Pre-Movie Music

[arathornion33 0]

I am trying to make a CD (or two) of film music like they play before a movie during the advertisements in some theaters. In my experience it usually isn't anything really well-known, just so that it doesn't create too specific a mood to alter your "pre-conceptions" of the movie your about to see. I have some of the generic stuff like "I believe her" from Contact, "My name is Robert Neville" from I Am Legend and stuff like that. Any reccomendations of other generic film music that sets a "theatrical" mood would be greatly appreciated. I also can't think of too much action music that doesn't scream this or that franchise, so anything in that department would be cool too. Thanks a lot!

BTW, this is for my home theater that I am overly obsessed with.

[Quintus 5,399]

Not very helpful of me, but I just wanted to point out that my local Odeon cinema plays back to back Williams greatest hits, during the pre-curtain reveal. Raiders, ET, Close Encounters..., you get the idea.

[Melange 446]

and "Now it's time for Ice Cream"

Oh those bring back memories

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Not very helpful of me, but I just wanted to point out that my local Odeon cinema plays back to back Williams greatest hits, during the pre-curtain reveal. Raiders, ET, Close Encounters..., you get the idea.

We play the same 12 pop songs over and over for 6 months at a time.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

When KOTCS opened, a cinema here was playing the soundtrack prior to the movie.

IMAX was playing the Battle of Hoth before AOTC. It was awesome to hear it on big speakers in an auditorium setting like that.

You know what I would recommend (and boy do I rarely do this)? JW's War of the Worlds, the score from that other thread. For some reason I'm thinking selections from that would perfect for the pre-movie underscore.

[fommes 153]

Just the radio or pop songs here.

[davros72 1]

Opening night of Star Trek last year, the theater we went to were alternating between tracks from previous Star Trek films (though most of them sounded like re-recordings...) and Leonard Nimoy songs. Kept hoping for some Shatner, but maybe since he wasn't in the new one they figured it didn't fit. Was kind of fun.

[Wojo 2,453]

I don't pay much attention to the pre-trailer music at movie theaters. Usually I'm late to the show so that I'm walking in during the previews. Otherwise they play rock or pop songs. Either the theater staff isn't -- or their perception of the general audience isn't -- cerebral enough to enjoy orchestral movie score music.

[Brónach 1,301]

The theater I used to go before I gave up going to the movies didn't play music at all.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,508]

Not very helpful of me, but I just wanted to point out that my local Odeon cinema plays back to back Williams greatest hits, during the pre-curtain reveal. Raiders, ET, Close Encounters..., you get the idea.

I take it that's The Odeon, My House, eh, Quint?

Seriously, I used to love the gin advert, with music by, (I think) Francis Monkman, which started with a man saying "A Gordon's and tonic, please", and went into a series of images not unlike the main title of "Innerspace".

Of course, nothing beats Pearl and Dean. All together: "Ba ba, ba ba, ba ba, ba ba, ba ba ba. Ba ba, ba ba, ba ba, ba baaaa...ba!"

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

In the US and local theaters here, the pre-movie thing has become completely corporate. The music clips are all pop music and it's announced what you're listening to. It's coupled with the screenvision thing where a guy advertises TV shows and the like. It makes the feature film out to be a glorified ad campaign.

[Datameister 2,037]

Just put Jerry Goldsmith's (officially unreleased) "Soarin' over California" load/unload track on an infinite loop. It's even better if you've got an OmniMAX screen with gentle blue lighting on it and you spray a little Pine-Sol in the room.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Maybe the really elaborate WDW Soarin' queue loop would be good.

http://www.disneymusicloops.com/wdw/wdwepcot-fw-soarin.html

[Datameister 2,037]

Nah, just put that in the hallway while you're waiting to enter the home theater.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

In the US and local theaters here, the pre-movie thing has become completely corporate. The music clips are all pop music and it's announced what you're listening to. It's coupled with the screenvision thing where a guy advertises TV shows and the like. It makes the feature film out to be a glorified ad campaign.

Thank goodness we stopped playing Screenvision at my theater. I wanted to kill that guy oh so very badly. But yeah, you're pretty much spot on. The theater doesn't get to choose what to play, at least not at AMC. We have special CDs sent to use to play on a loop over the sound system. They send us a new one every month I believe, but only change 1 or 2 songs. Like literally only 1 or 2, they have the track lists on the disc. For example, when Iron Man 2 came out, we got a new disc and the only difference was an AC/DC song that they added. We recently got another which simply took that off and replaced it with something else.

[Goldsmithfan 6]

They never have pre-movie music at any of the cinemas where I am. The one time they did was for the re-release of Star Wars in '97. As I recall, it was only for the first one. They kept playing stuff like "Imperial Attack" and other mood-setting pieces. No real setpieces though.