MikeH

Interview with Newman and Williams: http://www.npr.org/2015/10/17/449417429/composer-thomas-newman-teams-with-spielberg-for-bridge-of-spies EDIT: whoops! didn't scroll up far enough!

More #JohnWilliams to the orchestra. We want to hear that modulation, heinous as it is!! https://twitter.com/JKMSlibrary/status/653269168343527424

Mine too. It's just so... unfair that he was taken so soon. Yeah, it still doesn't feel real.

Yes, looking forward to hearing the 33 and Southpaw. I still hold out hope that Romeo and Juliet might be released someday.

Here's an interview that Empire did two months ago-- not sure if it was published before today but this is the first time I've seen it. http://www.empireonline.com/interviews/interview.asp?IID=2049

When Titanic came out in 1997 I was 11. I saw it a good 5-6 times over the course of several months. For Christmas I got the CD and immediately went to my room and put it on my discman and listened for hours. The impact that score had on me at that age was enormous, although I wouldn't realize it until years later. Alongside Williams, James Horner ignited my love for music and is the reason why I became a composer. I always thought I might meet him someday. Utterly devastated.

Punch in the gut. A damn punch in the gut. Simply unreal.

My favorite Bond film and favorite Barry score. Doesn't get any better than this! I just watched it again a few nights ago. Blofeld says that the slip-up of mentioning the Augsburg Cathedrals is what gave Bond away, but does anyone feel like they knew way before that? Fraulein Bunt seemed like she knew something was up from the moment she picked him up at the station.

James just replied: This "good source" now says they might have been mistaken ... and that still only Mono elements have been found..... apologies for getting people excited ... but that i s why I decided against re-recording Dracula...now "who knows"

Peter Hackman (who works for Varese) just made this comment over at FSM. Guess it doesn't bode well for the quality of the elements that have already been found. James, PLEASE continue with the re-recording!!!

Yep. I asked James.

Nope. It's the complete conductor's score with every cue.

In the liner notes for Explorers Bruce Botnick talks about the process of recording them live. And then there's the session footage from ST:V and River Wild.

I don't think Supergirl was the last 'live' time for JG. The synths for Explorers, Star Trek V, and The River Wild were recorded in the room.

I wonder if John Adams has seen Jaws 2?

http://www.tonyhinnigan.com/movies.php#movies

Do tell! I enjoyed Tony Hinnigan's story from one of the Willow scoring sessions: James Horner had heard the score for "The Mission" and asked Mike Taylor and myself to play on "Willow", which had, at the time, the biggest ever music budget for a movie. On the first morning we began with a cue containing a nightmare solo in the heinous key of B Major. (For the uninitiated, that means a rather uncomfortable number of sharps). We only had one instrument between us on which it could be done - a somewhat dodgy cross-blown Bolivian flute. We tossed a coin for the dubious honour. Mike lost. The first run-through, predictably, didn't go that well. Audible sniggers were heard from members of the London Symphony Orchestra. James, to his eternal credit, tapped his baton on the stand and said "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a 120-piece orchestra here, two choirs, Alpine horns, anvils etc., etc., and these chaps with numerous bits of stick, some of which have holes bored in them. I have written the cue in the wrong key and that's my fault. If anyone thinks they can play any of these instruments better, please step forward". You could've heard a pin drop.

Terrific score. I don't know how many have seen the following interview with Don Davis from years ago, but I thought it provided some interesting insight into the scoring process. http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/07/17/interview-with-composer-don-davis-part-3-of-4 PLUME: On a side note to Horner, you worked with him on Titanic. There was a very famous rift between Horner and James Cameron after Aliens. Was any residual of that evident in what you observed between Horner and Cameron on Titanic? It was originally a falling out based on their differing views on the music for Aliens, wasn't it? DAVIS: No, I think it was a little more than that. It was music too, but Jim Cameron is a very tough guy to work for. Actually, I gained a lot of respect for Horner during Titanic, because Horner was accommodating Cameron in ways that I thought a composer the stature of Horner had no reason to accommodate anyone. He completely handled the situation with absolute humility and professionalism. I don't think there are very many composers who would have acquiesced to Jim Cameron the way Horner did. Horner gave Jim exactly what he wanted. I think there are some people who think that the Titanic score may be overly simplistic, or some people object to the Celtic nature of it, or whatever, but I can tell you that if any other composer had scored that picture, Jim would have fired him and at least four other composers before he got what he wanted. Horner was determined that that would not happen, and it didn't happen, and I think it was the best score that Jim would ever allow into that picture. For that reason, I think he deserves all the Academy Awards and accolades that he got. PLUME: I think that's a perspective that not very many people saw in that. DAVIS: Well, you kind-of had to be there to see it. I mean, it was magnificent. PLUME: It was surprising to a lot of people that Horner would even work with Cameron again after Aliens. DAVIS: I can't really say, because I wasn't there all that much. I would go to Horner's place, pick up the sketches, he'd talk me through them, I'd do them, and I was done. I do know that I made a lot of extra money on that show, because the picture kept changing and Cameron kept making changes, and as the sketches changed, they kept coming back to me to change the orchestration and I'd get more money. That was just fine as far as I was concerned. Through that process, I could see that he was accommodating this director. He was really bending over backwards to do everything that Jim wanted him to do. I couldn't picture a composer of the stature of John Williams doing that, well, maybe he would but there gets to be a point when it's too much. PLUME: Isn't it the job of the composer to conform to the director's view of the film? What line is there that demarcates when it's not worth the hassle? DAVIS: There are situations where directors give composers directives just to give them directives. Just to show "who's boss in this room." PLUME: Is it the film version of busy work? DAVIS: Sure. Go outside and dig a 20-foot hole and then fill it up again. Composers, whether they are or not, certainly like to view themselves as being creative and having a contribution to make to the process. There are some personalities, fortunately they are few, that seem to want to negate that. There's a point where it becomes too much of an insult to bear. If a composer is very highly successful, and James Horner certainly is, that means that he has to take less of that kind of abuse than a composer who is not of that stature. From my limited vantage point, it seemed like changes were coming in just for the sake of changes to come in, and I was wondering, as I was picking up these changed sketches, why Horner was going to such lengths to make this guy happy. Once the film came out, I understood perfectly. That's another tribute to James Horner, because he has not only an amazing visceral insight into what a film needs musically, but he knows how these situations work and he knows when to do something and when not to do something. You've got to hand it to the guy.

It had to have been The Towering Inferno or Jaws. Both on TV, of course. I'm instantly jealous of anyone who got to see Inferno in theaters on a huge screen.

I must admit I'm sorta fascinated by how Howard describes his initial working process. Just focusing on the relationships of the notes (counterpoint, harmony, melody) and not thinking instrumentally, orchestrally, or anything of the 'sound world'. I might have to try it sometime just to see what it's like. For me the orchestration is always conceived simultaneously with the composition.

Here's a nice interview with Sizemore: http://www.scorecastonline.com/2014/01/12/scorecast-41-james-sizemorethe-hobbit/ He creates his mockups from Howard's 4-line sketch.

Shore uses a 4-line sketch, and it seems to be more about broad-strokes. There's a recent interview with him on ClassicFM where he talks about how he doesn't think of the instruments as he's putting down the notes- meaning that for him his sketch is purely about notes and their relationship to one another. In his own words, he doesn't think 'orchestrally' when he's composing. So even though he's still sketching with pencil and paper, it seems to be quite different from JW's very specific way of sketching and orchestrating. http://www.classicfm.com/composers/shore/news/interview-hobbit-lord-of-the-rings/

I guess I was surrounded by a lot of JW music during my early years. Stuff like Jaws, The Poseidon Adventure, Home Alone, Hook. But as far as specific cues that made me sit up and really take notice I'd say both "Trapped Lovers" and "An Architect's Dream" from The Towering Inferno.

Are you thinking of the national anthem of Israel- Hatikvah (The Hope)?