Variety: Film Scoring Gears Up to Return

[crumbs 14,306]

Thought this was an interesting read about the state of film scoring in Hollywood and how studios are planning to restructure recording sessions for a post-COVID world.

https://variety.com/2020/artisans/news/film-scoring-production-post-coronavirus-1234643289/

 

Quote

 

The new rules will alter all of that. “Striping” — the term for recording sections of the orchestra separately — will become routine, so that string players will in most cases be recorded in one session, woodwind and brass players in another. String players can wear masks but no longer share stands as they must remain six feet apart.

 

Most observers believe that a largely orchestral score, involving 70 or more players, is possible but will have to be recorded in sections on a large recording stage over a matter of days. And the acoustic issues involving recording brass and woodwind players spaced far apart in a studio — an unusual physical arrangement that can change the tenor of a sound — have yet to be addressed.

 

 

I know everyone complained about the films being rushed, but the compressed timeline of the SW ST ensured The Rise of Skywalker would avoid this pandemic entirely. It could end up being the last traditionally-recorded large score for many years, and we're very lucky it scraped through before this unfolded. I can't imagine Williams having much interest in recording large orchestral scores remotely or by striping, because the joy of working with an orchestra seems like half the reason he does it.

 

Sadly Williams is in a high-risk category and working intimately with musicians poses a threat to his health. If he does return to film composing in the foreseeable future (and I'm sure he wants to support the struggling LA musicians as much as anybody), I wonder if he might opt to supervise recording sessions remotely while someone else conducts?

 

Recordists like Shawn Murphy certainly have their work cut out for them, not only balancing the acoustics of separately recorded sections but also the musicians themselves separated in the recording venue.

[HunterTech 989]

Striping seemed to have already been becoming the norm, and now the pandemic has made it basically mandatory. I probably won't be able to notice it unless it was pointed out to me, but it is a shame that having a large group of musicians in one room to record will pretty much be a novelty at this point.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

JW needs to stay home for the foreseeable future. 

[TheUlyssesian 2,475]

Greater license for RC minions to make electronic synth ostinato scores in a computer. 

 

EDIT: This is awful right? A composer now basically cannot make day-of alterations. She/he wouldn't quite know what it sounds like.

[1977 1,743]

Doesn't really bother me. All the good films have already been made. All the good film scores have already been written. RC can do their stuff ad infinitum and let everything be sampled (why bother with a live orchestra, all their stuff is brickwalled to death anyway).

 

Off topic, but I honestly don't think I'll ever go and watch a film in a cinema again (RoS was my last cinema visit). LTP might have been the only reason for me to go, as I've never been to one, but here in Africa it will most likely never happen as people hardly go to watch new movies (before Covid), let alone old ones .

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

LTP?

[Arpy 4,145]

Live Tall and Prosper.

[1977 1,743]

21 minutes ago, PuhgreÞiviÞm said:

LTP?

 

Live to projection

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

 

Brian Tyler at home social distancing during the Coronavirus. 

[gkgyver 1,645]

Do they know that testing beforehand is available, musicians are aplenty, and extending sessions and ruining orchestral sounds is more expensive in many ways than testing players? 

 

Just another example of bureaucratic shitheads ruining something their icky paws have no place in.