RIP Ken Wannberg (1930-2022)

[TownerFan 4,983]

Just got news that one of John Williams’ key collaborators, music editor Ken Wannberg, has passed away.

 

RIP Kenny

[Amer 2,080]

Robert Townson posted this on his Facebook page:

 

 

Ken Wannberg (1930 – 2022)
Sadly, we have lost one of the most legendary and iconic film music editors of all time.  Kenneth Wannberg, was also a composer himself, best known for his scores for The Philadelphia Experiment, Blame it on Rio (both 1984), Mother Lode (1984) and ‘The Sitter’ episode of Amazing Stories in 1986.  But as a music editor, he worked consistently with John Williams from 1976’s The Missouri Breaks, and 1977’s Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, all the way through 2005’s Memoirs of a Geisha and Munich.  Even earlier, he also worked with Williams on Tom Sawyer (1974), The Paper Chase (1973) and Valley of the Dolls in 1967.  There was little time to work with other composers, but Wannberg also worked with Michael Convertino on films including Mother Night (1996), Guarding Tess and The Santa Clause (both 1994), a couple of scores with Alex North (Prizzi’s Honor, 1985 and The Dead, 1987), and with Georges Delerue on Joe Vs. The Volcano (1990) and Beaches (1988).

[Skelly 261]

Here's a story Conrad Pope told several years ago:
 

Quote

Just a quick story John Williams's music editor. This was over a decade ago [around 2000]. I was sitting there and I was in a very bad mood about, I guess maybe my own career, and I was bitching. I said, Oh, you know, music these days, it's no good, blah blah blah blah. And Ken said, "Hey Conrad! I think we're in the golden age of film music." "What are you saying?" He said, "Look, I started out with Bernard Herrmann on 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'. But Bernard Herrmann, he could make mistakes." I forget what it is, 'Sisters' or one of those Brian de Palma films, that [Wannberg] said very just overshot the mark. I mean, the thing is just unlistenable when you look at it to the film. He said, "No one makes those mistakes today thanks to the computers. We have all these sort of mock-ups, we see what it's going to sound like, it's all predetermined." He said, "This is the great era of film music." And I said, "Yeah, but the music itself...!" He said, "Ah, I didn't say this is the golden era of music for film; I said it's the golden era of film music." And he said, "Never have there been so many tools for composers to find out what will not really take people out of the film." And he said, "But [it's not] an era in which there's music that will draw you into it either." I thought, "Geez, that's even more bitter than I was!"

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,506]

R.I.P., Mr. Wannberg.

Although your contribution to film music will go largely unnoticed by the general public, serious fans of the genre will always be in your debt. Thank you.

[Thor 7,477]

Sorry to hear it. I'm still not 100% certain what a music editor does, but I know his contribution was considerable. Also as composer.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

An absolute legend even if only in his esoteric field.  RIP, he did so much to bring us the music we all love!

[Faleel 5,340]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Sorry to hear it. I'm still not 100% certain what a music editor does, but I know his contribution was considerable. Also as composer.

Edits music.....?

[Trent B 337]

Sad news indeed. Rest In Peace Ken you'll be missed. I saw the news from John Debney via Facebook.

[karelm 2,903]

5 hours ago, Thor said:

Sorry to hear it. I'm still not 100% certain what a music editor does, but I know his contribution was considerable. Also as composer.

Music editing is a different role than mixing.  Sometimes it is the same person who does the mix and the edit, but in big budget films, you'll get specialists.  Basically, editing will take the best moments from different takes and make them sound great and seamless.  They will be "edited" together in to a cohesive whole.  The mixer will adjust the levels of all the various mics mix together to make the edit sound even better.  In professional editing software, you can edit all the mics without mixing them together.  This is different from mastering.  Mastering is making the mix work great in its final distributed form which can be headphones, high fidelity speakers, theaters, etc.  For instance, a great mix might sound great in a theater but not be that great on headphones.  The mastering will be more concerned with a general mix sounding great across various deviances.  So, making it more CD/iPhone friendly is a mastering job, not mixers.  A mixer will take 48 microphones to produce a greater final product, but it still needs mastering to work best on lo-fi headphones, car speakers, high-fidelity too.  These are three separate talents.  In high buget projects, you'll get experts in each of those.  In film production, think about film editor, color correction, and developer.  Very different roles.  The editor will slice the various scenes and cuts to make a smooth and cohesive experience (music editor).  The color corrector won't really have anything to do with the edit but will take the final edit and add a color that supports the story (the mixer).  The film developer will get the movie ready for distribution across various formats like theaters, tv, computers, iPhone (mastering).  Ideally, you have specialists in these roles but in lower budget projects, the composer might have to fill in these roles as best they can.

[chinaismine 64]

Every time I see Ken Wannberg's name, I remember this scene from the Revenge of the Sith behind-the-scenes footage of him arguing to make the music noticeable against Ben Burtt's "noisy" sound effects:

 

RIP

[TownerFan 4,983]

9 hours ago, karelm said:

Music editing is a different role than mixing.  Sometimes it is the same person who does the mix and the edit, but in big budget films, you'll get specialists.  Basically, editing will take the best moments from different takes and make them sound great and seamless.  They will be "edited" together in to a cohesive whole.  The mixer will adjust the levels of all the various mics mix together to make the edit sound even better.  In professional editing software, you can edit all the mics without mixing them together.  This is different from mastering.  Mastering is making the mix work great in its final distributed form which can be headphones, high fidelity speakers, theaters, etc.  For instance, a great mix might sound great in a theater but not be that great on headphones.  The mastering will be more concerned with a general mix sounding great across various deviances.  So, making it more CD/iPhone friendly is a mastering job, not mixers.  A mixer will take 48 microphones to produce a greater final product, but it still needs mastering to work best on lo-fi headphones, car speakers, high-fidelity too.  These are three separate talents.  In high buget projects, you'll get experts in each of those.  In film production, think about film editor, color correction, and developer.  Very different roles.  The editor will slice the various scenes and cuts to make a smooth and cohesive experience (music editor).  The color corrector won't really have anything to do with the edit but will take the final edit and add a color that supports the story (the mixer).  The film developer will get the movie ready for distribution across various formats like theaters, tv, computers, iPhone (mastering).  Ideally, you have specialists in these roles but in lower budget projects, the composer might have to fill in these roles as best they can.

Music editing isn’t just actual cutting the best takes for the final mix. The music editor - at least in the traditional sense - is the composer’s right-hand person from the get-go, sitting down with composer and director/producer during the spotting session, taking notes of the director’s requests, temp track suggestions and anything that might have an impact on the actual composing; then he takes all the precise timings for how and when music starts and ends, making sure that the music will match the editing; he is the liaison between the music team and the editorial team, as he has constant communication with the film’s editors, keeping the composer updated with all the editorial changes that the film might have during the composing phase (that is what is a nightmare in these days, as movies keep changing until the last minute) and get down the locked cut to the composer; then he oversees and prepares the sync track (streamers & punches and click track) for the score’s recording, making sure the sync is always correct. And he sits down in the booth, checking everything is going smoothly, so he has to know how to read music and speak in musical terms. After the recording is in the can, he sits down with the composer selecting the best takes and assemble the final version to be ready for the mix, where he is usually the composer’s spokesperson. He also has to conform the music edits to any changes the cut might have after the recording.

 

Back in the day, it was really a job involving a lot of tech work being done on analog machines like moviolas and the likes, preparing everything for the recording really manually. Today everything is digital and lots of preparation work is done on music softwares precisely built for this purpose.

 

It’s an absolutely crucial role in the overall process and it’s usually down to a very personal relationship with the composer, as Wannberg had with JW.

[BB-8 3,461]

John Williams mourns his career-long editor - Slipped DiscSlipped Disc | The inside track on classical music and related cultures, by Norman Lebrecht (slippedisc.com)

[Dr. Rick 1,155]

That was the shortest article I've ever read, lot of thought went into that one... 

[buysoundtrax 32]

Click here to read the Variety Obit for Ken Wannberg by Jon Burlingame

 

Goodbye Old Friend

[Luke Skywalker 1,793]

Rest in peace, many thanks for all your work.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

Hope I live that long.

Rip KW

[1977 1,743]

I recently ordered the Prometheus Ken Wannberg volume 1 CD featuring The Philadelphia Experiment and Motherlode, and will be collecting it tomorrow. Has anyone heard these scores?

[Groovygoth666 650]

On 29/01/2022 at 11:54 PM, chinaismine said:

Every time I see Ken Wannberg's name, I remember this scene from the Revenge of the Sith behind-the-scenes footage of him arguing to make the music noticeable against Ben Burtt's "noisy" sound effects:

 

RIP

Watched @Manakin Skywalkers upload of this on YouTube last week, that whole "Are you happy Kenny" bit show's how much impact he had, fighting Ben Burtt's overpowering sfx (something Ben would later return to for the original trilogy, practically making John's music inaudible). Ken was definitely missed on the sequel trilogy. Even though he retired after Munich, such a sad loss, my condolences to his family and friends.

[1977 1,743]

Should I get the Prometheus Ken Wannberg Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 CDs? I got Vol. 1 at a good price recently.