Jump to content

The Worst thing that ever happened in film music


AI

what is worse?  

40 members have voted

  1. 1. can you even decide

    • Mediaventures
      23
    • Santalolalla
      17


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 84
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Where is "non-linear film editing systems" option? There wouldn't even be even a need for MV and their way of manufacturing of a score-like products if these didn't appear. Damn you once again, George Lucas! :lol:

Karol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This poll is stupid!

Quoted for immense truth value.  

Where is "non-linear film editing systems" option? There wouldn't even be even a need for MV and their way of manufacturing of a score-like products if these didn't appear. Damn you once again, George Lucas!

The factory method of film music was around since the 20s and into the 70s. Some of the greatest film scores were products of the factory model of film music. The deception was, only one person took credit in that system for the final product, now the system allows nobodies to make a name for themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Media Ventures has negitavley influenced the whole film music industry. Santonella has gotten chucked a couple of gold statues but hasn't show any influence yet. Easy answer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MV was the begining and Santaolla is just another in the long line of current people who think they can compose musical scores.

This poll is no more stupid than most of the stuff we all post here, but as they say, one man's crap is another man's gold.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still don't get why everyone hates MV so much. Sure, it's not nearly as musically intricate as John Williams, but it's just fun music. And MV really excels in action sequences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the other hand it gives opportunity to people who could not otherwise make it into an ultra-stagnant and elitist field of Hollywood.  

MV reduced film music to a product

Oh brother.  No aspect of Hollywood isn't a product.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are correct of course. But MV removes what little artistry there was left.

Are Stanze di Raffaello any less art because Raphael had assistants working on them with him?  

Is the opening shot of A New Hope any less aritstically amazing because 8 people worked on it, and it was based off work from 2001?

Ironic isn't it...how Goldsmith, Williams...Herrmann, all our beloved heroes were products of the factory system. You could only write all of your own music if you were someone like Rozsa back in the day. Otherwise you were working with 30 other people for one movie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MV reduced film music to a product, by taking away the artistic or the artisan aspact of it.

I frankly don't car how it was made, just how it sounds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyone that doesn't use live recordings ticks me off a little. At least Santaolla records his guitar stuff live (of himself...). Media Ventures is on contract to use a few live musicians, but I don't like the way it's made, the style of the music, or the artistry involved. It just doesn't appeal to me. The way they use orchestral samplers sometimes, they might as well get a rock band to score the film. Doesn't mean the music sucks, I just don't think it should be considered film score music.

~JW

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are correct of course. But MV removes what little artistry there was left.

Are Stanze di Raffaello any less art because Raphael had assistants working on them with him?  

Is the opening shot of A New Hope any less aritstically amazing because 8 people worked on it, and it was based off work from 2001?

Ironic isn't it...how Goldsmith, Williams...Herrmann, all our beloved heroes were products of the factory system. You could only write all of your own music if you were someone like Rozsa back in the day. Otherwise you were working with 30 other people for one movie.

There were always many composers in both A and B movies who worked alone, with orchestrators. It has always been preferable, and IMO more artistically valid. Some people were even fast enough to write it all out in full conductor's score. It isn't that hard to compose a score alone. You need a team to do special effects. You don't need a team to compose a score. The fact that Hollywood employs orchestrators doesn't make that a factory product. A factory product is POTC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ironic isn't it...how Goldsmith, Williams...Herrmann, all our beloved heroes were products of the factory system. You could only write all of your own music if you were someone like Rozsa back in the day. Otherwise you were working with 30 other people for one movie.

At least their music was actually good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The factory method of film music was around since the 20s and into the 70s. Some of the greatest film scores were products of the factory model of film music. The deception was, only one person took credit in that system for the final product, now the system allows nobodies to make a name for themselves.

I didn't say that it wasn't there before. What I mean is that because of the advanced technology in movie making there is far too little time to score a film. Now you can have three cuts of the same film at once. Too many options and too little thought put into each one of them. And film composer is in the middle of that, trying to follow impossible directions. That's why things like MV even exist (the philosophy of working, not the style itself). And you can't say that it is the same as before.

Karol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The factory method of film music was around since the 20s and into the 70s. Some of the greatest film scores were products of the factory model of film music. The deception was, only one person took credit in that system for the final product, now the system allows nobodies to make a name for themselves.

I didn't say that it wasn't there before. What I mean is that because of the advanced technology in movie making there is far too little time to score a film. Now you can have three cuts of the same film at once. Too many options and too little thought put into each one of them. And film composer is in the middle of that, trying to follow impossible directions. That's why things like MV even exist (the philosophy of working, not the style itself). And you can't say that it is the same as before.

Karol

Your argument there still doesn't incriminate MV as the worst thing to happen to film music, and your first post agress with that.

The worst thing to ever happen to film music according to your arugment above is the road filmmaking is taking, not Media Ventures.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MV reduced film music to a product, by taking away the artistic or the artisan aspact of it.

False. Beauty (art) is in the eye of the beholder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not voting for any of them.

Regarding Gustavo -why should it not be called appropriate film music when a guiarist delivers his guitar music at request of a director who wants such kind of score in his movie? It is still MUSIC and it works when accompanies the action on screen and enhances the emotion of the audience.

Regarding MV - It is pure craftmanship and often not of very good quality - all that is true. It doesn't however differ much from everything else that is unfortunatelly common in the film industry thesedays (I mean bad scriptwriting, directing, acting, photographing and so on). Whenever a director and producer require a music that just has to be written in a week, they get crap. On the other hand, when they take any of MVrelated composers and require a score that is something more than their usual standard, this composer can surprisingly deliver it. MV has already discovered people like Gregson-Williams and John Powell (and even Badelt has once or twice proved he is really underrated). Despite the mediocre quality of many of MV (now Remote Control) products, this company has given an unique chance to many young upstarts to learn and practice, and just because of that I could't make myself call it 'the worst thing...' (even though many of those guys will never achieve anything more than 'additional composer credit' in one of HZ scores).

Last but not least - I really like some of the works from the MV.

Regarding modern editing tools - it is the same thing like with hammer - an useful tool in the hand of an idiot becomes a real threat :blink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

False. Beauty (art) is in the eye of the beholder.

Rubbish, with that philosophy in mind you can defend anything!

Aren't you the one who said a while ago that there are no absolutes? You can't have it both ways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mediaventures reminds me of the 60's group The Monkees. They're completely fabricated, but people still love them.

I don't hate either of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

False. Beauty (art) is in the eye of the beholder.

Rubbish, with that philosophy in mind you can defend anything!

Correct. There's room for two absolutes in this world (death and taxes), and "MediaVentures sucks" isn't one of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not an art person so I really don't like to make these kinds of comments, but it feels appropriate here so I'm gonna give it a try: Williams, Goldsmith, all the legends paint a beautiful picture with care and devotion. MV chucks a couple of cans of paint on a canvas and calls it a painting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with the basis of what you're saying, but I still think that's being a bit stereotypical. I've heard a lot of scores come from MV which have clearly had some thought go into them - Gladiator, Flyboys to name a few.

Is it the fact that they are 100% synth writers? Well plenty of non-MV composers write with synths yet we don't bash them. And most composers are under schedules you can count in weeks on one hand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not an art person so I really don't like to make these kinds of comments, but it feels appropriate here so I'm gonna give it a try: Williams, Goldsmith, all the legends paint a beautiful picture with care and devotion. MV chucks a couple of cans of paint on a canvas and calls it a painting.

Opinion, not a fact. Therefore not an absolute. Williams scores a film, you enjoy it. MV scores a film, you don't enjoy it. End of story. This has nothing to do with "the worst thing that ever happened in film music." That honor would belong to George Lucas and Ben Burtt's editing of the music in the prequel trilogy. THAT is the worst thing that has ever happened in film music.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hans Zimmer (I'm not sure about MediaVentures) tactic as a whole seems to be a lot of experimentation and then finding something that works.  So I guess in a sense he is painting (he is not chucking cans of paint at a canvas) multiple understudies and picking the ones that work best. 

Does that make him any less an artist?

Leonardo Da Vinci did it.  

Bondo

Sounds like a deconstructionist to me. Do you also believe that a telephone book could be a greater piece of literature than the complete works of Shakespeare?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like a deconstructionist to me. Do you also believe that a telephone book could be a greater piece of literature than the complete works of Shakespeare?

I understand that you're trying to make an analogy, but it doesn't work. A telephone book is not intended to have any artistic merit, whereas Shakespeare does. And if it WERE to have artistic merit, who is to say that one is better than the other? Again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is all one big moot point. We can argue this in circles. When it comes to film music, or music in general, there is no such thing as "better" or "worse" when dealing with facts.

This thread basically posed a ridiculously biased question and set up a discussion to bash the two choices in the 'poll.' As someone else said, it's stupid. This is not a productive thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is substantial group of people out there who believe that Williams John is the worst thing that ever happened to film music.

I'm sure most of those people wouldn't even be film score fans if it wasn't for Williams.

Ray Barnsbury

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your argument there still doesn't incriminate MV as the worst thing to happen to film music, and your first post agress with that.

The worst thing to ever happen to film music according to your arugment above is the road filmmaking is taking, not Media Ventures.  

Yes, that's why I didn't vote. Neither of the two is the REAL problem.

Karol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MV is completely innocent. They are hired to do a score, and they do it. This whole business of all MV scores sounding alike is utter nonsense. If Pirates of the Caribbean sounds like The Rock, Gladiator, and Drop Zone, it's because that's what the director/producers wanted. But the evidence speaks for itself - Black Hawk Down doesn't sound like Gladiator, which doesn't sound like Kingdom of Heaven, which doesn't sound like Pirates, etc. To claim otherwise is just ignorance of the material itself.

Again, you either LIKE IT or you DON'T. It's very simple.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Neither of the two is the REAL problem.

The real problem? Any problem in this matter is purely subjective. Things not being done the way we wish they were anymore. In that sense, our denial of that situation is what's creating the real problem. I'm sure neither Ridley Scott nor Ron Howard don't consider the scores to Black Hawk Down or A Beautiful Mind a problem. Nor do most people who aren't us.

So we can bitch and complain and moan and be as sarcastic as we want, but that doesn't make us right. It'd be like complaining that the Arctic Monkeys don't sound like the Rolling Stones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Film scores composed by former members of Media Ventures dominate the field of film music today. Zimmer and crew often outsell composers like John Williams, and are much more popular. I find most Media Ventures music incredibly trite, dull, and sensationalist.

Santaloalla? He won a couple of Oscars, but he's hardly the preeminent film composer of today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whoever said this was a dumb poll deserves a hug.

I got nothing new to bring to the table, and frankly, no one else does either. As the wise bondo posted earlier, "you either LIKE IT or you DON'T. It's very simple." That's really all it comes down to. There are perfectly legitimate objections to both MV and Santa-whatshisface, but all this moralistic quarreling is dumb. Every listener reserves the right to have guilty pleasures and not be hated for them. I, personally, own several MV-style albums. Some months, I listen to them frequently. Other months, I can't stand more than a couple seconds. I can relate to both crowds. But when absolute rights and wrongs become part of the discussion, something's gone awry.

Give it up. Enjoy the music you enjoy. Don't worry about the music you don't. Smile! :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The worst thing that ever happened in film music is, without a doubt, shortening post production schedules, or, in general, a composer having less time to compose music. That lead to less creativity, and also lead to the rising amount of rejected film scores.

I think it quite ridicules to blame any given composers (especially ones, like the one's mentioned above, who generally write good film scores, if not good music.).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.