neumation

We worked on a massive Steiner score but the book is part of a larger project that has been in limbo. We wanted to publish some Alfred Newman scores, but Newman repertoire is on hold at the moment for reasons we hope to clarify in the near future. In time, Neumation will cover a lot of ground with the Golden Age.

There have been some weird, atypical delays with this project. The engraving is done and proofreading is on-going, it’s just slow af. It may still come this year.

THEM was a very special project for us. It’s truly amongst the most rich and intelligent compositions of the Hollywood Golden Age—I think studying this one will keep people busy. Kaper was such an under appreciated composer. We may consider publishing LORD JIM at some point down the road. We are tentatively planning a webinar for those who want to dig deeper into THEM later this year. We hope to have THEM hit the printer, then quickly after that THE MUMMY, which is waiting on one small detail. Following those titles are two scores from Brooksfilms productions (in one book) and a Japanese score by a historically important composer.

Correct. As much as I would like to find this, Kaun’s FRANKENSTEIN cue has a 95% chance of being one of the few scores on the “it does not exist, will not be found, and will not be forthcoming” list. There is a reconstruction, but the originals were likely discarded by Universal in the 1950’s.

Neumation is still quietly hard at work. We have been bogged down proofreading two massive scores and a third that is smaller, though rather complex. We don’t want to disclose more titles until these three are shipping. Spider-Man 2 has been the most voluminous project we worked on (900 pages including numerous revised cues) and it was setback a year. We will ideally have 6 books for 2025 and more preservation projects (in addition to the on-going Les Baxter preservation work). We may be quiet, but I assure you we are busier than ever.

Spider-Man 2 is being proofread which is quite a chore for it being 900 pages. Looks like spring, following Goldsmith’s The Mummy and Bronislaw Kaper’s THEM! We are using a far nicer, 70lb matte paper. There were supplier issues with Beetlejuice, and to a lesser extent For Your Eyes Only, that were out of our control and quite disappointing. Goonies, Twilight Zone, Last Valley, The Passions, and everything forthcoming is on new 70lb.

We are preparing a second edition, so I appreciate you pointing out this omission. There were discrepancies between podium changes heard on the CD and the manuscripts/parts. These will be fixed in Krull 2.0 for 2025. We are planning a substantial discount program so everyone who bought version 1.0 can get 2.0 and know what was changed without paying anywhere close to full price a second time. Feel free to email and share any errata you catch or suggestions for changes: info@neumation-music.com

It’s printing. June release. Finally. Jewels of the Sea is in the works as the next Baxter release. House of Usher might follow.

No, we don’t seal the books with shrink wrap. It was a deliberate choice to avoid contributing to plastic waste. Which is also why we use recyclable shipping packaging. It will be ready when it’s ready. It is a 900 page manuscript and has very dense orchestrations, very laborious to engrave.

That’s in the works

We will never publish transcriptions, an original manuscript is a requirement for all of our publications. The Nic Raine transcription is more of a reimagining of the score than it is an accurate representation of what Barry actually wrote.

It’s not ideal, but they have moved in the right direction for accessibility. For awhile, it was impossible to get copies. It’s a great benefit to film music scholarship to have even meh quality copies, given how short staffed they are. The other university across town should take a leaf from UCLA in that regard…

They won’t copy a complete score for free and the copies they provide aren’t very high quality—they are iPhone pics.

Not quite that “lesser known.” Lol. I’ve honestly not heard these and don’t know how much commercial potential there is. That’s not a no, but they wouldn’t be high priority projects unless someone collaborated with us on the production.

We have a 1970s title coming up. And at least one 1960s title planned. Perhaps a 1980s title, too. I’m a big Barry fan so plenty of love will come his way from Neumation. After release of our announced batch, Neumation will focus primarily on smaller, lesser known scores: Mandel, Hopkins, Kaper, Safan, 60s TV music etc. It may be more accurate to say, titles that are historically important, but not blockbusters. That repertoire is well covered. There is much more variety outside of blockbuster Hollywood music. Oh, never assume. Heh. This is less of an issue for Neumation, though several publishers recently sold the print rights which has been a hurdle and will possibly cause complications down the road.