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Yavar Moradi

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Everything posted by Yavar Moradi

  1. I’d be very surprised if it’s that little, but I admit I haven’t noticed any major omissions. Which is good! I just wanted to correct the record since I’ve seen a lot of people refer to these as complete score releases when they are not. Yavar
  2. I guess I'm a rare person who finds it too short and disjointed, with all of those album arrangements of themes mixed in with "real cues", and everything all jumbled up largely out of order and fragmented. I like a few highlights from that highlights album, but overall I far, FAR prefer the episode albums. Huh! I find a ton of his themes quite memorable and distinct. I can easily recall to mind the main love theme from Outlander, a later love theme for different characters, Frank's theme, the Druid theme, etc! It amazes me how many memorable and distinct themes he was able to create for The Rings of Power. This might still be my favorite McCreary theme though: (Or if you want more of it, for the 90 second opening sequence that should've been...) It's really funny that Galadriel's theme makes you think of sci-fi, because...well... I think I might actually prefer this, even though I love both! But my wife and I (we watch and enjoy both series, despite their flaws) have taken to calling it "Gaaladriel's Theme". 8 scores, one for each episode of RoP season 1. Most are under an hour I'm pretty sure. McCreary actually didn't include every cue. The albums are not complete & comprehensive and he still made some omissions for listening experience/flow purposes... but they are a MUCH better representation of the musical journey and development of thematic material. To me most of these are actually pretty distinct from each other. The constant action of the Episode 6 album is almost overwhelming in the best possible way. And the Episode 7 album is kinda the darkest, for the aftermath. Very compelling. Yavar
  3. Oh yeah, it's internet people's opinions about James f'ing Bond which make humanity irredeemable and deserving of meteor destruction. But wait, what about the "7 billion other normal people" who would also perish from your meteor, TolkienSS? Do they deserve death too, just like the heathens who want to wokify Bond? Yavar
  4. I'm sure that the back cover text will have the answer, after Intrada puts it up for ordering... Yavar
  5. I agree! Since you enjoyed both, you might find this conversation with composer Carlos Rafael Rivera of interest to you... we talk about The Queen's Gambit for at least half of it! https://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/6049561-odyssey-interviews-carlos-rafael-rivera Lots of insights into his work on this, including some really surprising revelations. If you listen, let me know what you think afterwards! Yavar
  6. Maybe give it a try in the short film itself, which I posted above from Vimeo? The crazy thing about Goldsmith is that you can almost pick any single year in his output, and since he was so prolific and varied in his output it'll demonstrate more range than most composers are able to demonstrate in an entire decade. I dunno...maybe if they got the great Chris Malone on the job he could do something. But I think the sound of the recording is due to it being done in Germany. I don't mind it but I can understand why some folks might long for a new recording of the score or something. Anyway, it is indeed still in print and readily available from Intrada themselves! https://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.5477/.f I guess it's possible they might do a revisit, since they did that (kinda under the radar) with The Sand Pebbles a year or two ago (fixing some wow on a couple of tracks using modern tech). "The Fire Dragon" is my favorite cue by far. Just some awesome writing, especially for trombones! But I confess that even though The 13th Warrior is maybe the more consistent listen all the way through, I think The Mummy is far greater, more varied and with stronger highlights. To me Damnation Alley is an equally great score for a much worse movie (apparently the book is far better, and fans of it were expecting a much better film adaptation than they received) than Star Trek V. But then I guess I like The Final Frontier more than most. For all its clunky parts, bad effects, and terrible treatment of the supporting cast... the treatment of the lead trio of Kirk/Spock/McCoy, for my money is the best out of all six TOS films! Glad you liked Leigh's mockup! Honestly don't think Jerry did "phone it in" on that score and I have a hard time fathoming why it appears to be one of Goldsmith's most-hated. The great Jeff Bond admires it even more than I do, considering it an absolutely perfect fit for the film. Yavar
  7. I really liked the movie! Although Michael Keaton's Batman and Sasha Calle's Supergirl arguably stole the show from the title character halfway into the flick... Yavar
  8. Honestly, I kinda agree. Only I love almost all the Jerry Goldsmith Vejur cues... It's the ten Fred Steiner cues (mostly Vejur-related) that drag the score down a bit in my estimation. Or rather, nine of them do... one of them I think is just as good as Goldsmith's work. And those nine cues aren't bad or anything! They fit in well enough with the Goldsmith (better than say the John Debney cues at the end of Looney Tunes do, IMO)... I can just tell they aren't at the same level of compelling genius as the rest of the score. I admit that I program most of them out on my common playlist for the score... and I'm usually a complete-scores-are-best kind of guy. It's for this reason that I actually prefer Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in complete form -- it's 100% Goldsmith brilliance from start to finish, with some amazing new themes brilliantly developed (even if the original Enterprise and Klingon themes from the first score get a bit Tom-and-Jerry in a couple cues...) I know. I was confused that you found the 12.5 minute score, which for me has a good deal of variety and excellent development of its thematic material, to be "too repetitive." Yavar
  9. To date, literally every Kickstarter campaign to re-record classic film music has successfully reached its goal...even the one that was cancelled shortly after that! Here they are in order: 1. The earliest campaign was run by James Fitzpatrick/Tadlow Music, to re-record John Barry's Moonraker complete. It successfully surpassed its goal of £25,000 from a whopping 617 backers shortly before being cancelled on January 20, 2015, only 10 days after it launched. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/681802762/moonraker-new-recording/ Here's the message James Fitzpatrick sent out to backers at the time: "It is with great regret that I have to cancel this Kickstarter project before any funds are taken. Certain rights issues have been raised which might mean protracted negotiations with the companies involved which may well go beyond the end of the project. I would sincerely like to thank everyone for their involvement in the project and if negotiations are successful then I have the knowledge that there is a great demand for this title. Thank you for all your hard work." 2. The very first crowdfunded re-recording to actually happen was by James again, for Miklos Rozsa's King of Kings. It raised £44,382 from 342 backers compared with a £40,000 goal on January 4, 2018: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/681802762/king-of-kings-new-recording Apparently even that higher amount didn't end up covering half of the recording costs, but even going into the campaign James was upfront that he would be covering at least half of the costs himself. So this was unusual in only going to fans for a fraction of the cost of recording... fortunate, however, since the costs of re-recording King of Kings were understandably so high! If James had asked for the full amount up front (the equivalent of at least $100,000 today) as he did for Moonraker, this Kickstarter might well have failed. 3. Intrada's first campaign was for Dimitri Tiomkin's Dial M for Murder, in which 404 backers pledged $49,313 towards a $45,000 goal on September 16, 2018: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/129145902/dial-m-for-murder-film-score-recording I'll just note that around the halfway mark of the campaign, it still hadn't raised half of its goal. Many people predicted it wouldn't make it, but one large donor (perhaps the Tiomkin estate? I forget) caused a major jump in support and it still finished well over goal. But interestingly after this Intrada decided to start polling film music fans about what future re-recordings they were most interested in, rather than just picking a score and going with it... 4. Intrada's second campaign was for Jerry Goldsmith's Black Patch, which won 1st place in their original poll. Since that poll they had found the original recording of the suggested pairing, Face of a Fugitive... so instead they had Leigh Phillips reconstruct The Man by ear to still make it a twofer, since Black Patch wasn't much more than half an hour long. The pandemic resulted in this campaign being delayed, but it still managed to exceed its goal by more money (and a greater percentage) than either previous Kickstarter, reaching complete funding only two weeks in before the campaign was even halfway over! In the end 495 backers pledged $43,893 by September 5, 2021, compared with the modest goal of $38,000: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/129145902/black-patch-the-man-jerry-goldsmith-new-recording 5. Inspired by Intrada's success with early Goldsmith, Leigh Phillips then ran his own even more modest solo campaign to record "The Bar Mitzvah of Major Orlovsky", the composer's final original score for the General Electric Theater anthology TV series which he was able to reconstruct from an audio-only copy of the episode.. It funded in less than a week, so he then added the stretch goal of "Sarah's Laughter", another score for the series which only survived in written form. Ultimately, 154 backers pledged £4,638 by May 25, 2002 towards the goal of £2,800 (£3,600 including the stretch goal): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lpfilmmusic/the-bar-mitzvah-of-major-orlovsky-jerry-goldsmith/ 6. Intrada's third campaign followed a little while after that, this time for the 3rd place winner in their original poll, Bernard Herrmann's The Man Who Knew Too Much... only it wasn't the main score of the campaign! Due to its brevity (under half an hour long), Intrada selected a pairing for it of the 45-minute long (and larger orchestra) On Dangerous Ground, which constituted the primary goal of $50,000 for the campaign. To add on The Man Who Knew Too Much, an additional stretch goal of $10,000 bringing the total goal to $60,000 was stated at the very beginning. This made things rather interesting, because while funding success was more likely this way, it also risked leaving off the premiere score which was a much higher priority to most people! Luckily in the final day of the campaign it barely squeaked past the stretch goal amount, landing at $60,703 from 511 backers, a new record for Intrada, on July 6, 2022! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/129145902/on-dangerous-ground-the-man-who-knew-too-much-new-recordings/ 7. The second Jerry Goldsmith at The General Electric Theater campaign from Leigh Phillips to tackle two scores up-front ("Hitler's Secret" and "The Legend That Walks Like a Man") ended at 132 backers pledging £3,876 by December 28, 2022 towards the goal of £2,800 (this goal was considerably lower than the first campaign's goal for two scores because Leigh was applying the overage from that campaign towards this one, to make it more likely to happen): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lpfilmmusic/record-jerry-goldsmith-at-the-ge-theater-volumes-3-and-4/ (Since this campaign went over by more than £1,000, Leigh subsequently recorded the GE Theater score "The Last Dance" as "Volume 5" without running a campaign at all, supplementing that amount with a bit of his own personal money.) 8. Leigh Phillips's final Jerry Goldsmith at The General Electric Theater campaign tackled the remaining two extant Goldsmith scores for the series, "The Committeeman" and "My Dark Days" (the latter a two-part episode which meant the score required a full session on its own). When it reached the original funding goal of £4,700 at the one-week point, Leigh decided to turn the half-session for "The Committeeman" into a full session by adding the (similarly string-centered) library music score "Autumn Love" as an additional stretch goal bringing the total goal to €6300 (or whatever that was in British pounds at the time...right now that equates to ~£5,400). The stretch was passed with the campaign ultimately ending at £5,809 from 142 backers on November 5, 2023: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lpfilmmusic/record-jerry-goldsmith-at-the-ge-theater-volumes-6-and-7/ We now have two campaigns in process: Christopher Young's Nosferatu (54% of the $50,000 goal funded with 12 days to go... I'm pretty optimistic) and this Perseverance Records campaign to record James Horner's The Hand, The Dresser, and no less than seven(!!!) unheard concert works... that one stands at only 6% after 16 days so I'm a little less optimistic here since they set the extremely high goal of $128,900 off the bat! I'm hoping that if it fails, Perseverance will try again with a much more modest goal along the lines of Intrada's goal to record the two Herrmann scores. I think more people will be likely to join the campaign if it looks more likely to happen, and then if the goal is achieved Perseverance could add individual stretch goals for each of the concert works in turn, and record as many as there is extra funding to tackle. I don't know why they didn't think to do that from the beginning... or even set The Hand as the main goal and The Dresser as the first stretch goal. I don't think I'm missing anything, but let me know if there's something I've forgotten (I know Kritzerland has done some Indiegogo campaigns, and Lukas Kendall did a campaign for the sci-fi short film he directed, but I'm talking just about crowdfunding campaigns for new recordings of classic film music.) Yavar
  10. I don't think that's bad at all. I think it may end up being close, but past film music Kickstarters have been only a little over halfway to goal, with 12 days remaining, and still made it. In fact, Intrada's Dial M for Murder campaign was *less* than halfway to goal around this time, and it ended up going more than $4,000 *over* goal! We may just have to push and promote extra hard those last few days of the campaign... Yavar
  11. I just realized I never actually shared a link to our Soundtrack Spotlight episode in this thread! https://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/9149827-odyssey-soundtrack-spotlight-love-field-1992 It's only 44 minutes but covers a good amount of detail (with generous sound samples) from this very important expansion, so I highly recommend giving it a listen if you're on the fence. I think it's sold out from Varese's US store, but it is on their International store, and at a generous discount! https://intl.varesesarabande.com/products/jerry-goldsmith-love-field-deluxe-edition-cd/ Yavar
  12. My favorite Goldsmith score! The full short documentary film The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint, produced to precede roadshow presentations of The Agony and the Ecstasy (because otherwise it was considered too short of a film to qualify for "roadshow"), is available for viewing online through Vimeo, so you can appreciate its beauty in context: I'm pretty sure it's also included as a bonus feature on home video releases of The Agony and the Ecstasy. It has its own IMDb page though: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0191376/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2_tt_8_nm_0_q_artist%20who%20did%20not%20want Huh? It's like 12.5 minutes long! And it's got a good amount of material developed throughout, with each cue having a very different feel for the most part, even though there's a grand reprise. I posted it "twice" because there are two different recordings on album. My favorite is the 1989 London Symphony Orchestra recording produced by Intrada, but the original Hollywood recording is very good too, with a more intimate feel. Since it's my favorite Goldsmith score and very short, I simply shared both. (There's also a third version available unofficially, taken from a live concert performance... also good!) Yavar
  13. Ahem.... Damnation Alley would like a word: It wouldn't make my Goldsmith Top 50 by any means, but it's actually a really good score! I really dig the synth flute material heard in this cue and one other on the original album: That said I think this score in particular out of Jerry's three for all synths would be best served by a real orchestra recording. As someone on the FSM board pointed out, the other two scores Runaway and Alien Nation are both sci-fi, so they fit the all-synth soundscapes more naturally. But this is essentially a present-day noir, so imagine that synth flute played by a real flute, etc. Here's an exciting bit of action music from the score that Leigh mocked up for full orchestra; I think it translated extremely well! https://mega.nz/file/eyQVAZaA#UqwCtT_L9TCdzlLU7Ox0KxMwE6BwGADwgiCjKYun_Xo Yavar
  14. Short, yes, but sheer perfection: Or if you prefer the more intimate sounding original recording rather than the amazing London Symphony Orchestra recording from 1989… Yavar
  15. Agreed. I liked Lynch well enough in NTTD... but she was nothing compared to Ana de Armas. Can we have HER character back please? Nolan hasn't had anything to do with Bond so I'm not sure why you bring him up. But while he wouldn't be my first choice to return, I'd rather have another Zimmer/Mazzaro Bond score than another Thomas Newman one, even though I'm a much bigger Newman fan than Zimmer fan in general. But Newman never did a cue as good as this for Bond: Agreed here too... hopefully with David Arnold? I used to think The Mask of Zorro was amazing... it hasn't all aged as well as I'd have hoped. But I still really like it. Legend of Zorro is indeed mostly horrible (even though I love the Horner score even more than the original, and Catherine Zeta-Jones somehow looks even more beautiful in it than she did in the first). This I agree with 100%. Redeem that franchise by ending it on a high note rather than that terrible second entry. I'm sure Banderas can still kick plenty of ass as an older Zorro. Yavar
  16. I mean, hell, they had me at Louise Fletcher and CHRISTOPHER LLOYD ("as Frognose")! Yavar
  17. Oddly, Roger and Doug seem to be saying the same thing this time… someone added the following on Facebook: ”James Horner's first movie assignment—but certainly not the last from Intrada if we have anything to say about it...” Yavar
  18. I'm pretty sure my earliest Jerry Goldsmith-related memory is Dennis McCarthy's arrangement of his Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation. I remember getting excited by that music every time I would watch an episode of the series with my grandfather, around age six or seven, even though I later learned it was a pale echo of the original work. That said, my Persian father was really into old westerns and had a bunch he recorded off AMC or TCM or whatever in the 1980s onto VHS... and one of these was Black Patch (1957)! I ended up watching most of those old westerns as a kid so it's entirely possible that my first time hearing Jerry Goldsmith music was Jerry's very first original score for a feature film. I just don't have a conscious memory of it. The very first CD I ever owned was Star Trek: First Contact... a birthday present from my great uncle who kinda introduced me to the concept of film music being available on album, by playing Last of the Mohicans in his car. Yavar
  19. So… it’s honestly not just a half hour of that material, but I will sadly admit that the Varese album does focus much more on that material and only has a little bit of the great darker stuff that permeates the film. A Deluxe Edition release would do wonders in terms of reappraisal of this great score. If you view the film again and then revisit the Varese, you’ll notice giant chunks of musical story and development are missing. Yavar
  20. I concur with Thor; this score is a masterpiece which I grew up with. Unfortunately, the Varese album is only about half the score and leaves off a great deal of the darker material that I like better. But try this cue on for size, for something really lovely: Yavar
  21. Bad Girls wouldn't make it on my top 5 Goldsmith westerns list, but it might make the top 10. I agree it's really underrated. Lots of people seem to judge it on the syrupy 90s opening track rather than all the badass gritty action in it ("Ambush"!!!) which stands up proudly with all the western action music he was writing in the 60s and 70s IMO. Yavar
  22. Here's a grand tally and ranking taking all four places polled (here, FSM, Jerry Goldsmith Online, and "The Cult of Jerry" on Facebook) into account: FIRST PLACE: Pursuit/Crawlspace, with a whopping 72 people voting for it as their top choice! SECOND PLACE: the All-Synth "Trilogy", Orchestrated, with 56 THIRD PLACE: Jerry Goldsmith at The CBS Radio Workshop, with 48 Thriller Vol. 3 brings up the rear with only 23 people preferring it as their #1 choice... but that's still a healthy number of people, and it is impressive enough that it made it through the first round! Thanks to all for participating, and I'll just point out what Leigh himself said in the FSM thread for anyone who missed it: Lots of food for thought here, and good options (all with a lot of support) for what to tackle next. So if your own pick didn't win, don't assume it's never happening. (After all, CBS Radio Workshop scores have much smaller ensembles than the two options which beat it and that's always a factor to consider as well.) Yavar
  23. Here’s the accompanying text from Facebook when The Film Music Society shared the image this past December: “🎥🎶 Today would have been beloved composer ALEX NORTH’s 113th birthday. North was a pioneer of incorporating jazz into film music with some of the finest scores ever written. Among his many distinquished credits are A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, SPARTACUS, VIVA ZAPATA! THE RAINMAKER, CLEOPATRA, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, and UNCHAINED – the theme (“Unchained Melody”) for which is recognized as one of the most romantic ballads of all time. He was nominated for 15 Oscars and was the first composer to receive an Honorary Academy Award in 1986. 🎥🎶 A moment in film music history... On June 10, 1986, Alex North was celebrated by The Film Music Society with its distinguished Career Achievement Award. Presenters included John Green and David Raksin. Pictured here from that evening are (standing, L to R) Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Williams; (seated, L to R) Leonard Rosenman and Alex North.” Yavar
  24. Ah, got it. Yes, it would be great to have an actual produced-and-mastered album for this excellent score (which I actually prefer to any in Giacchino's trilogy...Seiter uses his theme in more interesting ways). I also wouldn't be at all surprised if the game rip omitted some music that was recorded. Yavar
  25. I'm pretty sure what I acquired was a game rip (taken from the actual game files somehow), not a promo. I was under the impression that it had made the rounds a decade ago. Yavar
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