The Official Don Davis Thread

[Marian Schedenig 11,616]

Whatever the exact connection, the sentinel music in the Matrix scores is pretty much straight out of Sneakers.

[crocodile 9,640]

9 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Whatever the exact connection, the sentinel music in the Matrix scores is pretty much straight out of Sneakers.

Is it?

 

Karol

[Marian Schedenig 11,616]

Always sounds like that to me at least.

[Stark 988]

There's at least one cue in Balto that sounds exactly like the Matrix, so I assume Davis composed it.

[NL197 793]

Frank Bennett and Brad Dechter orchestrated Sneakers, not Don Davis. 

Both Bennett and Dechter also worked with James Horner on his 2006 CBS News package. 

 

For Titanic, Don Davis orchestrated the following: 

To the Keldysh
Distant Memories
Southampton / Southampton Revised (co-orchestrated)
Take Her to Sea, Mr. Murdoch
Hard to Starboard

Trapped on "D" Deck (not the ending)
The Sinking
Death of Titanic

 

Davis also orchestrated the two cues from Courage Under Fire: Al Bathra and Monfriez's Suicide (both have a similar sound to Hard to Starboard)

 

 

1 hour ago, Stark said:

There's at least one cue in Balto that sounds exactly like the Matrix, so I assume Davis composed it.

 

Or he orchestrated it and took those ideas and used it in his own score years later. That's a two-way street. 

[Rachael Foley 10,042]

17 minutes ago, NL197 said:

Both Bennett and Dechter also worked with James Horner on his 2006 CBS News package. 

I miss that theme

[Edmilson 12,261]

What about that moment in Balto that sounds exactly like Randy Newman's Toy Story? Don Davis worked in both movies and they all came out in late 1995.

 

I really like Balto but that moment is a bit off putting.

[NL197 793]

8 minutes ago, Doo_liss said:

I miss that theme

It's one of, if not my favorite thing Horner was involved with. 

My friend and I have been cooking up something with it we'll put up eventually....the delay is on me since I'm behind on everything I've been doing. 

It's entirely your fault by the way: If not for you, I'd never have known about MVSep. 

Thank you. 

2 hours ago, Stark said:

There's at least one cue in Balto that sounds exactly like the Matrix, so I assume Davis composed it.

 

1 minute ago, Edmilson said:

What about that moment in Balto that sounds exactly like Randy Newman's Toy Story? Don Davis worked in both movies and they all came out in late 1995.

 

I really like Balto but that moment is a bit off putting.

 

Cue names and timecodes ! Come on people!

 

Otherwise what's next? 

 

There's that one scene in Balto that showed a statue of the real Balto. I heard Davis came to set and polished it before they started filming. 

[Edmilson 12,261]

21 minutes ago, NL197 said:

Cue names and timecodes ! Come on people!

 

Buzz Lightyear's cameo in Balto:

 

 

Plus, the action music in Grizzly Bear sounds kinda Matrix-y...

[crocodile 9,640]

14 hours ago, NL197 said:

Cue names and timecodes ! Come on people!

In the opening very first score track, there's a transition to an action cue that sounds suspiciously like Don Davis:

 

 

Or it could be that segements like this really influenced David who then later contributed similar swashbuckling material for Warriors of Virtue and The Matrix Reloaded.

 

Regardless of whoever wrote this, Balto is a terrific score. I absolutely the main theme and this passage has a really cool statement starting at 3:12. It's a shame Horner abandoned what he perceived to be inferior film genre for more Oscar-bait drama right after this came out (not counting The Spiderwick Chronicles many years later). Some of his most enjoyable work came out of animation.

 

Karol

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,665]

14 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Buzz Lightyear's cameo in Balto:

 

 

Plus, the action music in Grizzly Bear sounds kinda Matrix-y...

This has more Star Trek vibes to me

[crocodile 9,640]

Yeah, I was thinking of Horner's Trek scores as well.

 

Karol

[thestat 497]

On 08/12/2024 at 8:12 PM, NL197 said:

Davis also orchestrated the two cues from Courage Under Fire: Al Bathra and Monfriez's Suicide (both have a similar sound to Hard to Starboard)

Right. That explains why that sound suddenly appeared in Courage Under Fire, was replicated in Titanic and never appeared again. I reckoned it was Horner's attempt to respond to the ostinato-like style Zimmer brought in with Crimson Tide the year before, but perhaps it was a Zwick-mandated change that Davis worked on? Zwick would go on to work with Zimmer afterwards.

 

And totally take on board that these things go both ways - there is a LOT of Horner in early Don Davis (and his compositional DNA) and it's difficult to settle on who did what.

 

Overall, I was always curious when Horner did not re-use an idea as he would inevitably do that, one way or another - there's for example the WoodHouse Helicopter Finale from Clear and Present Danger (1:10-) that was never replicated (the flute stuff especially) but found it's way to The Matrix

 

 

For example, this is more or less a rewriting of a lot of Clear and Present Danger (not the above track) but still very Davis

 

 

The Beast is very interesting as a score - it's got most of the Matrix DNA in it, but it also uses a lot of Goldsmith mayhem from Congo and other similar stuff. But it still sounds uniquely Davis - and what he would do on Jurassic 3 a few later.

[NL197 793]

There is somewhat of a precedent for the "Hard to Starboard" / "Al Bathra" sound in an early Horner score: 
 

 

 5:05 in, roughly where I put the share timecode is where I'm referring to. 

Don Davis obviously had no involvement with this score!

 

 

For whatever it's worth:
Personally, "Al Bathra" is my all-time favorite James Horner action / suspense cue. I find the ideas in it superior to those in Titanic. I like how it plays a bit slower, more menacing. The electric guitars, the pounding drums representing the tank gunfire Washington is unleashing on the enemy soldiers, the racing strings....I love every second of Al Bathra as a piece of music. 

 

This all reminds me of what was discussed in the Windtalkers Intrada album booklet, how Jac Redford wasn't available to rework the score to fit the changes made to the movie, so he hired a team to work with Horner to figure it all out which is why a lot of the music has such a different musical theme (Solomons, Saipan: Crazy Joe) and variations of Horner's initial ideas (and better recorded - there are some stark differences in the mixing of the percussion that is FAR better in the "rescored" cues versus the initial cues which sound muddy). They said that essentially Horner directed the changes / new music made by the orchestrators, and then Horner conducted the whole thing. So still involved, but definitely a collaborative effort to make it all work. 

 

 

Honestly one of the bigger takeaways from this discussion is that Don Davis, whether he ghost-wrote or just orchestrated these Horner cues, reused music just as Horner did. 

[Trope 1,432]

Did Davis do any orchestrating on The Pagemaster? 

 

0:58 stands out to me as strikingly similar to some of his work.
 

 

[NL197 793]

3 hours ago, Trope said:

Did Davis do any orchestrating on The Pagemaster? 

 

 

 

 

 

Indeed he did. 

Not every cue though. 

 

The following cues were orchestrated by Thomas Pasatieri: 

Horror

Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde
A Narrow Escape
Towards The Open Sea...

Swallowed Alive!

The Wonder in Books

New Courage

The Magic of Imagination

 

Davis did all the others. 

 

For Apollo 13: 
Master Alarm
Manual Burn 

(both action cues)

[Tom Guernsey 3,836]

This appeared in my Facebook feed… posted by composer/orchestrator/arranger Nikiforos Chrysoloras (who I have to admit I’ve never heard of) but could be amazing!

 

For the past few months, I've been closely collaborating with the extraordinary Don Davis - composer of the Matrix films, and Jurassic Park 3, among others - on his new score, commissioned by EUROPÄISCHE FILMPHILHARMONIE, for the highly anticipated 100th anniversary of Fritz Lang’s futuristic masterpiece METROPOLIS, to be premiered in 2027.

Needless to say, you're in for a treat!

 

Stay tuned for updates.

 

Shout out to Alexander Duca De Tey for bringing me on board.

 

METROPOLIS - 100th Anniversary 
A production of Europäische FilmPhilharmonie - EFPI - GmbH and Don Davis © 2024 
Film under licence of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung

 

Trailer: Fernando Carmena, Philipp Grobe and José Gómez 
Demo track: Alex Corlan 
Film: METROPOLIS © Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung 
Design of the machine man by Walter Schulze-Mittendorff © Cave Toys GmbH

https://filmphilharmonie.de/metropolis-by-don-davis/?lang=en
.
.
.
#editing #musicediting #dondavis #worldpremiere #fritzlang #metropolis #centerary #sciencefiction #futuristic #epic #silentfilm #filmmusic #filmmusicconcert #liveinconcert #filmwithorchestra #willowandcavern #willowandcavernstudio

[GerateWohl 6,475]

This could be interesting. 

[Yavar Moradi 4,368]

Looking forward to it, even though Metropolis certainly didn't need another great score written for it when the original Huppertz is so good. But excited to hear another grand Don Davis composition.

 

Yavar

[Edmilson 12,261]

I mean, I'm happy to see Davis getting more and interesting work... But part of me is a bit sad that the only way some of Hollywood's most underestimaded and underused talented composers are getting work is by re-scoring older silent movies. Just look at Young and Nosferatu...

 

I wonder if it's the same producer commissioning all these new scores for black and white movies just to give these guys some work...

[Thor 9,349]

Nikiforos also worked on that aborted THE HAND Kickstarter. Met him in Croatia a few years back. I'm sure he has the chops needed.

 

Any new Davis is worth celebrating, and although I wish these composers picked less famous silents to re-score, I'm still pretty excited about what he can do for METROPOLIS.

[GerateWohl 6,475]

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

I mean, I'm happy to see Davis getting more and interesting work... But part of me is a bit sad that the only way some of Hollywood's most underestimaded and underused talented composers are getting work is by re-scoring older silent movies. Just look at Young and Nosferatu...

I embrace that these composers get commissions to rescore silent movies. It's the perfect canvas for good movie music presentation. 

But I agree with Thor. It could have been a less famous movie that doesn't have five to ten scores already.

[Marian Schedenig 11,616]

2 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Looking forward to it, even though Metropolis certainly didn't need another great score written for it when the original Huppertz is so good. But excited to hear another grand Don Davis composition.

 

 

But as I've said before, if I want anyone to rescore Metropolis, Davis would be high up my list.  Necessary? Hardly. But I'm excited.

[crocodile 9,640]

Fingers crossed we get to hear it on album.

 

Karol

[NewBlueEyes 226]