Skelly

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams.
 
Meeting John Williams:
 
 
Orchestrating Williams's music:
 
 
Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope:
 
 
"Crystal Skull" story
 
 

If it were available, it would be on this page as 17AES-AR04. I checked it in the Wayback Machine and it wasn't available even back in 2017.

Yes, it's available to members on www.asmac.org
 
There are over a hundred similarly awesome videos there so definitely worth the price of entry imho. 

Here's a copy!
 
Also, "Soundtrack!" magazine did an interview with him when The Phantom Menace came out. (But ignore his response to the Municipal Band/Emperor question -- I think he and Ford were talking past each other.)

Here's a copy!
 
Also, "Soundtrack!" magazine did an interview with him when The Phantom Menace came out. (But ignore his response to the Municipal Band/Emperor question -- I think he and Ford were talking past each other.)

Here's a copy!
 
Also, "Soundtrack!" magazine did an interview with him when The Phantom Menace came out. (But ignore his response to the Municipal Band/Emperor question -- I think he and Ford were talking past each other.)

Here's a copy!
 
Also, "Soundtrack!" magazine did an interview with him when The Phantom Menace came out. (But ignore his response to the Municipal Band/Emperor question -- I think he and Ford were talking past each other.)

The shawm and tambourine tracks are interesting because they're examples of how Cuaron blurs the line between underscore and diegetic music (or even sound effects) in a way that hasn't been popular or standard pretty much since the 1930s. Like Hitchcock famously asked, "Where is the music coming from?" The shawm is ostensibly coming from somewhere in the pub, but then it slides into orchestral underscore and for a moment the two are laid on top each other. The Dufay track seems to be normal underscore at first as Buckbeak nuzzles Harry, but suddenly one cut later it's paranormal music that constantly follows the headless horsemen. Or the lute track, where it isn't until the shot's conclusion that we see the "underscore" is actually coming from someone randomly playing his own instrument. Or the Boggart scene where the difference between underscore and source music is the difference between fear and fun, but when the two intertwine during Harry's turn -- where's the music coming from then? There are other examples but those are the most obvious.
 
I think the opposite of that might be part of why the Diagon Alley music in the first movie was dropped and replaced with the Great Hall cue. Harry steps out of the Leaky Cauldron (which had obvious source music) and into Diagon Alley, and even though Williams puts an orchestral delineation up as the brick wall disassembles, he goes back into wizardly music that tells us more what Harry is probably hearing as opposed to what he's feeling. I think the filmmakers wanted to keep the score firmly from Harry's perspective, and the only cue I can think of that deviates from that is "Filch's Fond Remembrance" (which was cut down a lot in the actual movie).

There was definitely something in that scene that was added in late. I don't think anything was left intentionally unscored, least of all the dialogue; almost all the dialogue in the movie is underscored once we reach Hogwarts, and if it isn't, it's usually because the music was dialed out!
My guess is that Williams scored a cut where Filch's cat didn't begin to follow Harry. Maybe Harry nearly bumped into Snape/Quirrel on his own (and note that the cat seems to suddenly disappear in the final cut). Here's a quick and dirty edit of what I think Williams was trying to underscore...
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZzCQJvEmp066iRyT8hnocEluinYzbomz
 
The actual movie tries to have three big crescendo moments with the music: when the cat follows Harry; when Snape reaches out for Harry; and when all the faculty leave the corridor at the end. The cue as written only has one. When you line it up with the third instance, the little quote of Harry's theme plays about when Snape grabs empty air, which makes sense to me and is way more fun than what they did in the final cut.

With the AFM it's a chicken-or-the-egg situation. For 25 years film score fans have been complaining about how prohibitive the AFM's new use fees are, but over that same period of time those royalties have been becoming more and more precious to the musicians. In 1999 Local 47 wages totaled almost $50 million and by 2013 that total had sunk to barely $15 million. For most musicians that's not livable, and so they get their most important paychecks through residuals. If even that isn't enough to make ends meet, you have little choice but to be a "scab" and hope the only people who hear about it are sympathetic.
 
Obviously the musicians don't like this whole development. And they don't like the AFM's leaders who are doing little/nothing to stay competitive with London, where most of the work is moving. LA is the only place asking for these high backend payments. Their justification is that they're some of the best musicians in the world, but that's not a realistic appeal to a producer who only sees music as the thing which goes behind the dialogue/sfx. Why not save some cash and do it abroad?
 
Local 47 has tried in the past to experiment with a London-type "buyout" plan -- having much higher upfront wages in place of new use royalties -- but once the AFM caught wind of that they shut it down. The musicians are very split about it and the leadership of the AFM (who have been winning elections unopposed for a decade now) only wants to keep the status quo.
 
Since all work shut down overnight in March that annual residuals check became so critical that AFM members got theirs a full month early. I'm sure at least a few people who thought a buyout clause was the best way forward are now thinking twice about removing new use entirely, because otherwise a lot of them would have been totally financially stranded.