JW Fan 1 Posted September 5, 2020 Share Posted September 5, 2020 --- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post karelm 2,913 Posted September 6, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 6, 2020 I've seen the sketches and did some work on some of those as proof reader. The short score has all the details. I once transcribed a few cues from The Empire Strikes Back using only the sketch and you can see they're about 99% of what's in the final score that was already there in the sketch. The voicings, hairpins, instrumentation, doublings, percussion, harp gliss, ornaments, all were there. What might not have been there are all the dynamics but they're generally there. An orchestrator would probably flush those out a bit further to prevent a player from having to ask an unnecessary question. That's why Conrad Pope said he's basically a glorified editor when working with Williams. Sometimes you'll see "sul cello" on the bass line so the orchestrator would flush out the bass part as a copy of the cello part but that is an example of a short hand convention where an orchestrator would consider all the details were already clearly there. Orchestrators have to be good at reading short hand and being careful when to use their own judgement versus what the intention of the composer was. I believe the first score Conrad Pope orchestrated of JW's was Jurassic Park especially the more aggressive T-Rex, Raptor sequences. I believe the last thing he did with Williams was an Oscar arrangement around 2008. Basically, the sketches then would go to JoAnne Kane Music for typesetting as it was so close to orchestrated already plus JW's schedule slowed to around a film or major work a year plus more conducting around then. On multiple occasions, Conrad indicated tremendous admiration not only for JW's skill and talent but also professionalism. A story I liked was how he felt JW had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of musical styles and instrumentation of past eras. The example given was the A.I. radio sequence when Gigolo Joe plays a vintage 30's tune. This was arranged by JW and orchestrated by Conrad but Conrad might have used more modern scoring techniques and JW corrected it to reduce the instrumentation to be 2 violins per line. This is not considered ideal because its hard to tune two string instruments. One is easy and three or more are easy but not two. That was part of the style and particular sound though, that slightly off tune playing that made it sound authentic. Conrad also mentioned he'd never seen anyone attack a musical problem with as much focus than JW. Angela Morley did a few cues here and there from Star Wars through Schindler's List but the bulk of those orchestrations were Herb Spencer. Herb Spencer's last film I believe was Home Alone before he died but many consider him an important part of the sound of JW's Golden Age and Conrad himself said JW learned much from Spencer as they either had offices next to each other or would work on a daily schedule where the feedback worked its way into JW's output. I would say around 75% of Empire was Herb Spencer's orchestration, maybe 15% was Morley, and 10% were others. But when you're talking about a two hour score, that's still a lot of minutes by each of them. Arpy, Marc, ragoz350 and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JW Fan 1 Posted September 6, 2020 Author Share Posted September 6, 2020 --- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karelm 2,913 Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 35 minutes ago, JW Fan said: Why did Pope stop working with Williams? I know that he did one arrangement for the new album with Mutter but beyond that I don't think that he has had any involvement with his scores. I mentioned what I know. For someone like JW, orchestrators are there to assist the composer in their work flow process and/or save time. JW didn't really need the services of orchestrators around the time he stopped working with Conrad. He slowed down his output and sent the sketches straight to JAKMS for typesetting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datameister 2,042 Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 30 minutes ago, JW Fan said: Why did Pope stop working with Williams? I know that he did one arrangement for the new album with Mutter but beyond that I don't think that he has had any involvement with his scores. This interview doesn't say exactly why, but it does give some insight into the shift: https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/may-the-fourth-spotlight-on-joann-kane-music/ If I had to hazard a guess...Williams was doing sketches that had even more detail than before, perhaps because he was taking on fewer films, plus Mark Graham and the folks at JoAnn Kane had built such a comfortable relationship that they realized orchestrators simply weren't necessary for him anymore. Which makes sense, because Williams' sketches have always been very detailed and complete; they don't look like a finished professional score, but they contain all the information that makes the music what it is. ragoz350 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JW Fan 1 Posted September 6, 2020 Author Share Posted September 6, 2020 --- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datameister 2,042 Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 Bill Ross takes on bigger tasks, sometimes actually penning a revised cue or adaptation or whatnot - with Williams' input, changes, and ultimate approval, of course. He's also done a lot of conducting in cases where Williams couldn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrotherSound 2,242 Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 7 hours ago, JW Fan said: On another thread, it would be interesting to know how orchestrators are being paid. According to the AFM, it is by the page (four bars of music) which for a major motion picture wouldn't account for much in compensation. I wonder if they have a price or package payment set up as I don't think that many of them would just work for the standard union scale. Those AFM rates are just minimums. I certainly would hope anyone experienced enough to be working on a JW score would be paid far more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TownerFan 4,983 Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 14 hours ago, JW Fan said: Why does he continue to use William Ross then as an orchestrator? If he was used to how Pope worked wouldn't it be easier to just stay with him. I see that Ross has been with him ever since Pope departed. Conrad worked with JW for many years, but he wasn't the only one assisting him for orchestration work. Eddie Karam also assisted in several scores. As other said above, it's a matter of workflow and trust, but also scale of the projects. He talked about some of those details in the interview I did with him last year: https://thelegacyofjohnwilliams.com/2019/04/26/conrad-pope-interview/ On 9/6/2020 at 1:48 AM, JW Fan said: How long did he also use the services of Angela Morley? Morley did some orchestration work on some of the bigger scores of the late 70s and early 80s, namely Star Wars, Superman, The Empire Strikes Back, E.T., she did a few cues on all of those. Back in those years she was working mostly in television doing show such as Dallas, Dynasty, The Colbys and the Carringtons, Falcon Crest, etc. She came around working for JW through her friendship with Herb Spencer. In the following years, she also did arranging work on source music cues in Home Alone 1 and 2 and Schindler's List. Williams also asked her to contribute arrangements for some of his Boston Pops concerts over the years. Morley also contributed gorgeous arrangements for violin and orchestra for Itzhak Perlman on both Cinema Serenade albums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 37,355 Posted September 9, 2020 Share Posted September 9, 2020 On 9/6/2020 at 9:55 AM, karelm said: I believe the first score Conrad Pope orchestrated of JW's was Jurassic Park especially the more aggressive T-Rex, Raptor sequences. I believe the last thing he did with Williams was an Oscar arrangement around 2008 Pope orchestrated Tintin as well From War Horse forward there are no more handwritten orchestrated sheets, just JKMS-made typeset ones. As for when their collaboration started, it does seem to be with Jurassic Park; He co-orchestrated 9M1 The Falling Car and 12M2 Hungry Raptor with John Neufeld (who orchestrated the rest of the score himself, apart from 3 cues orchestrated by Alexander Courage - 9M2 The T-Rex Chase, 11M2 Preparing to Meet the Monster, and 13M3/14M1 T-Rex to the Rescue) IMDB says Pope did uncredited orchestration for Shindler's List too, but all the sheet music that leaked is either in Neufeld or Morley's handwriting karelm 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JW Fan 1 Posted September 10, 2020 Author Share Posted September 10, 2020 --- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datameister 2,042 Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 9 minutes ago, JW Fan said: Why did their working relationship stop or end? I see that JW still uses Ross as an orchestrator. It seems odd if he did so many in the 90's and then he stopped working for Williams. I'm not aware of any explicit public statement about why the shift happened; I don't think you'll find much more information it there than the replies we've already given. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrotherSound 2,242 Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 5 hours ago, Jay said: From War Horse forward there are no more handwritten orchestrated sheets, just JKMS-made computerized ones. War Horse was Eddie Karam’s last credit orchestrating for Williams, which would still have been handwritten, though there may have been a mix of handwritten and typeset, as with Tintin. I believe the switchover to 100% digitally typeset scores happened the following year with Lincoln. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 37,355 Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 Interesting! I didn't know handwritten sheets for War Horse were out there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrotherSound 2,242 Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 1 hour ago, Jay said: Interesting! I didn't know handwritten sheets for War Horse were out there! I’ve only ever seen the handwritten end credits, but I’m sure there must be more: Jay 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arpy 4,145 Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 I would love to see a book with color hi-res scans of Williams' sketches from a variety of scores. It goes beyond the content of the music to seeing the markings Williams makes, the yellowed/aged paper, little notes or whatever there might be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbellamy 6,286 Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 9 hours ago, JW Fan said: Why did their working relationship stop or end? I see that JW still uses Ross as an orchestrator. It seems odd if he did so many in the 90's and then he stopped working for Williams. Maybe should be reiterated he only used Ross on the Star Wars films, while continuing to fly solo on BFG and The Post in between. He stopped working with Pope because he stopped needing anyone outside of the heavier workload with Star Wars. Who knows why he went with Ross to help out instead of Pope or Karam or you or me. Maybe Ross was better qualified in more areas. Maybe Ross has incriminating photographs. Jay and crlbrg 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post TownerFan 4,983 Posted September 10, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 10, 2020 3 hours ago, mrbellamy said: Who knows why he went with Ross to help out instead of Pope or Karam or you or me. FYI, Karam is 91 years old and retired. There is no inherent reason as to why JW stopped working with Conrad other than he likely didn't need his services anymore. As he said in the podcast interview we did, Conrad feels like JW is doing good without him nonetheless 17 hours ago, Jay said: As for when their collaboration started, it does seem to be with Jurassic Park; He co-orchestrated 9M1 The Falling Car and 12M2 Hungry Raptor with John Neufeld (who orchestrated the rest of the score himself, apart from 3 cues orchestrated by Alexander Courage - 9M2 The T-Rex Chase, 11M2 Preparing to Meet the Monster, and 13M3/14M1 T-Rex to the Rescue) IMDB says Pope did uncredited orchestration for Shindler's List too, but all the sheet music that leaked is either in Neufeld or Morley's handwriting Conrad started in the early 1980s working as a copyist at JAKMS, so he was able to look at scores already very early on. He was recommended to John Neufeld by Arthur Morton (Goldsmith's main orchestrator), and started doing uncredited work for him. He was given his first credits with on some James Horner scores in the early 1990s (The Rocketeer, Patriot Games, Once Upon a Forest). It was around the same time that he started also contributing orchestration work for John Williams. His first work was indeed Jurassic Park in 1993. From that moment on, he became a regular in the team with Neufeld working with JW. He also started to get a lot of work and did orchestrations for Alan Silvestri, James Newton Howard, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer. His first official screen credit on a JW score was The Lost World. In some of the heavier, denser scores he orchestrated most of the cues, such as Sorcerer's Stone, Minority Report, Attack of the Clones, Prisoner of Azkaban. When Neufeld retired in 2004 (his last score with JW was The Terminal), Conrad basically became the "principal", splitting cues mostly with Eddie Karam on Revenge of the Sith, War of the Worlds, Munich, Indiana Jones IV and Tintin, with the occasional help from JAKMS people. Remco, Timo Martikainen, Once and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 37,355 Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 Amazing - you are a wealth of knowledge! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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