Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2?

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

but the other HP scores were warner records...

[Marian Schedenig 8,160]

Including Williams'.

[King Mark 3,624]

Is there any reason to get our hopes up for the Part 2 score?

[Matt C 452]

Sony Classical released Iron Man 2 and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer... so anything goes.

I'm just surprised Watertower isn't releasing it.

[mrbellamy 6,270]

I noticed on the official website, that in the cast & crew listing, it indicates that Part 2's score album will be released by Sony Classical.

Interesting...

http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/harrypotterandthedeathlyhallows/hp7b/index.html

Huh? If this is true, then why has Watertower had a listing for it for the last month: http://www.watertower-music.com/?p=4756

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Watertower does not handle international releases for Warner Music.

In the past it has been licensed to Atlantic/Sony Classical/Reprise.

WMG and Sony have many a joint venture and partnerships together.

[mrbellamy 6,270]

Hmm, okay, but that still doesn't explain why it says Sony Classical on the US site. I guess they must have set up the credits on the UK site first, and just copied it over without checking?

[Score_Fan 36]

Well HBP wasn't by warner - If I recall correctly it was new line records / decca.

[mrbellamy 6,270]

New Line merged with Warner Bros. in 2008, so New Line Records became a Warner label. It was renamed Watertower Music last year.

[crocodile 7,979]

Watertower does not handle international releases for Warner Music.

In the past it has been licensed to Atlantic/Sony Classical/Reprise.

WMG and Sony have many a joint venture and partnerships together.

Well, Sony Classical released Desplat's Deathly Hallows 1 in EU.

Karol

[publicist 4,643]

At the end, it will be just another soundtrack album, if we get lucky it even will have some new memorable themes, but i'm not holding my breath. The director's grip is too firm on those movies and he was responsible for DarkKnighting™ it in the first place.

[crocodile 7,979]

It's such a weird phenomenon any comparison one makes to TDK is now usually negative. Just a thought.

Karol

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

It's negative because TDK has now become a template, and one that Hollywood has no qualms in regurgitating endlessly.

The Potter films lost their own identity way before TDK though. As soon as GoF happened it turned into another heartless action franchise.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

They never really had much in the way of unique identity except for Azkaban.

SS and COS were exactly as you expected a Christmassy season family movie to be.

[Muad'Dib 1,800]

They never really had much in the way of unique identity except for Azkaban.

SS and COS were exactly as you expected a Christmassy season family movie to be.

The first two movies bore the hell out of me with their unimaginative direction. Really, it's probably the worst camera work I have seen in all my life... The shots are extremly un-creative and that always ruins a movie for me, don't know exactly why...

Same happens to me with the prequels: Most of it was done as if no one cared that the camera wasn't angled in any way and the characters were just randomly placed without any singificance.

You'll probably say "Hey not every shot has to have a meaning" and you're probably right, but most of them should have a meaning. It was distingushies a good director from a bad director. We all can learn a lot from Orson Welles and Sergio Leone... Those guys knew not only how to take the best out of their actors but also how powerful a good camera shot can be.

[Datameister 2,034]

I think that rather vanilla approach works just fine for SS, but it severely wore out its welcome by COS. POA took a little longer for me to warm up to, but that's only because it is a much more interesting and artistic and unique vision. After that...yeah, things have been pretty bland stylistically. I think HBP and DH1 work pretty well, though.

[Richard Penna 3,667]

The first two movies bore the hell out of me with their unimaginative direction. Really, it's probably the worst camera work I have seen in all my life... The shots are extremly un-creative and that always ruins a movie for me, don't know exactly why...

Agreed.

There are certain shots primarily in CoS, where there seems to be no sense of composition, or at least no reason for the camera to be where it is.

As nostalgic as the first one is, it's dated badly, on top of the pedestrian direction. The only element I think is 'great' about it is Williams' incredible score. While I don't like PoA quite as much as others do, it was a step in the right direction to putting some oomph in the franchise's pace, and had a new cinematographer who really brought out the colours and put some imagination into where the camera went.

[Jay 37,271]

You guys are crazy, or just not remembering very well. The camera moves a LOT more in COS than in SS. There are zoom shots, pull backs, long tracking shots, not to mention the warped, stretched out shots concerning the basilisk, etc

[Ollie 1,059]

All I remember is that POA was the only Potter film I didn't fidget through. Every other one I found myself looking at my watch or drifting off. I haven't even bothered with them since GOF. And I watched most of that on regular TV.

[crocodile 7,979]

Every other one I found myself looking at my watch or drifting off.

They are all like his for me. I just don't care. Watched them mostly to hear the complete scores. LOTR trilogy better create a sense of verisimilitude withing fantasy genre. In the case of the latest HP movies it just doesn't work. I have hard time being drawn into gritty (they are now) movies that are about characters waving wands. You go one way or the other, not both. The books are probably better.

Karol

[Henry B 50]

You guys are crazy, or just not remembering very well. The camera moves a LOT more in COS than in SS. There are zoom shots, pull backs, long tracking shots, not to mention the warped, stretched out shots concerning the basilisk, etc

... which doesn't mean the shots are creative or well done. Context is everything.

[Datameister 2,034]

The books are probably better.

Well, duh. That's always been the case. If you want the real Potter experience, you have to read the books, which are definitely very involving (with the partial exception of the fifth and sixth books, IMO).

[Muad'Dib 1,800]

... which doesn't mean the shots are creative or well done. Context is everything.

Exactly. What is the point of the angled camera during the Basilik chase?? It makes no sense.

[Matt C 452]

At the end, it will be just another soundtrack album, if we get lucky it even will have some new memorable themes, but i'm not holding my breath. The director's grip is too firm on those movies and he was responsible for DarkKnighting™ it in the first place.

How, pray tell, did David Yates use TDK as a template for his HP installments? He'd finished OOTP before TDK started shooting, and was well into principal photography on HBP by the time TDK finished shooting. I see little TDK influence in the Yates-directed HP films, aside from some handheld camerawork and darker tone. And please don't draw parallels between Hans Zimmer, Nicholas Hooper and Alexandre Desplat. Even Hooper's minimalistic orchestration and writing was better than anything Zimmer composed for TDK (and most of the better stuff was regurgitated from BB anyway).

I still disagree with you on Desplat's DH score. Sometimes I think you guys haven't listened to it fully, or unwilling to put the 'but it's not Williams' mentality aside. And the action music puts to shame the crap Zimmer wrote for Inception and TDK.

The Potter films lost their own identity way before TDK though. As soon as GoF happened it turned into another heartless action franchise.

Have you read the books? The movies haven't lost their way, they've evolved and changed as the actors got older and as the stories progressed. The big action setpieces in the films are in the books themselves (well, except for HBP). You've missed the whole point.

All I remember is that POA was the only Potter film I didn't fidget through. Every other one I found myself looking at my watch or drifting off. I haven't even bothered with them since GOF. And I watched most of that on regular TV.

OOTP is shorter than POA, by at least four minutes. That film had a fresh writer adapting the book, and he did a nice job condensing the book down to its core (as opposed to franchise regular Steve Kloves). I heard that a rough cut of the film was close to 3 hours long, but the plot problems I had with the film only need an extra 10-15 minutes.

If you're interested, check it out whenever ABC Family has their next 'Harry Potter Weekend' marathon around July.

[mrbellamy 6,270]

The Potter films lost their own identity way before TDK though. As soon as GoF happened it turned into another heartless action franchise.

Really? I've always felt that the first four were the ones that were considered to be heartless, corporate, visual effects-driven, action-packed bonanzas (with the possible exception of the third), and that the David Yates films have moved away from that and have turned the series into a moody character piece. In fact, that seems to be the complaint I hear the most about the later films. "Too many boring dramatic scenes, and the action sucks!".

And yeah, there's no real TDK influence in Yates's films that I can tell. The handheld camerawork and gritty tone is even more present in Yates's early BBC stuff like Sex Traffic and State of Play. It's a European influence, if anything.

[fommes 153]

Let's not get carried away and confuse crappy directing with European auteurship here!

[publicist 4,643]

Let's not get carried away and confuse crappy directing with European auteurship here!

The later Potter films are certainly open to criticism, but sometimes it just goes a tad overboard. If i remember it was here that i read how Yates is too incompetent to set up a shot or to direct traffic. And this all from people who are mainly consumers with their personal little attitudes (and sometimes very conservative tastes) vs. someone who's at the helm of a giant production where a million little things figure into every decision.

[mrbellamy 6,270]

Let's not get carried away and confuse crappy directing with European auteurship here!

I never said that. Merely that that's clearly where the stylistic influence comes from. And I just don't see how anyone could look at the Yates-directed Potter films and claim that the intent has become more about action and less about drama than the earlier ones. Whether or not that drama is any good is another matter entirely.

[Richard Penna 3,667]

You guys are crazy, or just not remembering very well. The camera moves a LOT more in COS than in SS. There are zoom shots, pull backs, long tracking shots, not to mention the warped, stretched out shots concerning the basilisk, etc

... which doesn't mean the shots are creative or well done. Context is everything.

Yeah, we're not talking about the amount of movement, but how it's applied.

I wonder if, because Columbus seems to be a character-oriented director, much of the look was left to the cinematographer, and so the directorial/story influences on camera activity weren't there.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Warner Music Group has been completely sold off...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13313559

This may explain why even the U.S. release of Deathly Hallows soundtrack is under Sony Classical.

[Krang 1]

I can only hope that by some miracle this will impact youtube videos that have been silenced by WMG.

[Faleel 5,326]

I can only hope that by some miracle this will impact youtube videos that have been silenced by WMG.

Amen.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

The Potter films lost their own identity way before TDK though. As soon as GoF happened it turned into another heartless action franchise.

Have you read the books? The movies haven't lost their way, they've evolved and changed as the actors got older and as the stories progressed. The big action setpieces in the films are in the books themselves (well, except for HBP). You've missed the whole point.

I've read all of the books more than I care to admit. I haven't missed anything; the films missed their mark in my eyes. The one thing that repeatedly drew me into the books was the universe that Rowling created; how it seemed to be a fantastic place that I'd love to be in myself. I got that in the first three films (yes, even CoS), but as soon as GoF came along it just felt like I was watching a bunch of British schoolkids running around an old castle with occasional explosions. The magic was lost, I didn't feel immersed in another universe. The action scenes were in the books, yes, but they worked in that context because of how they were depicted and - more importantly - their placement in a genuinely whimsical universe full of warmth and wonder. The books got progressively darker and more mature, but up until the end of Half-Blood Prince they still had many light-hearted and child-like moments; Hogwarts in particular was a safe and warm place to be. From GoF onwards it seemed cold and sterile, and I credit that to the misguided attempt to make the films too dark, too early.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Dark sells.

[mrbellamy 6,270]

The Potter films lost their own identity way before TDK though. As soon as GoF happened it turned into another heartless action franchise.

Have you read the books? The movies haven't lost their way, they've evolved and changed as the actors got older and as the stories progressed. The big action setpieces in the films are in the books themselves (well, except for HBP). You've missed the whole point.

I've read all of the books more than I care to admit. I haven't missed anything; the films missed their mark in my eyes. The one thing that repeatedly drew me into the books was the universe that Rowling created; how it seemed to be a fantastic place that I'd love to be in myself. I got that in the first three films (yes, even CoS), but as soon as GoF came along it just felt like I was watching a bunch of British schoolkids running around an old castle with occasional explosions. The magic was lost, I didn't feel immersed in another universe. The action scenes were in the books, yes, but they worked in that context because of how they were depicted and - more importantly - their placement in a genuinely whimsical universe full of warmth and wonder. The books got progressively darker and more mature, but up until the end of Half-Blood Prince they still had many light-hearted and child-like moments; Hogwarts in particular was a safe and warm place to be. From GoF onwards it seemed cold and sterile, and I credit that to the misguided attempt to make the films too dark, too early.

Well, I think the real issue there is that starting with GOF, the movies lost all those extra goodies on the edges of the frame and in the background. Ghosts, moving paintings, changing staircases, etc. are almost totally absent now, and there's an overabundance of shots featuring completely deserted corridors and classrooms. The third film was darker in both visual style and story content, but Cuaron utilized all of those little things in various creative ways, creating a far greater sense of the castle feeling both alive and lived in than even the Columbus films ever did. That's the kind of thing that the later films could have used a little more of. If anything, I don't think the actual story content went dark enough.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was going for. Glad someone agrees.

[GoodMusician 56]

If I may add to a slightly old conversation here, I believe the box sets has an interview where they talked about the camera in COS. They were saying how they had found a really great hand held camera man who could move very smoothly and in very different ways... to make the camera FEEL like a snake moving around the halls of Hogwarts around Harry and his friends. I agree though, some of it was a bit too much and watching that film somtimes gives me a bit of a headache.

[Matt C 452]

Well, I think the real issue there is that starting with GOF, the movies lost all those extra goodies on the edges of the frame and in the background. Ghosts, moving paintings, changing staircases, etc. are almost totally absent now, and there's an overabundance of shots featuring completely deserted corridors and classrooms.

GOF was the worst offender. I think there was one shot of one of the portraits applauding Harry after the First Task (plus the moving pictures of the Triwizard champions), but that was it. I couldn't believe Newell did that.

David Yates went back to the smaller details like the portraits moving in OOTP, HBP and DH1 as well as the staircase (but omitted the ghosts). They weren't as frequently used or integrated like the first three films, but they were there. But in the bigger picture, small details like that wasn't important to the story. The audience knows the moving portraits and such are there in Hogwarts, they don't need to be reminded every film.

[mrbellamy 6,270]

Well, I think the real issue there is that starting with GOF, the movies lost all those extra goodies on the edges of the frame and in the background. Ghosts, moving paintings, changing staircases, etc. are almost totally absent now, and there's an overabundance of shots featuring completely deserted corridors and classrooms.

GOF was the worst offender. I think there was one shot of one of the portraits applauding Harry after the First Task (plus the moving pictures of the Triwizard champions), but that was it. I couldn't believe Newell did that.

David Yates went back to the smaller details like the portraits moving in OOTP, HBP and DH1 as well as the staircase (but omitted the ghosts). They weren't as frequently used or integrated like the first three films, but they were there. But in the bigger picture, small details like that wasn't important to the story. The audience knows the moving portraits and such are there in Hogwarts, they don't need to be reminded every film.

Hmm, well, I will say that Yates has been creative with incorporating other whimsical, magical touches elsewhere. There are a lot of really subtle uses of magic in his films that don't ever get talked about but are great fun, like the fly buzzing into the shield after Flitwick puts it up in HBP, or the way the Weasleys ever-so-carefully lift the wedding tent up, or how the Golden Snitch flutters around Harry like it's his new pet. Also, there are a lot of little things that Yates did to create a greater sense of continuity within the series, which I felt POA and GOF were starting to move away from. Numerous flashbacks in OOTP and DH:1, including Cedric's Death, the Occlumency classes, Harry's possession, and the "memory links" between Harry and Voldemort. HBP opened with a recap of the Ministry climax, we saw Ollivander being kidnapped and a scene with the trio in his deserted shop, the miniature Triwizard Dragon roasting chestnuts outside Fred and George's shop, Hagrid waiting for the first years, the Marauder's Map, Fawkes in Dumbledore's office, bringing Quidditch back. And then of course the entire plot of Deathly Hallows is inherently linked to previous books...maybe it's not as bad as I originally thought

That all said, though, I can see where Pete's coming from when he calls the castle a "cold, sterile" environment and that that didn't necessarily have to be the case. Overall, though, it's a minor thing for me, and the things that really get under my skin obviously have less to do with how "magical" the movies are, and much more to do with what liberties are taken with story and character.

[Jay 37,271]

Well, I think the real issue there is that starting with GOF, the movies lost all those extra goodies on the edges of the frame and in the background. Ghosts, moving paintings, changing staircases, etc. are almost totally absent now, and there's an overabundance of shots featuring completely deserted corridors and classrooms. The third film was darker in both visual style and story content, but Cuaron utilized all of those little things in various creative ways, creating a far greater sense of the castle feeling both alive and lived in than even the Columbus films ever did. That's the kind of thing that the later films could have used a little more of. If anything, I don't think the actual story content went dark enough.

Wow. Brilliant observation I had never thought of before. Gold star of the week for you!

[JoeinAR 1,949]

The Potter films are like this website, they avoid or skirt the uncomfortable elements. The "real" world elements.

and that's not a bad thing for either.

[Muad'Dib 1,800]

[gkgyver 1,645]

Sounds awful.

[Datameister 2,034]

For a composition by a fan? I disagree. It's not how I'd want the battle scored in the actual film, but this is just the work of a 20-year-old student.

[gkgyver 1,645]

I know. But it doesn't make it more tolerable.

When a 5-year old hammers away on a drum kit, it may be mighty good for a 5-year old, but it still drives you insane.

[Datameister 2,034]

Depends on how good the five-year-old is. Some kids, man...

[mrbellamy 6,270]

From Conrad Pope's Facebook page:

Just finished recording with Alexandre Desplat and the London Symphony Orchestra the last of the Harry Potter scores at Abbey Road. It's been over 10 years since I worked with John Neufeld on John Williams' trailer for the first film. Five films (for me at least) and hundreds of thousands of notes later, it's finally over. Hard to grasp. Back to Los Angeles soon.

So we should be expecting a tracklist and samples within the next month, yeah?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Good riddance to this series, people will finally stop believing that JW will return.

[Datameister 2,034]

Conrad Pope said he was recording "with" Desplat...that doesn't mean it was Desplat's music! I'll bet it was Williams' score and they're just keeping it quiet!

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]