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Harry Potter 7CD Collection - MUSIC discussion


Jay

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32 minutes ago, Skelly said:

There was definitely something in that scene that was added in late. I don't think anything was left intentionally unscored, least of all the dialogue; almost all the dialogue in the movie is underscored once we reach Hogwarts, and if it isn't, it's usually because the music was dialed out!

My guess is that Williams scored a cut where Filch's cat didn't begin to follow Harry. Maybe Harry nearly bumped into Snape/Quirrel on his own (and note that the cat seems to suddenly disappear in the final cut). Here's a quick and dirty edit of what I think Williams was trying to underscore...

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZzCQJvEmp066iRyT8hnocEluinYzbomz

 

The actual movie tries to have three big crescendo moments with the music: when the cat follows Harry; when Snape reaches out for Harry; and when all the faculty leave the corridor at the end. The cue as written only has one. When you line it up with the third instance, the little quote of Harry's theme plays about when Snape grabs empty air, which makes sense to me and is way more fun than what they did in the final cut.



That actually makes sense, thanks!

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So this means they used the same musical phrase twice: the one when Filch yells "Who's there?" in the Restricted section is the same heard when Snape turns back to confront Quirrell.
These tracking choices really sound weird after one realizes they're there: what is heard cannot be unheard, I guess.

For the same reason, I was excited to rewatch the extended versions of HP1 and HP2 and boy, do those tracked cues sound sloppy as hell.

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3 minutes ago, redishere said:

I was excited to rewatch the extended versions of HP1 and HP2 and boy, do those tracked cues sound sloppy as hell.

Those were perfectly fine on the DVD as standalone scenes brought to completion, a kinda "this is what it could have been if they were scored, too". Those EEs are very very lazy and cashgrabby.

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1 minute ago, Holko said:

Those were perfectly fine on the DVD as standalone scenes brought to completion, a kinda "this is what it could have been if they were scored, too". Those EEs are very very lazy and cashgrabby.


Agreed. They look and sound like fan-edits. When I bought my 16-Discs BluRay boxset I was initially upset 'cause the extended editions of the first two movies weren't there…

Changed my mind pretty fast as soon as I rewatched them online. Which was right after I listened to the HP JW Collection. Hearing music crossfading into a (badly) tracked cue every time a deleted scene appeared set my teeth on edge.

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For number 1, I don't think there was any original music written for those scenes. The closest Williams did to scoring a "deleted scene" was the original Time Transition, which I assume was written in response to Dumbledore's silly line that the Mirror of Erised shows him with brand-new socks. When this line was removed it probably made the cue seem really inappropriate for the sentiment the scene now ends on, which is about the danger of getting sucked into fantasies and ignoring reality.

But Number 2 had music written for nearly all its incorporated deleted scenes. I don't know how much of it ended up being used in the extended editions though. And even the deleted scenes that weren't scored, you can see that some were at least spotted in that "On the Track" list of the cues (at least two Hermione recovering-from-being-a-cat scenes, and the Dursley household receiving a letter about Harry's alleged spell-casting).

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If we really want to split hairs, on my last watch I approximated 60-70% of the cues to be altered in some form in 1 - tracked over, looped, dialed out, but mostly microedited. Tons of things were shaved off here and there I assume, to bring the runtime down after nothing major could be omitted anymore, as it happens, so Williams scored probably a good load of shots and lines not in the final movie and never publically seen! Same with Azkaban of course.

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43 minutes ago, Holko said:

Those were perfectly fine on the DVD as standalone scenes brought to completion, a kinda "this is what it could have been if they were scored, too". Those EEs are very very lazy and cashgrabby.

I still don't get why they never extended 3-8.

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Looking at the precedent, be grateful they didn't! I'd rather have more comprehensive deleted scene lists - Azkaban shows the aftermath of Black breaking into the dormitory and all, but surely they shot the breakin and chaos itself, no? Things get shot out of order all the time but to throw a whole scene out in the middle is weird, especially when they did shoot effects coverage of Cadogan for it.

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30 minutes ago, Holko said:

Looking at the precedent, be grateful they didn't! I'd rather have more comprehensive deleted scene lists - Azkaban shows the aftermath of Black breaking into the dormitory and all, but surely they shot the breakin and chaos itself, no? Things get shot out of order all the time but to throw a whole scene out in the middle is weird, especially when they did shoot effects coverage of Cadogan for it.


Yeah, there's Cadogan, but something tells me they didn't shot everything, 'cause they decided to scrap the whole scene halfway through production.
Otherwise they wouldn't show half a deleted scene in the DVD… I guess.

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DH2 extended edit is on TV constantly, and yes, legally it has to be approved. It's usually on "Freeform" which owns the TV rights to the films (just as TNT owns the rights to Star Wars on TV). The visual effects are finished as well. For instance, on the DVD/Blu-Ray if you watch the extended bridge scene, you'll notice the effects are not finished and you can see green screen everywhere. In the TV version the entire thing is finished, and no green screen is visible. Not all of the deleted scenes were restored though.

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4 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Because they aren't in that movie...?

 

If you're referring to the Dursley's, they are in a deleted scene. My point was that that was one of the only deleted scenes left out of the TV version.

 

EDIT: My bad, I was thinking of the first film. The point still might remain however. I can't recall if there is extra footage in the DH1 TV version, but I do know for a fact that scene isn't present.

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7 hours ago, Holko said:

Those were perfectly fine on the DVD as standalone scenes brought to completion, a kinda "this is what it could have been if they were scored, too". Those EEs are very very lazy and cashgrabby.

Yes, the EEs are simply the deleted scenes reincorporated - they actually ruin the flow of the music in the surrounding scenes, so the music just awkwardly fades back into whatever was playing before. It's not worth it. 

 

Perhaps a few shots in Chamber of Secrets could've been left in - those scenes of Harry's persecution were nice, especially the one where he's alone with Hedwig.

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8 hours ago, Arpy said:

 

Yes, the EEs are simply the deleted scenes reincorporated - they actually ruin the flow of the music in the surrounding scenes, so the music just awkwardly fades back into whatever was playing before. It's not worth it. 

 

Perhaps a few shots in Chamber of Secrets could've been left in - those scenes of Harry's persecution were nice, especially the one where he's alone with Hedwig.


Yeah, if my memory doesn't fail me, Chamber's EE was a tad better edited. I also liked the extended Borgin&Burkes scene with Draco and his father, but I don't remember if it was scored or not.

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3 hours ago, redishere said:

Yeah, if my memory doesn't fail me, Chamber's EE was a tad better edited. I also liked the extended Borgin&Burkes scene with Draco and his father, but I don't remember if it was scored or not.

 

it was, but with tracked music. I don't think that scene was even spotted, or if it was, it would have been a much longer 1M10.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Just a random observation: if Library and Transformation were switched around, wouldn't it have been a great idea to switch both cues in Harry Meets Fawkes around too? If you do that, the track really flows much better.

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If I remember correctly, at one point they were switched around, actually, I believe when the disc break occurred at a different point (before we realized how many bonus tracks we'd be able to include)

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It's all in my email history somewhere!

 

I believe at the time 5M4A The Introduction Of Fawkes and 5M5 Fawkes Is Reborn would have been swapped inside "Harry Meets Fawkes" because The Introduction of Fawkes had a better ending to end Disc 1, and then Disc 2 would have opened with "Christmas Break", which made a nice parallel with HPSS, which began its disc 2 with its Christmas cues.   But then we keep finding more alternates worth including. so disc 1 had to be longer to fit everything on 2 discs.

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Yikes publishing emails is a very bad idea, but maybe some sort of article could be crafted about the development of the box set from start to finish.  Most of it's not very exciting though.

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

Uhh... not sure I even really understand the basic foundation of the idea. Marauders/Pettigrew is constructed from Nimbus 2000 and Platform 9 3/4 (no, not "mischief" and "Weasleys", the Weasleys got their own proper motif in Chamber playing off of Ron's throwaway sorting melody - so looking at the actual names and usage instead of just a surface knowledge of the movies already questions the grand theory) in.. what way exactly? Because he thinks they sound somewhat alike? Also a bit too much negative Williams/Ross speculation/ignorance.

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2 hours ago, Holko said:

 

Uhh... not sure I even really understand the basic foundation of the idea. Marauders/Pettigrew is constructed from Nimbus 2000 and Platform 9 3/4 (no, not "mischief" and "Weasleys", the Weasleys got their own proper motif in Chamber playing off of Ron's throwaway sorting melody - so looking at the actual names and usage instead of just a surface knowledge of the movies already questions the grand theory) in.. what way exactly? Because he thinks they sound somewhat alike? Also a bit too much negative Williams/Ross speculation/ignorance.

 

Plus, the harpsichord motif does not appear during the confrontation in the Shrieking Shack, so Williams probably didn't associate it with Pettigrew.
Anyway, I still enjoyed this video: I hadn't thought about that motif being related to family, so it was cool to analyze it through a different lens.

I kinda prefer the Art of the Score take on this, though (in which Pettigrew's theme is the "reversed" Sirius brass statement).

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6 minutes ago, redishere said:

Plus, the harpsichord motif does not appear during the confrontation in the Shrieking Shack, so Williams probably didn't associate it with Pettigrew.

Well, it does in the movie, but it's tracked in, and also mixed in low over Pettigrew's transformation later. ;)

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4 hours ago, oierem said:

I think sometimes we tend to overanalyze the thematic significance of William's music. More and more I get the feeling that Williams writes more based on the emotions he wants to convey in a certain scene and not carefully constructing and deconstructing thematic ideas. I guess he is more emotion driven than intellectually driven when it comes to writing music (meaning that he treats his themes in a very general sort of way).

 

I mean, you could create a Youtube video about how the use of Yoda's theme in the reunion scene of TROS is a really clever way to represent the wisdom of the Jedi master, and the ultimate triumph of good, and the idea that a part of Yoda lives in every good person in the galaxy.... but the truth is that Williams just used the theme because he wanted to have a mix of old themes in one of the final moments of the movie, and it just sounded good.

 

I would say that JWFanners are generally pretty good at understanding when themes are broadly applied and when they might mean something more specific, and that Williams often plays fast and loose with them in context. Mostly, I think we agree it's just nice to give things a name simply to be able to reference them easily.

 

It's these sorts of YouTube videos and film geek type forums where I see people get carried away with trying to decipher what it all means and bringing a lot of extra-musical connections and interpretations into the underscore. Then again occasionally these people are vindicated (like Rey's Theme = a certain Rise of Skywalker spoiler) even if by coincidence, so fair's fair!

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6 hours ago, oierem said:

More and more I get the feeling that Williams writes more based on the emotions he wants to convey in a certain scene and not carefully constructing and deconstructing thematic ideas. I guess he is more emotion driven than intellectually driven when it comes to writing music (meaning that he treats his themes in a very general sort of way).

He does it intuitively and the rest is history...

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7 hours ago, oierem said:

I mean, you could create a Youtube video about how the use of Yoda's theme in the reunion scene of TROS is a really clever way to represent the wisdom of the Jedi master, and the ultimate triumph of good, and the idea that a part of Yoda lives in every good person in the galaxy.... but the truth is that Williams just used the theme because he wanted to have a mix of old themes in one of the final moments of the movie, and it just sounded good.

 

Absolutely. One of my pet hates is critics or fans over-analysing something because they want to convince themselves that their favourite director or composer has created something amazing. They don't want to admit that maybe the person just tried something without a massive amount of thought, and decided it worked.

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3 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Yes, and that's why his scores work so much better than, say, The Hobbit, because Shore doesn't understand that emotion is equally important.

 

I'm not convinced the average person would have experienced many emotions during The Hobbit trilogy, no matter what music was attached to it.

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On 12/30/2019 at 9:02 PM, Richard Penna said:

Absolutely. One of my pet hates is critics or fans over-analysing something because they want to convince themselves that their favourite director or composer has created something amazing. They don't want to admit that maybe the person just tried something without a massive amount of thought, and decided it worked.

All that counts is the result. Analysis is not based on the artist's intentions and thoughts.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/11/2020 at 11:28 AM, crumbs said:

 

Simply absurd levels of complexity. It's no huge surprise that someone like Nicholas Hooper comes along and simply can't come close to replicating this level of writing. Williams is an absolute genius and totally unmatched by his peers.

 

There's a lot of that complexity in HTTYD: Hidden World.

 

I do agree that he's mostly unmatched, most certainly by Hooper, but he's not the only living composer capable of it.

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