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The orchestration of Jurassic Park


Quintus

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100 percent John Williams, aside from Physical evidence, it is easier to hear it in the caliber of the music, no one else could have written those scores. The person is posted that is an idiot.

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Dunno man,

I'm on the fence about this orchestrator/copyist business.

If all they do is just copy then how come Williams' sound changed around the time when Herbert Spencer got ill and couldn't work on Williams' scores?

Just wondering

I personally find the orchestrations bland nowadays-Excluding Harry Potter 1+2 (compared with the classic era).

Williams later sound can be heard as early as in SpaceCamp.

I haven't got this one. Fair enough if this is the case. I'm just a bit skeptical about it all.

No way he just writes the main parts and then somebody 'fills in the rest'.

But orchestration from others has to play some part somewhere on the texture of the final thing even if most of the music is written by Williams.

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No way he just writes the main parts and then somebody 'fills in the rest'.

That is correct - No way.

But orchestration from others has to play some part somewhere on the texture of the final thing even if most of the music is written by Williams.

Not really. All of the details, textural and otherwise are provided in his sketches.

I'm sure that anyone who understands the basic principles of orchestration could render a piece from one of Williams' sketches and have it pretty much identical to any of the finished works that we all know.

Most of the music isn't written by Williams, all of it is.

Of course, I have heard of some ghost writing exceptions before anyone gets a twinge in their undies :(

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No way he just writes the main parts and then somebody 'fills in the rest'.

That is correct - No way.

But orchestration from others has to play some part somewhere on the texture of the final thing even if most of the music is written by Williams.

Not really. All of the details, textural and otherwise are provided in his sketches.

I'm sure that anyone who understands the basic principles of orchestration could render a piece from one of Williams' sketches and have it pretty much identical to any of the finished works that we all know.

Most of the music isn't written by Williams, all of it is.

Of course, I have heard of some ghost writing exceptions before anyone gets a twinge in their undies :(

Now do have proof of cues ghost-written for JW? I'm curious, I have't heard about this before.

Smilies are for those who need to be explained everything

and non-Germanic language speaking members...

Excuse me? Dutch is as much a German language as is English, my friend!

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Now do have proof of cues ghost-written for JW? I'm curious, I have't heard about this before.

To be honest it's only something that I've read on here, I think the score in question was ROTJ, maybe the Rancor fight??

I can't remember exactly.

I don't know if it is true, I just mentioned it before somebody else got too excited and well......you can imagine.

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Fred Steiner has said the he worked as a ghost-writer on RoTJ.

Ah, cool - can you remember where you read it man?

One of his books, online? I'd like to check that out.

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He may have 'composed' in a Thorne way the scene where The Executor is destroyed, AKA, Tie fighter attack from ANH.

Smilies are for those who need to be explained everything

and non-Germanic language speaking members...

Excuse me? Dutch is as much a German language as is English, my friend!

Exactly what i said, since from his statement, Stefan clearly doesnt need them.

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He may have 'composed' in a Thorne way the scene where The Executor is destroyed, AKA, Tie fighter attack from ANH.

Yes, either that or the film version of "Sail Barge Assault."

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Fred Steiner has said the he worked as a ghost-writer on RoTJ.

Ah, cool - can you remember where you read it man?

One of his books, online? I'd like to check that out.

Sorry, I really don't rememer the source. Probably an FSM thread (although a number of unreliable online sources, like imdb, mention it as well).

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Yes, I believe I started a poll on that same subject, as to what cues Williams actually wrote or were ghostwritten.... :lol:

But it was John Morgan who mentioned it over at FSM and several members here, if the memory is correct, got all bent out of shape over it.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

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According to John Morgan, yes.

It is certainly possible, ROTJ is a very long score.

So if someone said few cues from LOTR were ghostwritten..you would be eager to believe it? :lol:

Staying on topic, Is John Morgan reliable?

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John Morgan produced some very well respected rereordings of golden age scores.

The LOTR scores were written over a far greater period of time, Manuel.

1-OK

2-Always turning the tables so you dont have to answer the question :lol:

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Sorry, I really don't rememer the source. Probably an FSM thread (although a number of unreliable online sources, like imdb, mention it as well).

No worries, cheers man.

I had a look on the imdb and for ROTJ it lists -

Herbert W. Spencer .... orchestrator

Fred Steiner .... composer: additional music (uncredited)

Thomas Newman .... orchestrator (uncredited)

He may have 'composed' in a Thorne way the scene where The Executor is destroyed, AKA, Tie fighter attack from ANH.
Yes, either that or the film version of "Sail Barge Assault."

Those pieces certainly make the most sense because I just don't imagine Williams would be happy enough to just repeat those pieces as they originally sounded in SW to how they are heard in ROTJ, almost identical, slight orchestration differences but pretty much the same.

Was this at the request of Lucas??

If Steiner did work on those cues, I wonder if he had any involvement in the orignal music those pieces are wrapped in or did he basically take some of Williams' new material and worked the other pieces into that.

As we know, Williams had wrote an original Sail Barge cue, so when asked to rescore it perhaps he thought,

F*** it, Fred! Do me a favour mate......

Another name that popped up quite a bit was Angela Morley.

Here is what she is 'credited' with -

Schindler's List (additional orchestrator) (uncredited) (orchestrator) (uncredited)

Home Alone 2 (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

Hook (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

Home Alone (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

E.T. (additional orchestrator) (uncredited) (composer: additional music) (uncredited)

The Empire Strikes Back (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

Superman (additional orchestrator) (uncredited) - (which we now know for sure thanks to The Blue Box)

Star Wars (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

About the additional composer credit mentioned above for E.T., I read on another forum a post by Erik Woods saying that he's been told that she wrote the 10 note motif from The Chase cue.

At first I thought of the 10 note motif we first hear at the start of the film played by the piccolo, the one weaved throughout the film until its big brassy finale as the ship takes off.

I think the one he obviously means though is the 9/10 note brass motif that kicks in just after the repeated flurry that starts The Chase/Adventures on Earth ( concert version ).

I'd love to have more concrete info on all this.

Anyway, who knows? Who cares?

Damn it - I'm missing LOST !

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About orchestrations , You remember the famous words by Andre Previn : " a guy gave a few stave sketch to an orchestrator , who came back few minutes after, once the music was performed by orchestra, the composer said : Do have I composed this ???" So... In some case orchestrator are more than copists , Personnaly since Herbert Spencer passed away, John Williams isn't the same ...Another example Cocoon sounds Williams , 2010 sounds Williams , Return to OZ sounds Williams in both case Herbert Spencer did orchestrate the scores...

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Maybe. I think evolving recording techniques had a major hand in the change in Williams's sound.

Exactly my thought too. Although the smooth sound of the 1993 and later JW scores (orchestrated by Neufeld) is exactly found in scores like The Santa Claus (also orchestrated by John Neufeld).

Sorry, I really don't rememer the source. Probably an FSM thread (although a number of unreliable online sources, like imdb, mention it as well).

No worries, cheers man.

I had a look on the imdb and for ROTJ it lists -

Herbert W. Spencer .... orchestrator

Fred Steiner .... composer: additional music (uncredited)

Thomas Newman .... orchestrator (uncredited)

He may have 'composed' in a Thorne way the scene where The Executor is destroyed, AKA, Tie fighter attack from ANH.
Yes, either that or the film version of "Sail Barge Assault."

Those pieces certainly make the most sense because I just don't imagine Williams would be happy enough to just repeat those pieces as they originally sounded in SW to how they are heard in ROTJ, almost identical, slight orchestration differences but pretty much the same.

Was this at the request of Lucas??

If Steiner did work on those cues, I wonder if he had any involvement in the orignal music those pieces are wrapped in or did he basically take some of Williams' new material and worked the other pieces into that.

As we know, Williams had wrote an original Sail Barge cue, so when asked to rescore it perhaps he thought,

F*** it, Fred! Do me a favour mate......

Another name that popped up quite a bit was Angela Morley.

Here is what she is 'credited' with -

Schindler's List (additional orchestrator) (uncredited) (orchestrator) (uncredited)

Home Alone 2 (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

Hook (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

Home Alone (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

E.T. (additional orchestrator) (uncredited) (composer: additional music) (uncredited)

The Empire Strikes Back (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

Superman (additional orchestrator) (uncredited) - (which we now know for sure thanks to The Blue Box)

Star Wars (additional orchestrator) (uncredited)

About the additional composer credit mentioned above for E.T., I read on another forum a post by Erik Woods saying that he's been told that she wrote the 10 note motif from The Chase cue.

At first I thought of the 10 note motif we first hear at the start of the film played by the piccolo, the one weaved throughout the film until its big brassy finale as the ship takes off.

I think the one he obviously means though is the 9/10 note brass motif that kicks in just after the repeated flurry that starts The Chase/Adventures on Earth ( concert version ).

I'd love to have more concrete info on all this.

Anyway, who knows? Who cares?

Damn it - I'm missing LOST !

I think it's interesting material.

I think we know what Angela Morley did for Schindler's List, which was only limited to orchestration of the source cues (judging from the ochestral sketch score). She probably did comparable jobs for the other movies. I can't believe JW trusts her that much that he would really let her gohst write in his name. Her Cinema Serenade arrangements are half as good as Williams' own ones.

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Personnaly since Herbert Spencer passed away, John Williams isn't the same ...Another example Cocoon sounds Williams

No I disagree. Cocoon sounds like quintessential Horner when he was at the top of his game. To me his sound is unmistakably there. I can't remember your other two examples so I can't comment on them.

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The role of an orchestrator varies from composer to composer. A few composers like Ennio Morricone and Debbie Wiseman, do all the work themselves (compose, orchestrate and conduct). Or sometimes, like Williams, it's just basically copying from a smaller, fully-orchestrated handwritten score. But sometimes, the orchestrators are responsible for shaping the composer's overall "voice".

I think for most of his films, David Arnold provides a detailed piano sketch of the score and gives it to Nicholas Dodd with ideas on how to orchestrate it. James Newton Howard is occasionally credited with co-orchestrating his own music, but with the cramped production shcedule of King Kong, he had to do piano sketches while the picture was being locked and send it to the orchestrators to flesh it out and record it while he was still writing. And some composers provide a simple piano sketch and give it to the orchestrators to flesh it out.

It just varies on how much input the composer wants on the score(s) he or she is working on.

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About the additional composer credit mentioned above for E.T., I read on another forum a post by Erik Woods saying that he's been told that she wrote the 10 note motif from The Chase cue.

At first I thought of the 10 note motif we first hear at the start of the film played by the piccolo, the one weaved throughout the film until its big brassy finale as the ship takes off.

I think the one he obviously means though is the 9/10 note brass motif that kicks in just after the repeated flurry that starts The Chase/Adventures on Earth ( concert version ).

I'd love to have more concrete info on all this.

Anyway, who knows? Who cares?

There are various apocryphal stories about Angela Morley role on E.T. One of that is that she wrote the heartbreaking string bridge of the film version of the "goodbye" segment of "Adventure on Earth" (the one that's missing on the concert version of the piece).

Personally I don't buy any ghost-writing theory about that score. The manuscript of the score clearly says that E.T. is composed by JW from beginning to end.

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Of course it is, E.T is JW all the way. Every minute, every second.

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There are various apocryphal stories about Angela Morley role on E.T. One of that is that she wrote the heartbreaking string bridge of the film version of the "goodbye" segment of "Adventure on Earth" (the one that's missing on the concert version of the piece).

Personally I don't buy any ghost-writing theory about that score. The manuscript of the score clearly says that E.T. is composed by JW from beginning to end.

Cheers Maurizio, yeah it certainly is a bit of a compositional hot-potato.

I'd still love to find out more on the matter.

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Personnaly since Herbert Spencer passed away, John Williams isn't the same ...Another example Cocoon sounds Williams

No I disagree. Cocoon sounds like quintessential Horner when he was at the top of his game. To me his sound is unmistakably there. I can't remember your other two examples so I can't comment on them.

Exactly. Cocoon doesn't sound Williams, but Horner from his best most romantic, thematic period. Which by coincidence seems to be around the same time Williams wrote many of his big, romantic scores that we love. This probably boils down to how the movies themselves have changed in pace and style over the past 15-20 years.

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