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Call for JW biographical materials


Maestro

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Congrats Tim! 

I've amounted a lot of materials over the decades and can forward some of that stuff over to you.

Just feel free to reach me through e-mail and tell me if you're looking for something specifically. My greatest problem is some lack or organization :)

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What a great thing that will be for your students this fall! Must be so exciting! I already sense it’s going to be a huge hit. 
 

Unfortunately, I have nothing to contribute in terms of materials. But I’m more than happy to offer to review your syllabus; proofread each week’s lecture notes, slides and handouts; test each week the quality of the USC campus’s WiFi by live streaming your lectures from my house, and taking JW to lunch after class if you ever have him in to guest-speak. Really, it’d be no trouble at all.😉

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I have collected some papers and interviews about Memoirs of a Geisha specifically, doing some writing for musicology classes, and a bit about Raiders too. This was especially coming from the standpoint of studying exoticism. Probably all material that you would already have, but let me know if that info would be useful. Also, this sounds amazing!

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  • 1 month later...

Hi all. Related to my quest: does anyone have a copy of the filmed AFI Master Class with Spielberg and JW from 2011? It looks like it's been taken down from both Vimeo and YouTube...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi again! I'm hoping some of you sleuths can help me with this. In 2012, Blu-ray.com (that esteemed bastion of journalism) published a "Making of Jurassic Park" article that quotes John from two sources that strike me as dubious. As far as I know, he only gave ONE interview to Film Score Monthly (in 2002), excepting the 1997 Craig Byrd Star Wars interview. So I don't think this can be right. Does anyone know the true source of these two quotes, or if they're even legit?

 

Taken from https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=8186:

 

On his compositions for the film, John Williams told Film Score Monthly in an interview, "I wanted to do something different for Steven. With Close Encounters, I needed to write pieces that would convey a sense of 'awe' and fascination, especially for the last half hour of the film. The music that would be needed here, especially when the group first arrives on the island and see the dinosaurs, would require something rather similar. So instead of going for a sense of fascination, I created a theme for the park itself, which could be used in several different places, and when orchestrated differently, could convey the beauty of what they were seeing at first. So when the passengers in the jeep pass by the group of dinosaurs for the first time, this is the theme I used.
Instead of a sense of fascination, I believe the theme conveyed the feelings of the dinosaur researchers in the jeep and their overwhelming happiness and excitement at what they were encountering." He was also interviewed (by the press, by invitation) one day while working at the editing location about the score point with the tyrannosaurus rex. Williams said, "I needed to compose a much darker tone for many of the scenes, especially the rex, which you will notice is different from the final half hour once they are being chased inside the building. The music for the tyrannosaurus rex had to be absolutely frightening. I wanted to convey the feeling that two children would have if they encountered such a beast. Very dark, very scary. Overall, composing the music for this film has been such an enjoyable experience, and of course a pleasure to work again with Steven."

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The only interview FSM did with JW was the one by Jeff Bond from 2003 where he talked about AOTC, Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can, plus a little bit about A.I.

 

The 1997 interview on the Star Wars trilogy by Craig Byrd was originally made as part of a book and reproduced under authorization from the author, AFAIK.

 

It's the first time I see those quotes from JW about Jurassic Park. Perhaps they were pulled from the Making Of book by Jody Duncan published in 1993? I'll try to investigate.

 

 

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1 hour ago, TownerFan said:

The 1997 interview on the Star Wars trilogy by Craig Byrd was originally made as part of a book and reproduced under authorization from the author, AFAIK.

 

Which book would that be?

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1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Which book would that be?

 

Sorry, I was misremebering. Byrd's interview was printed in the book The Hollywood Film Music Reader, but it was actually published in 2010.

 

The interview appeared originally on Film Score Monthly Vol.2 N.1 (January 1997).

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