Skelly

These past few months I've been going through a bit of a Potter phase and have been taking a close look at the work Williams did for the films. Williams was hired to write the score to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone early enough that he was able to write original material for the film's teaser trailer. He recorded the piece November 18, 2000 at, I believe, the now-defunct Sony Music Studios. The teaser was released in March of the following year.
 
The master tape apparently was sent to John Sponsler and Tom Gire, production music specialists, for help in temping future Potter trailers, and they promptly broke it, so it's very possible that the cue may be lost unless WB kept the audio splits for the trailer or something. Bill Wrobel, while rummaging about the music sheets for this film, found something called "MX 8 & 10" that ran 36 bars, and I think perhaps that is this teaser cue.
 
I realized that much of the track - in which Williams established Hedwig's Theme - was adapted directly to the "Mail Delivery" scene in the film itself. Actually there's only one outstanding part of the teaser cue that didn't make its way into the full film score, and fortunately there were no sound effects to cover it up! So I gave recreating the cue through the film score's audio a shot and overall I like how it turned out. The trailer audio and the film score aren't mastered similarly at all, so at times you may be able to point out where I made edits. But hopefully you can still enjoy it a little and get an idea of how this track acts as an interesting precursor to the film's score.
 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx_2TC4QmNqkNzdWY3UtdE1SZXc

From their FB. Everyone make their guesses now!

These past few months I've been going through a bit of a Potter phase and have been taking a close look at the work Williams did for the films. Williams was hired to write the score to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone early enough that he was able to write original material for the film's teaser trailer. He recorded the piece November 18, 2000 at, I believe, the now-defunct Sony Music Studios. The teaser was released in March of the following year.
 
The master tape apparently was sent to John Sponsler and Tom Gire, production music specialists, for help in temping future Potter trailers, and they promptly broke it, so it's very possible that the cue may be lost unless WB kept the audio splits for the trailer or something. Bill Wrobel, while rummaging about the music sheets for this film, found something called "MX 8 & 10" that ran 36 bars, and I think perhaps that is this teaser cue.
 
I realized that much of the track - in which Williams established Hedwig's Theme - was adapted directly to the "Mail Delivery" scene in the film itself. Actually there's only one outstanding part of the teaser cue that didn't make its way into the full film score, and fortunately there were no sound effects to cover it up! So I gave recreating the cue through the film score's audio a shot and overall I like how it turned out. The trailer audio and the film score aren't mastered similarly at all, so at times you may be able to point out where I made edits. But hopefully you can still enjoy it a little and get an idea of how this track acts as an interesting precursor to the film's score.
 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx_2TC4QmNqkNzdWY3UtdE1SZXc

I think Williams was not unfamiliar with that concept. I recall reading somewhere that, when Phantom Menace went through a meat grinder in the editing room, he had to write a few brief overdubs to help mask harsh music edits. Not exactly the same situation here, of course, but he's written "library" cues like that before.

Indeed you did - Bloodboal, this is what happens when you don't update the main post!
I also thought I'd Googled a couple of the cues with quotations to see if it'd been posted here before, but I guess I didn't. My mistake.

It looks like one of those movies that's fun to watch once, but it's so vapid you can't remember anything at all about it once it's over.
It also looks like they've washed out all the color again...

Wow, you really know your trailer music! 

Indeed it was. The Hit House doesn't use a real orchestra for any of its music as far as I know. Even a big name production music company like Brand X very rarely gets "real" instruments and has to work with samples 99% of the time.
 
I'm still scratching my head about the similarity as well. Maybe someone who owns the CD can check and see if any acknowledgement is given to the Hit House and its employees.
 
Also, I doubt HH composed those cues FOR The BFG. Disney probably just selected those two tracks from the Confidential catalog.
 
That YT thing you linked to is not an alternate - it just has the full opening (and I think some extra bells?). Ursine Vulpine wrote "In the Beginning" (the title of the arrangement) and sent it to trailer editor Joshua Dunn, and he lopped off that opening (Confidential wrote the piano part that opens the trailer).

Sometimes the music cues used in trailers are just fun to listen to on their own. That's why people go to such lengths to identify them and their composers.

Yeah, but that's very rare, I think because many composers likely don't work that far ahead, or can't. I mean, heck, there were two trailers out for Rogue One before they dumped Desplat from the picture.

They did in 2013 at least.
http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=100515
 
Bottom of the page, MV says, "Potter is so close I can taste it." Since we still haven't seen or heard anything of it three years later I kind of wonder if the deal fell through.

Are you retarded?

Someone should try re-grading a few shots or maybe even a full clip from the last couple of Harry Potter films. It would be interesting to see the results, and if the film's dark atmosphere still is apparent even if there's color.
 
EDIT: Look, someone did do that! Would you believe it, there's a beautiful film hiding under that layer of grit and grime!
 
 

Someone should try re-grading a few shots or maybe even a full clip from the last couple of Harry Potter films. It would be interesting to see the results, and if the film's dark atmosphere still is apparent even if there's color.
 
EDIT: Look, someone did do that! Would you believe it, there's a beautiful film hiding under that layer of grit and grime!
 
 

Someone should try re-grading a few shots or maybe even a full clip from the last couple of Harry Potter films. It would be interesting to see the results, and if the film's dark atmosphere still is apparent even if there's color.
 
EDIT: Look, someone did do that! Would you believe it, there's a beautiful film hiding under that layer of grit and grime!
 
 

It gets so bad in DH Pt. 1 that, if you aren't sitting in a completely dark room with only the glow of the TV, you can't see what's going on at some points.

It looks like one of those movies that's fun to watch once, but it's so vapid you can't remember anything at all about it once it's over.
It also looks like they've washed out all the color again...

Someone should try re-grading a few shots or maybe even a full clip from the last couple of Harry Potter films. It would be interesting to see the results, and if the film's dark atmosphere still is apparent even if there's color.
 
EDIT: Look, someone did do that! Would you believe it, there's a beautiful film hiding under that layer of grit and grime!
 
 

JNH will be the only colour in the film.

Someone should try re-grading a few shots or maybe even a full clip from the last couple of Harry Potter films. It would be interesting to see the results, and if the film's dark atmosphere still is apparent even if there's color.
 
EDIT: Look, someone did do that! Would you believe it, there's a beautiful film hiding under that layer of grit and grime!
 
 

It gets so bad in DH Pt. 1 that, if you aren't sitting in a completely dark room with only the glow of the TV, you can't see what's going on at some points.

Both Part 1 and 2 are probably the worst night exteriors I've seen in movies. 
 

 

 

 

 
Okay, maybe that last one is unfair. At least it spins around and you get light from the castle!
 

 
I guess they aren't quite as terrible in super high-res but these were pretty bad from my memory of seeing them in a theater, especially the 3D versions.

It gets so bad in DH Pt. 1 that, if you aren't sitting in a completely dark room with only the glow of the TV, you can't see what's going on at some points.

It gets so bad in DH Pt. 1 that, if you aren't sitting in a completely dark room with only the glow of the TV, you can't see what's going on at some points.

It looks like one of those movies that's fun to watch once, but it's so vapid you can't remember anything at all about it once it's over.
It also looks like they've washed out all the color again...