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Westworld Scoring Competition


Nemesis

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@Nemesis the entries are now closed but just for fun I wanted to take a whack at it since I have nothing better to do at the moment. I think the footage was taken off the website; is there anyway you'd be able to send me the clip? That's fine if not.

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6 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

@Nemesis the entries are now closed but just for fun I wanted to take a whack at it since I have nothing better to do at the moment. I think the footage was taken off the website; is there anyway you'd be able to send me the clip? That's fine if not.

 

Will send you a PM.

4 hours ago, Borodin said:

Nice job! And good luck, because I think Fredric Chopin did the best job scoring a Westworld scene. Insanely enchanting, tough competition:

 

 

Every composer had to score the same scene, so no competition with Chopin at all. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Very nice work @Nemesis!! Your score is very exciting and has great orchestration as well. I also really like the way you mixed the samples, as they sound very realistic and crisp. I also entered the competition and here is my entry:

 

 

 

Hope you guys enjoy and please let me know what you think!

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This has been all the rage recently. So many people are participating, my facebook feed has been full of them -- including two of my Norwegian composer friends Kate Havnevik and Knut Avenstroup Haugen. I wouldn't be in the jury members' shoes; we must be talking thousands of submissions.

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9 hours ago, Mic said:

Very nice work @Nemesis!! Your score is very exciting and has great orchestration as well. I also really like the way you mixed the samples, as they sound very realistic and crisp. I also entered the competition and here is my entry:

 

 

 

Hope you guys enjoy and please let me know what you think!

 

Impressive!

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I like it - it brilliantly plays with the concept of genre perception distortion and IMHO takes the weakness of the scene (as elaborated above: too little genuine tension for a supposedly dramatic chase) and full-on acknowledges it by turning it into "it's like a game". The mix between the chiptune/rock/orchestra hybrid elements sounds very well done, too.

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40 minutes ago, ChrisAfonso said:

I like it - it brilliantly plays with the concept of genre perception distortion and IMHO takes the weakness of the scene (as elaborated above: too little genuine tension for a supposedly dramatic chase) and full-on acknowledges it by turning it into "it's like a game". The mix between the chiptune/rock/orchestra hybrid elements sounds very well done, too.

 

I agree. It's getting a lot of flack everywhere, but I like the idea. And it also feels more coherent and original and thematic, musically, than a lot of the other entries I've seen (that have all treated it traditionally, with all the obligatory action tropes).

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The winning entry is definitely different, and I like the general orchestration in his approach.

 

But, as mentioned in one of the YT comments, those Mario effects and theme are way OTT. Maybe they're trying to show what's going on inside Aaron Paul's head, but it feels wrong for the scene.

 

If I received this track as a director, I'd ask the composer to lose everything except the orchestra.

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I know that my approach of scoring this scene was way too old fashioned. But it's what I like listen to, so it was great fun to compose for an action scene like this. :)

 

 

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1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

But, as mentioned in one of the YT comments, those Mario effects and theme are way OTT. Maybe they're trying to show what's going on inside Aaron Paul's head, but it feels wrong for the scene.

 

This might be comparison bias with the episode as aired, but I thought the concept stated at its beginning - that the drug would totally flash the user - was played much too subtle, so this was actually much more in keeping with the supposed premise.

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21 minutes ago, ChrisAfonso said:

 

This might be comparison bias with the episode as aired, but I thought the concept stated at its beginning - that the drug would totally flash the user - was played much too subtle, so this was actually much more in keeping with the supposed premise.

 

 

Totally agreed!

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What do you think, in a competition like this, is it important to knew the context of an isolated scene? Or does one have to work with what is on screen? 

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Clearly they didn't watch every video unfortunately... if the video is 4:05, multiply that by 11,000, that's about 44,917 minutes (748 hours, or 31 entire days without sleep). Plus many people (particularly those outside of the US) have said that the analytics of their videos showed that no one from outside of their home country saw their videos. On top of that, the winning composer actually broke the rules and altered the actual audio of the scene itself, which was said to be an automatic disqualification.

 

Case and point: the whole thing was a sham.

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47 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

On top of that, the winning composer actually broke the rules and altered the actual audio of the scene itself, which was said to be an automatic disqualification.

What did he do?

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Maybe it was the intention to send the message to nowadays composers, that it is important to break rules to succeed. It's a tough business and just following the rules doesn't help.

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1 hour ago, Nemesis said:

Maybe it was the intention to send the message to nowadays composers, that it is important to break rules to succeed. It's a tough business and just following the rules doesn't help.

 

Like Herrmann and Torn Curtain!

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2 hours ago, Nemesis said:

Maybe it was the intention to send the message to nowadays composers, that it is important to break rules to succeed. It's a tough business and just following the rules doesn't help.

 

I see your point, but it doesn't really apply in this case. A composer in a professional situation would not be able to alter the sound effects and dialogue. Not only would they not even have access to that audio, but if for some reason if they did and altered it, that's a guaranteed firing.

 

3 hours ago, The River (Fal) said:

What did he do?

 

He altered the sound effects, which were against the rules of the competition. In a less competitive setting that wouldn't have been much of an issue (like if he were competing in the scoring competitions we used to have here on JWFan), but because this was a more professional competition where the winning prize was over $20k worth of products...

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Did he really alter them, or just add in his own?

 

For what it’s worth I didn’t mind the winning entry. It made that terrible scene so much more enjoyable.

 

oh my lord, those YouTube comments are hilarious. so many cranky people. I never entered, I knew as soon as it reached 1000 entries that anything I did would be unlikely to win, it didn’t seem worth my time.

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6 hours ago, Nemesis said:

Interesteing video from Spitfire co-runner Christian Henson:

 

 

I think there are some interesting comments  too.


 

Sorry but I cringed the whole way through that response video. There are plenty of valid and respectful criticisms in the comments. I’ve been reading through the winners announcement thread on vi-control and boy Christian and Paul Thomson, the other founder of spitfire, are responding with such petulance, and with ad hominem attacks at new members who dare voice an opinion. Also, Hans Zimmer popped in to say that anybody who was not happy with the results will never make it in the industry so that was fun. 

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The most puzzling comment I keep seeing is some kind of variation of this:

 

“It’s all well and good that they chose something that went outside of the box. But I just wish they’d told us we could do that in the competition rules”

 

Fundamentally explains the problem in my opinion. These people don’t know what “outside of the box” means.

 

Reminds me of people who complain about filmmakers subverting expectations, and then point to Marvel films as “subverting done right”. If Marvel did it, it wasn’t subversion.

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I’m seeing very little “entitled fanboy” response (fanboy of what, exactly?), and a good representation of the real criticism from contestants and non-contestants alike can be found in the comments of Christian’s video response. I think the idea of something out of the box is great. In fact, I saw several out of the box entries that were awesome and actually scored the scene instead of steamrolling it so jarringly. Also, attacking the winner is just plain terrible. He did what he did and did it well. Clearly most people just generally don’t feel that it should have won, according to the rules set by the judges themselves.

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