Jump to content

Some information on the Jurassic Park Sessions


InTheCity

Recommended Posts

Recording Dates:

3.30.93 - 4.7.93

2x 3 hour sessions per day

Dennis Steals the Embryo and Journey to the Island were the first three hour session

the last piece recorded was high wire stunts

12 Woodwinds

4 trumpets

6 horns

4 bones

2 tubas

6 percussions

2 keyboards

1 piano/1 celeste double

44 vocals

2 harp

8 basses

12 celli

14 viola

30 violins

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 26
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Interesting. From about BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY onwards, 64 strings appear to be the norm, with little to no deviation. In the Herb Spencer era there there was a gradual build in size (22 for IMAGES, 31 for TPE, 44 for JAWS, CE3K and JAWS 2, 52 for SW, 54 for ROTLA and ESTB etc.). Maybe thanks to the increasing volume of sound fx?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting. From about BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY onwards, 64 strings appear to be the norm, with little to no deviation. In the Herb Spencer era there there was a gradual build in size (22 for IMAGES, 31 for TPE, 44 for JAWS, CE3K and JAWS 2, 52 for SW, 54 for ROTLA and ESTB etc.). Maybe thanks to the increasing volume of sound fx?

The birth of the blockbuster. I think this has more to do with the increased budgets and styles of the films. Think about it this way, sound fx and score are ultimately just sliders on a mixing board. Going from 54 strings to 62 strings will have very little impact if any on what happens with a sound mixers final dub however, a film needing a sweeping score will have a richly balanced string section with these larger numbers. It also depends somewhat on what the concept for the score is. I notice in JP, thats quite a lot of violas which often provide the propolsive "motor" for the string section and some richness. I believe in the movie Troy, James Horner used more violas than first violins so in some cases, its an artistic choice to produce a style that fits the vision for the film.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting. From about BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY onwards, 64 strings appear to be the norm, with little to no deviation. In the Herb Spencer era there there was a gradual build in size (22 for IMAGES, 31 for TPE, 44 for JAWS, CE3K and JAWS 2, 52 for SW, 54 for ROTLA and ESTB etc.). Maybe thanks to the increasing volume of sound fx?

The birth of the blockbuster. I think this has more to do with the increased budgets and styles of the films. Think about it this way, sound fx and score are ultimately just sliders on a mixing board. Going from 54 strings to 62 strings will have very little impact if any on what happens with a sound mixers final dub however, a film needing a sweeping score will have a richly balanced string section with these larger numbers. It also depends somewhat on what the concept for the score is. I notice in JP, thats quite a lot of violas which often provide the propolsive "motor" for the string section and some richness. I believe in the movie Troy, James Horner used more violas than first violins so in some cases, its an artistic choice to produce a style that fits the vision for the film.

Good points. I like to the think of the 70s/early 80s aesthetic as more like a water colour painting, with the late 80s/early 90s and onwards as an oil painting. Hence why smaller string numbers and 3/4 horns became less common. Maybe digital recording and Dolby DTS had a role in that too.

About the violas - never of it like that. To quote two of my examples - ESTB and ROTLA both have the same total number of strings, yet the former's got 26 violins and 10 violas while the later has 24 violins and 12 violas. I guess for RAIDERS, Williams wanted a darker and grittier sound.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Journey To The Island" is an album track name that combines 3 separate cues, all of which would have been recorded separately - 2M3/3M1 "To The Island", 3M2 "The Dinosaurs", and 3M2A "The Entrance of the Park".

Are you saying each of the 3 cues happened to be recorded on the same day?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

InTheCity's source, or mine and Data's?

InTheCity works for Sony recording studios, see his prior started threads

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't work at the scoring stage I just rent it a lot for cinesamples and our clients - today we were there doing some League of Legends for example.

Thanks,

Mike

And yes you are right the 2nd cue was "to the island"

Tuesday 3.30.93

End Credits

an Ailing Monster

The Entrance of the Park

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting. From about BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY onwards, 64 strings appear to be the norm, with little to no deviation. In the Herb Spencer era there there was a gradual build in size (22 for IMAGES, 31 for TPE, 44 for JAWS, CE3K and JAWS 2, 52 for SW, 54 for ROTLA and ESTB etc.). Maybe thanks to the increasing volume of sound fx?

I think it has to do with JW's personal budget. In the Jaws days he wasnt that established. A composer has to rent his own orchestra, he wasnt able to spend $100,000 on hiring the LSO back then. Nowadays for any of those films he would have used his present-day size orchestra.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But where other orchestra that big at the time, I mean except some specific scores from time to time? No. It's more that as sound FX got more and more control over the sound field of a movie and recording techniques got better, a larger orchestra could be orchestrated in a much better way to "battle" or to the opposite, to "help" the sound editing, If you start targeting certain frequency range depending on what you would hear on the screen at any moment. This wasn't possible until the mid 80's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't think they were that big, but I could be wrong. The smaller string size thing might just be a Silver Age aesthetic. That said, Leonard Rosenman had 28 violins, 12 violas, 12 cellos and 8 basses (60 in total) on REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Recording Dates:

3.30.93 - 4.7.93

2x 3 hour sessions per day

Dennis Steals the Embryo and Journey to the Island were the first three hour session

the last piece recorded was high wire stunts

12 Woodwinds

4 trumpets

6 horns

4 bones

2 tubas

6 percussions

2 keyboards

1 piano/1 celeste double

44 vocals

2 harp

8 basses

12 celli

14 viola

30 violins

A question - how would you generally divide a mixed choir of 44 members? Would it be divided equally into 4 (12:12:12:12), or would it be more women than men (28:16 or 26:22)?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Generally, the higher pitch needs more reinforcement but there are exceptions. For example, there are more violins than violas than celli than bass. But there are a lot of reasons why this might not be the case. For example, in the movie, Troy, there were more violas than violins because Horner wanted a deeper tone. Perhaps a movie needs a lower timbre so that might be reflected in the vocal distribution. Also, mics add a complication to this because you can isolate or raise levels in relation to other registers. With no specific information, I would assume JW used a "concert" approach which probably means there were more sopranos than bass. Isn't there someone on this site who sang on Episodes 1-3 so they can probably tell you exactly what happened.

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.