the stuff that EW Hollywood Strings promises, I think it's well worth the wait. The one benefit of Cinema Strings is that they will be available as DIRECT DOWNLOAD. Not sure how big the library will be but it's affordable ($599 for basic, $699 for Pro version)

Well, this is not on CD but I really enjoyed Julian Nott's Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death. Great score.

Yeah, you're right, we should just keep our opinions to ourselves and stop replying to posts on public messageboards. Eh, there's no talking to ya. So stop doing it. Just keep repeating "groupthink" to yourself. How about you shove it up your ass. I second that. Charlie, if you could do better, than Jesse and I will desist, but given that we are the composers here and you aren't, maybe a touch of humility would be in order. Marcus' piece is to me an homage to Williams and while the theme does not knock me out, the orchestration is top notch. It is not so easy to write for an orchestra. Aren't you the same dink that got banned for hitting on pre-teen girls here? If so, who let your sorry ass back in here? Marcus, congrats on this and your other achievements. It looks like I am getting a symphony orchestra to perform one of my pieces this fall and I'm going through my piece making sure everything is in order. It's tough but rewarding work I find.

Fantastic. Thinks Pixie. I will do just that. I am using NOTION and it seems really easy to extract parts. I tried converting the conductor's score into an XML file to import into Sibelius 5 but the work that looked like I had to do to make it legible was just too much. I'm beta testing NOTION 3 so hopefully there is greater control over printing and engraving abilities. I think $50 with those parameters is fine. Truth be told, I'm just totally psyched to have a piece I composed played by a huge orchestra. And a good one too! Dave

So I have an orchestra interested in playing one of my concert pieces but they have asked me how much I charge for rental fees? I normally work in the film score area where I do not own my music. In this case, it's mine so is there a going rate? Should I check with ASCAP? Anyone here familiar with this type of thing???

If Gia had varied it a bit I wouldn't find it so grating. But he did not to any degree that would distinguish him as a solid composer with chops like Goldsmith. Sad fact but this is what a composer does- refine, develop, vary. Those who don't are songwriters.

I was a little surprised to hear the bassoon line in this track strongly reminiscent of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (2nd mvmt or 3rd, I cannot recall). Not a rip off the way the Jawa theme was from Stravinsky's Rite but pretty dang close.....

Eloquently and well said Joe. I'm shocked and saddened. I did not care for the way his was vilified by the media and always thought there was more to it than met the eye. Some serious therapy would have been good for him but as a musician, he was legendary. RIP Michael

I listened to this all day because of this discussion. It is unreal writing. THe breadth of styles, the development of motives and themes, the use of tonal and atonal harmony, texture opposing overt melody, it's got to be one of the finest offerings in the art of film music to come out in its history. I would offer that this could be Williams' best, most complete effort for film. But he's come out with a lot of humdingers so it's a hard call to make this proclamation.

The Matrix brass motif > Batman Begins two-note call that is partly because it's a neat harmonic shift between two distant key relations. It makes for an uneasy yet ominous sound. I loved Davis' use of it. I would have to say The Matrix is a better film score but I prefer listening to TPM on its own. However, I do think Davis' Matrix REvolutions is the best of the series because it has more developed material that was introduced from the original film. The only two tracks I listen to from TPM is Anakin's Theme and Dual of the Fates.

And me too. I'm also part of the grumpy old man club. I honestly try to enjoy Zimmer and the new bunch of composers but they honestly uninspire. It's also difficult trying to rationally argue with some folks on the forum who were not even DNA when I myself began diving into electronics and MIDI so it's not like I have a hate-on for Zimmer by virtue of the fact that he employs synths. I have been into them for almost as long. It's mostly his musical language that I find bland and basically uninteresting- as much the same as Brian Tyler, Tyler Bates, Clint Mansell, John Ottman, basically guys who hail from a rock background who have limited musical vocabulary. John Williams' diarrhea is more musically interesting than most of what I hear these days. It's a real shame too because I was largely motivated to become a composer myself from the awesome film scores that I grew up with. Today, I probably would be more inspired to become a concert composer with guys like John Adams, Michael Torke and the like around. I know this is blunt but it's like vomit- I cannot keep it down and must puke up all the vitriol I can because I'm truly bummed out by the direction film music has gone. Yes, it's different. No, I personally do not think it is as good, at least from the music POV. And frankly, SOuNDTRACKS, which were packaged music away from the film were what got me and a whole lotta other folks into film scores in the first place so the quality of music WAS important. Yep, I'm preaching. And I am not sorry about it one damned bit!!! Dave (grumpier than usual because he's having a hard time getting Sibelius to work on his computer- damned notation programs!)

Pardon my lack of tact, but what the f@@k is this- the "Hans Zimmer Website"??? Hey I know Williams' output is diminishing more and more with every year but it seems like there are more debates, threads, whatever about Heir Zimmer than Williams. We should at least discuss more John Powell scores since: 1. He shares the same first name 2. His style is far closer to Williams (translation- he's actually a more musically accomplished composer- even Zimmer said as much in a recent interview) 3. He composes strong themes with interesting harmonic resolutions like Williams (maybe not quite as adept but he's younger) 4. He's English and they rock.

Definitely. WIlliams' use of quartal harmony for the main theme is amazing. I don't think Zimmer would even know quartal or quintal harmony much less be able to use it. Shore uses it a lot too BTW> probably a jazz thing.

I could not agree more. Good point about overall structure. It's the one element I find missing in a lot of today's scores but Powell really has a good sense of developing his themes/motives throughout the course of the score. I still play this CD quite a bit.

so you are rationalizing richuk's insult towards King Mark? Will wonders never cease to amaze.

I repeat Koray's comment from yesterday: You sir, are an idiot. Hey guys, play nice. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about music. and calling someone an idiot is not very nice. This is where forums like this get into trouble. Person A speaks his/her mind about a composer or a film score. It might not be positive but it's his/her opinion like anyone else's. Person B feels insulted (not sure why) that Person A's opinion does not match his/hers so they shoot back with an offensive comment towards Person B hiding under the rationalization that "I'm free to have my opinion". ABOUT MUSIC yeah. No probs. About someone else's taste or preference, I DO NOT THINK SO. IN fact, I think almost every forum on the web porports to stipulating this under their Rules & Regulations. For some reason, this and another forum on film scoring do not enforce that rule. I see moderators stepping in on other forums and banning people for a day or so to cool their jets. King Mark is NOT an idiot. He has his own opinions about music that are neither better nor worse than yours richuk. You do not have to respect his music choices BUT you should respect King Mark as a fellow forum member. p.s. I really doubt you would call Mark an idiot to his face.

The synths work in the quieter moments IMO. They add extra colors and shading. I do not like ZImmer's doubling of orchestral instruments with his signature CS80 especially in the brass parts. It makes the beautiful horns sound fake and cheap- and it distracts. -Dave (who has been working with MIDI and electronics since 1984, almost as long as Zimmer)

So I got this out from my collection and watched the film the other night. I was surprised by how effective I found the quieter moments were from this score. The big epic stuff I still do not care for but a lot of the score has these reflective moments that really enhance the film. Nice string writing too!

yeah, I'm glad I got this years back. I love his Japanese music. Very authentic!

Quint, I would have done the poll like this: Hans Zimmer pre-MV Hans Zimmer-MV/RC I would have voted PRE MEDIA VENTURES. Yes, believe it. Aside from Thin Red Line, I appreciated Zimmer's musical voice when it was just him. Things like Rain Man, Thelma and Louise, even Driving Miss Daisy, all were unique and great. I must admit the more meditative parts of Last Samurai I think are good too- the action music is just out of place though. Anyhow, hope this sets the record straight where my thoughts are concerning Zimmer.

was wearing? Also Mr. Sulu's first moments had me chuckling. And yes I got goosebumps when we first see the Enterprise with Giacchino's music going full force. I'm a huge fan of the original series and for those that have doubts, don't worry, this film and the franchise is treated with the utmost respect. As Joe said, bring on Star Trek II. Oh yeah, I know this film has to be good because my daughter, of all people, liked the film. If she likes a sci-fi film then trust me, it's good. Thanks for the review Mark. I have heard very good things from friends of mine who are filmmakers and Trek fans to boot. Must take the wife to see this one as she loved Next Generation. Me, I grew up with the original but gotta say I really enjoyed NG a little more because of the plots and characters. This ought to be enjoyable. I asked my best bud how this Abrams re-boot compares to MI:3 and he said there is no comparison- ST blows MI:3 out of the water. I guess it helps not to have micro-managing, on-his-knees gushing Mr. Cruise at the helm. He he he.

great posts everyone!