karelm

I agree with you that part of me is sad to hear this but by all accounts, JW will not retire. This might mean he just won't score films, but I have no doubt that as long as he's around and capable, our Johnny will continue to create new music.

It was a fantastic theatrical experience. I love that film but need to see some of the others to decide if I root for it. Licorice Pizza just confuses me as to what kind of film it is.

I like 2010: The Year We Make Contact but find the music deeply uninspired especially considering its legacy with 2001. It sounded like tv sci-fi synths. I do like the brief orchestral moments but not the 80's synth stuff.

Do you think Avatar (2009) has held up well? It was on TV today and I loved watching it but didn't realize it was that old! I remember seeing it in theaters with what was mind blowing effects but seeing it today, it felt so "video gamish". The movie, score, and story are all great (if you can get over the Dances with Wolves storyline and just take in as a simplistic plot) but the effects seemed to need a major update. Disney's "The Mandalorian" and Apple's "Foundation" have greater sfx for about $10 million per episode compared to Avatar's $325 million budget (inflation adjusted). I get that technology has advanced but do you think the 2009 film holds up or does it need an update? I am ok with bad effects once you get in to the story (for example, I love 1960's Twilight Zone once you get in to this was early space age with lines like "that's a planet a million miles away" type of stuff and reused sfx from other films.

It's hard to imagine the score any other way but Basil and Horner would have done fantastic jobs but in a very different style. Sort of like imagining John Williams scoring Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) which he was in a running for. The Goldsmith score is fantastic but I'm sure JW's would have been as well and probably nothing like what Goldsmith did.

Woohoo! That's my friend, Joseph Rodriquez, on trombone! We performed together...he's a "stellar" performer and huge JW fan!

I loved it! I think this would work well as a "Space Suite" Since you are inviting criticism, it is a bit notey. I'd suggest this being a longer piece and half of it uses less notes. Like maybe just harmony plus texture for one minute before you bring in the melody. This is purely a stylistic comment though. Overall, I really like what you did.

Does anyone know who scored the trailer?

Downloaded. Thanks!!

Yes, and I own them too. What I'm referring to is on some cues, the horns are close mic'ed with lots of reverb added which does not make them sound far but close with a long reverb tail. We know the mic is a spot mic because there is such little blead from the other instruments as you'd get in decca tree where you would use spot mic to enhance, change volume somewhat, isolate or fill in some missing colors. I don't know why this is done on some cues and not others. For example, in the attached excerpt, the horns sound quite isolated. After a two second pause, I repeat only the left channel and you don't hear the horns at all (you can hear them, but they are barely heard, again showing this is more spot mic bleed then a room mic setup like the decca tree). So, horns are purely coming from the left and isolated, similarly the trombones are isolated but right. The effect is you are getting an unnatural "spot mic" sound with reverb and tight pans rather than a symphonic sound. It's possible this was done for practical reasons like this from a pickup take or maybe even recorded differently and was an edit using the best available source, but it would be better to use more room sound if it were available and a hint of spot rather than only spot as is heard here. If interested, I've attached a comparison from one of my works of the same passage from three perspectives. The first is spot mic only on the brass. So though the rest of the orchestra can't be heard, it's in there through mic blead only but you get a sense for what the horns sound like with close mic only...this is what we're getting in the Krull passage. After a two second pause, there is a tree only...this is what is heard right in the room with no spot mic. A much fuller, richer sound in the brass because the sound is more idiomatic. The third example is the combination of the two and the best overall version. You get the warmth and natural reverb of the room plus filling in some details from the spots but most of the heavy lifting is done from the room mic (the tree). Sound 2.mp3 Compare.mp3

I finished reading this score today. It's such a fantastic score. No danger motif! The scoring is so amazing. Lots of exotic and very precise instrumentation. Moments where there are 3 piccolos, other moments with 3 pianos. Sometimes a trio of D trumpets, other times Bb and C trumpets, etc. You just never see this level of precision and care on each phrase. Lots of extended techniques and synthesizers too but never doing the horrible 80's synth thing but very interestingly blended. The score is clearly modeled after Star Wars being quite motific with a hero theme, a princess/love interest theme, a villain theme (and chord), swashbuckling action, loads of fantasy and sci-fi tropes, etc. Interestingly, where SW had fantastical characters and settings, Lucas wanted a traditional score to help connect with audiences. In contrast, Krull had a more traditional setting (no space battles, horses instead of ships, etc) and Horner created an exotic score though still rooted in traditional thematic styles. For example, there are some chords (for the beast/black mountain) that I'm struggling to understand how to spell the chord other than "dense cluster". I even felt some of it sounded like Herrmann....not a rip but a tip of the hat. Notice in the clip below, the Horner trope of the Horner Riser at bar 76. This is used in many of his scores but here we get a bit of a "proto version" of it. You hear glimpses of it in ST2, here it is developed. In ST3 it is further enhanced. Very impressively done in Rocketeer, and also prominent in his concert overture, The Fourth Horsemen (aka Flight). I wish they would remix the OST though. Some tracks sound great, others have aged poorly. Stand out moments are Ride of the Firemares and Death of the Beast but there are so many other very memorable moments. One small point, it looks like Neumation Music referenced the sheet music and not the OST which doesn't always match. From reading the score while hearing it, the recorded music is superior to the originally written music IMHO. I'll assume these were changes made on the stand and not put back in the scores. They aren't significant but noticeable to picky listeners like me. Considering this score has millions of notes, this never gets in the way of "understanding" what is happening musically, just very minor nitpicks. It is like having the first edition of a Mahler Symphony. The current version has undergone changes, but they are almost entirely in very specific details, not major revisions. Truly a fantastic and ambitious score (arguably Horner's most ambitious since he had free reign with the mighty London Symphony at his disposable). I ADORE this score and finally having it even further enhances my appreciation of how great it was.

This is fantastic news! Dances is a masterpiece. I love passion project films. Like Martin Scorsese's "Silence", such a fantastic film. Plus these guys have a great sense of pacing and the use of music. I love the JNH suggestion.

Music editing is a different role than mixing. Sometimes it is the same person who does the mix and the edit, but in big budget films, you'll get specialists. Basically, editing will take the best moments from different takes and make them sound great and seamless. They will be "edited" together in to a cohesive whole. The mixer will adjust the levels of all the various mics mix together to make the edit sound even better. In professional editing software, you can edit all the mics without mixing them together. This is different from mastering. Mastering is making the mix work great in its final distributed form which can be headphones, high fidelity speakers, theaters, etc. For instance, a great mix might sound great in a theater but not be that great on headphones. The mastering will be more concerned with a general mix sounding great across various deviances. So, making it more CD/iPhone friendly is a mastering job, not mixers. A mixer will take 48 microphones to produce a greater final product, but it still needs mastering to work best on lo-fi headphones, car speakers, high-fidelity too. These are three separate talents. In high buget projects, you'll get experts in each of those. In film production, think about film editor, color correction, and developer. Very different roles. The editor will slice the various scenes and cuts to make a smooth and cohesive experience (music editor). The color corrector won't really have anything to do with the edit but will take the final edit and add a color that supports the story (the mixer). The film developer will get the movie ready for distribution across various formats like theaters, tv, computers, iPhone (mastering). Ideally, you have specialists in these roles but in lower budget projects, the composer might have to fill in these roles as best they can.

Just that it was scored for large orchestra (standard Star Wars orchestra) with winds in 3 (plus auxiliary winds like piccolo, english horn, bass clarinet, contrabassoon), 6 horns, 3 trumpets 4 trombones, tuba, timpani 5-6 percussionists, harp, piano, and strings. There was an "Imperial orchestra" and "rebel orchestra" with slightly different instrumentation. I don't know how many sessions they did but that we were working hard on the deadline for scoring which was 10 years ago now I guess but don't know how much music was recorded in total, just what I worked on.

Especially since it was like 3 years in to the development. Which pretty much means the game is done and they're fine-tuning game play and testing but that takes another year or so. More info from John Rodd's website: "I did a bunch of work on Star Wars 1313. I was brought into LucasArts to meet with the animators and the chief art director. It was awesome seeing all of the concept art of what it was going to be: dark, underground, and edgy. I then flew to Abbey Road to record the orchestra before mixing it in my own studio. It would have been a really great game, if it hadn't been canceled when The Walt Disney Company bought out LucasArts. But, in terms of orchestras in film scores and games, you can do a classical style where it's set back and roomy. But that's not necessarily going to work well with sound effects, jets, and explosions. For me, part of the fun is balancing the room mics and getting it to sound big that way, but also using spot mics for detail. Not messing up the bigness, but just adding some presence. Abbey Road's big room has a long reverb, but with some careful work I can add some presence to the score. Then, of course, there are all of the virtual instruments. You want them to coexist, but not necessarily at the same distance because things can be closer or farther away. It's really fun sculpting." What could have been.

Some of you might enjoy seeing some footage from Star Wars 1313, the cancelled game that was long in development when it was cancelled after the sale to Disney. I was part of the music team. From dot esports: "Star Wars: 1313 was an unreleased title that looked like it could’ve been one of the best Star Wars games of all time. An E3 trailer in 2013 gave fans their first look at the title, showing two characters descending to level 1313 beneath Coruscant and fighting off an enemy ship. The gameplay included cover-based combat, a short hand-to-hand segment, and a parkour section on the outside of a burning ship. The game was still early in development, but it looked incredible. The game was canceled when Disney purchased Lucasfilm and shut down the video game section of the business, LucasArts, in 2013. Fans everywhere were disappointed that they’d never experience the exciting game. New footage showing Boba Fett in action in 1313 has reignited the pain for some players, salting the wound almost 10 years later. It’s unlikely 1313 will ever come to fruition at this point and fans will be stuck wondering what could’ve been."

Yes, it's fully notated. Then mocked up. I would add mock up is still in progress. Hence just an excerpt. I forgot to mention that I played in multiple parts such as vibraphone and such. Just to give it what I hope is more life. I know I'm forgetting stuff so take this as general summary. Part of it is that I'm so picky so might use muted instruments from one library but lyrical instruments from a different library. Some I loaded and used then didn't end up using so it gets hard to remember what is in the final mix. I can't remember what library I used for the bowed crotales because I loaded EW Opus, Sams, Cinesamples and tried them all but forget where I landed. I just don't know if I used any of them because they all had different issues. I used Cineharps too.

Thanks man! It's loads of libraries. Berlin Winds, Spitfire BBC Symphony, Cinesamples brass and percussion, Spitfire strings (not BBC strings), etc. Organ is Spitfire organ, the blowing is me recording myself (I'm a brass player), liquidsonics reverb, there are specialty percussion too - I forgot the bells and other instruments but let me know if you really want to know but it was a bells only library type of thing. I got those percussion instrument specific library for several instruments. Also true strike is used alot.

This is probably the darkest work I've composed. Loudness warning! This is from the final minutes of a 25 minute orchestral work that was just bleak throughout, I guess I was working through some inner demons. Scored for large orchestra and organ. I composed it in 2011, revised it in 2015 and again in 2022 (just now), greatly expanding on it. Hopefully I'm done with it. A Vision from the Waters (end) - Clyp

Is Star Trek Picard any good? Season 3 trailer looks very good but I never got in to the show, worth watching?

Futurama is fantastic. Great sci-fi, funny, excellent characters.

I am so far behind and just now realizing "Friends" is so damn funny. I am lame. I've never watched an episode before and assume in 10 years from now, I'll discover Big Bang Theory is hilarious.

I think WotW. The only thing I wish it had was a Barry's Abduction sort of cue because it sort of reminds me of the first half of CEOTTK without the second half but never delving as dark and demented as Barry's Abduction. Which comes back to why CE is his greatest single score range wise. Seriously, what other score has the expressive and stylistic range in a single score by ANY composer? It is like a 14 hour Wagner opera in 70 minutes. Though other scores might have greater or more memorable melodies or particular emotions (sense of joy), where else do you get this range from mystery, fear, darkness, dreaminess, different type of mystery, awe and wonder in a single score from anyone ever?

Would I be breaking the rules of this thread by suggesting a non-score work like his early jazz music such as this? I find his style to be filled with bittersweetness. Part of the dominant 7th that he uses so often in his harmonies is that the dominant seventh chords contain dissonance between some of the intervals. For example, in Superman, a very melodic score, there are tons of major and minor 7th chords, and 6th chords. To me, these introduce bittersweet elements because you don't get pure major harmonies, you get dissonance and frequently. It's part of his style. It's all over Star Wars for example. This adds much more interesting colors and flair to his music because of the rich harmonies but it also gives his scores a somewhat bittersweet feel (like the lovely soft music in Jaws). I love that quality and complexity in his music but that makes it difficult to find a score that doesn't have some element of this jazzy bittersweetness. You might have to look for his earlier pure jazz stuff. I don't think he's full of angst who would write in full on clusters like early Penderecki or Ligeti, but rather there isn't really lightness in him...he's complex. Like an aged wine that operates on many levels, anything someone sees as "light" from his music, probably has some underlying sophistication and complexity. It probably isn't what it seems. Superman Theme by John Williams Chords, Melody, and Music Theory Analysis - Hooktheory

This score is fantastic and really deserves more love. I think it forms a sort of quasi sci-fi/fantasy trilogy in Horner's early oeuvre which includes Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Krull, and Willow...each of which are masterpieces. Don't get me wrong, there are other significant early scores like Aliens, Field of Dreams, Cocoon, and Glory, etc., but those are different genres. Similarly, Horner revisits the genre later in his career like in Avatar, but that is late era Horner. I lump Khan out of pure sci-fi and more in allegory like Moby Dick (it just happens to take place in outer space, but Horner brilliantly makes this a fantasy sea faring score with countless naval allusions). Krull is arguably Horner at his most Star Wars/swashbuckling vein. I am so thrilled to finally own this score; it makes me want to revisit the film and remember the memories of seeing it in a theater all those years ago. I think this would be a score well served by live to picture since the score is 90% of the film experience.