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Why is it so hard for John Williams to collaborate with new directors?


Edmilson

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16 minutes ago, publicist said:

Arnold got lucky.

 

Lol I know you're just dissing but he didn't get lucky or unlucky, really. It's a total non-factor in everyone's career who worked on it. Just would have been another David Arnold score on cable. 

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6 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Also this reply was interesting:

 

 

 

^^

I agree with his sentiment. Ask any artist - given a choice between having their art consumed or making money out of it, most artists will pick the former - if they are in it for the right reasons.

 

I have also heard this from film directors. I would say artists who despair of making money from their art will more likely than not prefer you pirate it. I once heard a indie film-maker at a film festival at a Q n A talking about his past work saying - they are difficult to see and have not had proper dvd releases. You have my full blessing to pirate them and see them however you can because I would much rather you see them than not.

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1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

The film was a big hit at the time.

 

I haven't seen it in awhile but I recall enjoying the movie. Actually was just thinking recently that I ought to give it another watch sometime, as I'm in a major John Williams mood these days. I love his main theme.

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4 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

I have also heard this from film directors. I would say artists who despair of making money from their art will more likely than not prefer you pirate it. I once heard a indie film-maker at a film festival at a Q n A talking about his past work saying - they are difficult to see and have not had proper dvd releases. You have my full blessing to pirate them and see them however you can because I would much rather you see them than not.

 

It's way more efficient to distribute media by P2P anyway, if you don't have the burden of needing to charge for it.

 

It's something that labels and film studios just haven't managed to crack - being able to get revenue for something while also making it as accessible as possible.

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1 hour ago, TheUlyssesian said:

I was a little disappointed, perhaps, in the way that it was handled, but to be passed up for him certainly isn’t an insult!"

 

To be passed up for John Williams certainly isn't an insult, but to be passed up for Kloser and Wander on the following Emmerich movies... That's tragic. 

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6 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

 

It's way more efficient to distribute media by P2P anyway, if you don't have the burden of needing to charge for it.

 

It's something that labels and film studios just haven't managed to crack - being able to get revenue for something while also making it as accessible as possible.

 

Digital ownership is some kind of concept that powers that be cling to. It is at best a mirage and a nebulous concept that will dissipate in the future. 

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Honestly, I like pretty much how John Williams handled his career. 

Looking at his IMDB.. all the movies he did since the 70 are almost all great pieces of arts. (ok, SW1-2-3 are not so great... but it is star wars nevertheless)

Why want more collaborations with directors when you have Steven Spielberg?

 

If you look at Alexandre Desplat  or any other "i'm doing 8 movies a year" composer, frankly you can throw half of the movies, they wont stand

the time. Half of the movies are so-so.

 

What's the point of making 6 movies a year if you are only doing 1 great score every 3 years?


Quality VS Quantity.


I have the feeling these over-busy film composers have to do so many movies because either budgets are shrinking, or also because they feel they HAVE to maintain relationships with directors. But I can understand John Williams. It's nearly impossible to maintain a true and deep relationship with more than 2 directors   while still making scores the way JW does scores.

 

JW scores are high-level gastronomy or painting that would be exposed in great museums. They are not fast-food soundtracks.

 

I remember reading somewhere, but cant remember where now, that John Williams writes 1 minute of score everyday. Only one minute.

Because his music is so refined, detailed. 
And he writes every cues. That takes a lot of time.

 

Another possibiliy is also the movie industry changing. Movies are not the same anymore, and don't necessary need the same kind of scores.

It saddens me, but it's a true fact.

 

Also, supporting a john williams score as a director must be frightening. 

Also, discovering how the score sounds only the first day of a recording session, like (I believe) John Williams do, is something that can't be done anymore.  


Ok, nowadays they may do some virtual mockups of John Williams scores to show to the director, but i'm not even sure they do mockups of JW. 

 

To finish, recording an orchestra with Williams must be so expensive. I've read that Star Wars or Harry Potter in abbey road took more than 12 days to record whereas your usual 2020 hollywood score is recorded in 1 or 2 days.

 

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1 minute ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

Williams doesn't do comedies, that's for sure. The Home Alones were the last ones.

 

Hum, Sabrina is a romantic comedy, isn't it? Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal also have elements of comedy in them, they're more like dramatic comedies based on real life stories. 

 

KOTCS and the prequels also have plenty of unintentional comedic moments, though most of them (like the dialogues on the prequels, Shia LaBeouf swinging on vines along with atrocious CGI monkeys and a strong Russian guy being eaten alive by ants) are more depressing and cringeworthy to watch than anything.

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Is Stepmom a comedy? Granted it's about cancer....

 

He loves weepies! Even the Home Alones are sentimental. He hasn't done many straight-up LOL type comedies since the 60s when he was all over em. 1941 and Heartbeeps are ostensibly comedies.

 

2 hours ago, rp75012 said:

Looking at his IMDB.. all the movies he did since the 70 are almost all great pieces of arts

 

This is definitely not true. And I love his filmography.

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About comedies, even if Williams wanted to do, what comedies could he score? A sex comedy for teenage boys like American Pie or White Chicks? A crude comedy by Adam Sandler and his gang of unfunny friends, like Kevin James and Rob Schneider? One of those stoner comedies from Seth Rogen and James Franco, like This is the End, that North Korean movie or Sausage Party? 

 

Actually, I would love to be on a spotting session of Sausage Party with Rogen, Franco and Williams. They trying to explain to him all the sex jokes, LOL... 


So either he does these crude comedies, or a more traditional rom-com. Maybe he would love to score stuff like Tom Hanks' Larry Crowne or Silver Lining Playbooks, which are less about silly sex jokes and more about the romance itself.

 

4 hours ago, rp75012 said:

Looking at his IMDB.. all the movies he did since the 70 are almost all great pieces of arts. 

 

Sure, due to him being more selective than most composers, his filmography is mostly better than theirs as well, but... Williams does have on his curriculum one of the rare movies that get 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, which he did right on the pinnacle of his career.

 

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/heartbeeps

 

I never watched it, for me the worst movies with a John Williams score are Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Rise of Skywalker.

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Well, Alan Menken did Sausage Party! It's a big cartoony score. And This is the End is basically a horror/action score with some fantasy elements. Not a stretch. Other genre type comedies like Elf or Tropic Thunder. Why not.

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Actually, I guess Menken only helped on a song for Sausage Party, Christopher Lennertz handled most of the score.

 

But yeah, it could be interesting a JW score for an action comedy or a fantasy comedy, specially if it's one that parodies a movie he scored before, like Spaceballs (lol) or the 2011 movie Paul, as people already said on this thread.

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I think it's a little sad, actually. Most filmmakers working on Hollywood blockbusters were certainly influenced by the movies he scored, they watched them when they were kids, which certainly influenced their decision to work on the movie industry. Not only Williams, but also Goldsmith, Horner, Morricone... all composers that made sure the music was more than bland wallpaper for the movies.

 

But now, as adults, what do they do? They decide to put the most generic epic trailer music on their movies to work as a bland wallpaper.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/24/2020 at 8:43 AM, Thor said:

 

 

As for why certain collaborations end, there are different reasons for this. For example, for Robert Altman, he's said that they simply 'drifted apart' after THE LONG GOODBYE.

 

Williams was set to score Altman's California Split (1974), but his wife, who had a small part on the film, died during principal photography and Williams understandably withdraw from the project. A few years later, he was attached to Altman's Quintet (1979), but that collaboration never really came to be. My understanding is that they remained friends, even though they never worked together again. Also, Altman never settled on one single composer, picking whoever he felt right for the projects.

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On 2/3/2020 at 9:55 PM, Miguel Andrade said:

 

Williams was set to score Altman's California Split (1974), but his wife, who had a small part on the film, died during principal photography and Williams understandably withdraw from the project. A few years later, he was attached to Altman's Quintet (1979), but that collaboration never really came to be. My understanding is that they remained friends, even though they never worked together again. Also, Altman never settled on one single composer, picking whoever he felt right for the projects.

 

All of that is true. The death of his wife was no doubt a 'catalyst', but Williams has elaborated on why they drifted apart after THE LONG GOODBYE. As he himself said:

 

«I drifted away from working with [Altman], not through any intentional decision or conscious decision. After Images and The Long Goodbye, I got busy with other directors and other projects. Bob chided me about going Hollywood and getting successful. He would chide me or tease me or censure me about pursuing overly commercial projects, probably my work with Spielberg. He saw that artistically as a kind of betrayal of some kind of bohemian artistic principles he clung to.

 

One of the big contradictions was that he was always fighting with the studios but he sought acceptance. He sought praise of the establishment in his own way as hard or harder than other people did. He craved the approval of the people out here. His bad-boy-naughtiness character not to the contrary. He didn’t want to play the game as he saw it being played. Maybe that has connections to his gambler roots.»

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On 1/25/2020 at 1:01 AM, TheUlyssesian said:

Basically, it is beyond the skill, capability or ambition of these film-makers to actually work John Williams to create a score for their films.

 

Good post, and honestly never even thought of all those factors.  I'm sure there are plenty of filmmakers who would love the chance and are capable of working with a film composer like John Williams.  My guess is unproven directors (in the eyes of studios) don't have the clout lay out a filmmaking roadmap that would facilitate that kind of creative process and thus have to resort to more contemporary film scoring methods.  Or you're a filmmaker that lucked into directing an episodic Star Wars.

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6 hours ago, Thor said:

 

All of that is true. The death of his wife was no doubt a 'catalyst', but Williams has elaborated on why they drifted apart after THE LONG GOODBYE. As he himself said:

 

«I drifted away from working with [Altman], not through any intentional decision or conscious decision. After Images and The Long Goodbye, I got busy with other directors and other projects. Bob chided me about going Hollywood and getting successful. He would chide me or tease me or censure me about pursuing overly commercial projects, probably my work with Spielberg. He saw that artistically as a kind of betrayal of some kind of bohemian artistic principles he clung to.

 

One of the big contradictions was that he was always fighting with the studios but he sought acceptance. He sought praise of the establishment in his own way as hard or harder than other people did. He craved the approval of the people out here. His bad-boy-naughtiness character not to the contrary. He didn’t want to play the game as he saw it being played. Maybe that has connections to his gambler roots.»

 

A refreshingly honest quote!

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