Mangold: Asked JW for "big fat album" for Indy 5 with "as many cues as John can bear," also describes score & sound mix

[crumbs 12,973]

Mangold just posted some very interesting tweets!

 

Not only has he raised the idea of a "big fat album" with JW's team (in response to questions about a complete soundtrack), he also describes the score as "heroic, bombastic, sly, majestic, sinister, romantic & screwball!"

And to allay fears of another inaudible TFA/TROS mess, he's reassured fans about the sound mix:

Just imagine if Mangold's the guy who finally convinces JW to release a 2CD OST, or even encourages JW to release an expansion alongside his regular OST!

 

Or at the very least, bonus tracks on the digital album...

[Edmilson 4,988]

Two great news! Let's hope we can get at least a 90-100 minute OST album.

[artguy360 1,723]

TLJ is the best mixed modern JW action score. I hope DOD matches or surpasses it in terms of JW's music being front and center. 

[Manakin Skywalker 3,895]

Also more confirmation that expansions of Lucasfilm scores are ultimately up to John, and Disney likely aren't the ones holding back Star Wars expansions.

[King Mark 3,225]

that statement  means as much he can convince JW to put on 1 c.d. , which might mean 78 minutes instead of the usual 74 minutes

 

Don't get too excited about some deluxe edition

[Brando 1,065]

8 minutes ago, King Mark said:

Don't get too excited about some deluxe edition

[crumbs 12,973]

32 minutes ago, artguy360 said:

TLJ is the best mixed modern JW action score. I hope DOD matches or surpasses it in terms of JW's music being front and center. 

 

Encouragingly, Gary Rydstrom is one of the film's re-recording mixers, alongside Paul Massey (who was music mixer on Ford v Ferrari, plus a stack of music-focused movies like Bohemian Rhapsody, The Greatest Showman, This Is It) so I think we're in safe hands.

 

Of course Rydstrom was the re-recording mixer on Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse, Phantom Menace, West Side Story, etc. so he's no stranger to Spielberg nor Williams.

[Drew 564]

Imagine a world where DVD-audio was successful in replacing the CD and we wouldn’t be talking about CD length limits…

[Manakin Skywalker 3,895]

9 minutes ago, Drew said:

Imagine a world where DVD-audio was successful in replacing the CD and we wouldn’t be talking about CD length limits…

 

Digital releases which have no limits pretty much have at this point, but unfortunately studios are like "Well, 80 minutes has been the limit for the past century, so let's just stick with that! Derp!"

[Edmilson 4,988]

I can picture Mangold at the recording sessions listening for the first time to all of these amazing new John Williams compositions and thinking: "Geez, and to think the whole world will only be able to listen to half of it on its own! That's a very sad thought!". Then, he decided to convince JW to just release everything.

 

RJ probably thought that too, and his solution was TLJ isolated score.

[enderdrag64 375]

2 hours ago, Drew said:

Imagine a world where DVD-audio was successful in replacing the CD and we wouldn’t be talking about CD length limits…

I believe I've said this before on this forum but CDs could hold almost double the amount of music they generally do with no changes whatsoever to the design - just encode the music in flac or equivalent instead of uncompressed PCM.

 

I'm honestly not sure why this was never done before, I'd imagine it would make releases a lot cheaper (no need for 2 CD sets) - perhaps it was for backwards compatibility with older stereos? Still it wouldn't be too hard to make them compatible, you'd just need a way to update the firmware.

 

But yeah like Manakin said digital releases don't have any such limits anyway 

[Michael G. 384]

If they indeed release everything, imagine if they also included the cue numbers/titles in the track titles. I'd be in heaven. 

But to come back to real life, we already know we won't get everything. I can't believe they would include the score for the previous version of the finale. 

[ThePenitentMan1 283]

54 minutes ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

If they indeed release everything, imagine if they also included the cue numbers/titles in the track titles. I'd be in heaven.

 

IMHO, the liner notes are a better place for cue/slate numbers.  EDIT: My mind's still in "CD" mode; digital releases don't have liner notes, do they?

 

It'd probably be impossible for the initial OST release anyway, since there'd almost certainly be cues that are combined into one track, with the track title taken from a completely different cue or outright made up from scratch.  Adding the cue numbers in the track titles on top of that would look way too messy for an OST release.

[Michael G. 384]

If they did it the way they did the Solo Deluxe, it wouldn't look messy to me:

[ThePenitentMan1 283]

31 minutes ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

if they did it like the solo deluxe, it wouldn't look messy to me:

 

Yeah, but that's an expansion, not an OST!

[Michael G. 384]

4 minutes ago, ThePenitentMan1 said:

 

Yeah, but that's an expansion, not an OST!

 

Why wouldn't that work for an OST? I assume they don't tear everything apart like in TROS. And if they do, hopefully the original Williams versions can be used on the albums. For the film edits, Mangold is hopefully making a music-only film on the DVD like Star Wars 8.

 

[ThePenitentMan1 283]

1 hour ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

 

Why wouldn't that work for an OST? I assume they don't tear everything apart like in TROS. And if they do, hopefully the original Williams versions can be used on the albums. For the film edits, Mangold is hopefully making a music-only film on the DVD like Star Wars 8.

 

 

I mean, if it were done on a deluxe edition album like that one, then sure, I guess.  Even if it's not the most elegant solution, we're gonna need those slate numbers somehow.

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

11 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

 

 

In other words, it's in the centre channel, in mono! 

[Marian Schedenig 6,522]

6 hours ago, enderdrag64 said:

I believe I've said this before on this forum but CDs could hold almost double the amount of music they generally do with no changes whatsoever to the design - just encode the music in flac or equivalent instead of

uncompressed PCM.

 

CDs the discs, not CDDA the format.

 

6 hours ago, enderdrag64 said:

perhaps it was for backwards compatibility with older stereos?

 

Compatibility (not backwards compatibility) with CD players (= CDDA players). Sure, many modern players could probably handle data CDs with audio files, but I'd expect not all of them, and then some of those that do might not handle FLAC, and some of the remaining ones may have different ideas of how to order the tracks. To my knowledge, that stuff has never been standardised, so releasing something like that as an "audio CD" would just provoke a massive customer shitstorm.

[Tom 3,716]

I am going to keep saying the following until I get the reaction I want:

 

Man, this movie is going to be gold.  

[Thor 5,979]

A bit worrying about the 'big fat album' bit, but I trust Williams to make a decent, well curated listening experience out of his material regardless.

[ThePenitentMan1 283]

18 minutes ago, Thor said:

A bit worrying about the 'big fat album' bit, but I trust Williams to make a decent, well curated listening experience out of his material regardless.

 

How did you feel about Crystal Skull's OST?

[Thor 5,979]

1 minute ago, ThePenitentMan1 said:

 

How did you feel about Crystal Skull's OST?

 

Slightly too long.

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

 

Most OSTs, and records by pop/rock artists, are, nowadays, far too long. They release 16 tracks, not because they should, but because they can.

I'd rather have 40 minutes of killer material, than 75 minutes of obvious filler.

[Jurassic Shark 9,819]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

I am going to keep saying the following until I get the reaction I want:

 

Man, this movie is going to be gold.  

 

Mangold is many things, but on thing he's not: Anne-Sophie Mutter. 

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

Man, this movie is going to be gold.  

If DOD doesn't make at least $1.5 billion, then The Mouse ain't gonna be happy.

[BB-8 1,950]

Is the label already decided upon?

[Jay 32,111]

Disney Records of course

[Richard Penna 2,639]

3 hours ago, Thor said:

 

Slightly too long.

 

That's not the album length - i highly suspect that's because the entire underscore-driven middle section of the score is (imo) really boring.

 

---

 

I join KM in being skeptical that this will have persuaded Williams to make a physical album that required two CDs, but perhaps a longer digital release which has more than he'd otherwise do?

 

I'd love to be a fly on the wall for these discussions where Williams airs his concerns about ruining his listening experience.

 

10 hours ago, enderdrag64 said:

I'm honestly not sure why this was never done before, I'd imagine it would make releases a lot cheaper (no need for 2 CD sets) - perhaps it was for backwards compatibility with older stereos? Still it wouldn't be too hard to make them compatible, you'd just need a way to update the firmware.

 

I think the effort required to update players with the necessary firmware would be eclipsed by the simplicity of digital downloads/streaming. Imagine buying a 'flac' CD and happening to put it in an incompatible CD player. Almost no one would have a clue why it wasn't working.

[Thor 5,979]

16 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

That's not the album length - i highly suspect that's because the entire underscore-driven middle section of the score is (imo) really boring.

 

Oh yeah, that's part of it too. Save for a couple of highlights, it's not a terribly interesting score. Certainly not enough to sustain a 78-minute running time. The ideal INDY OST is THE LAST CRUSADE -- one glorious, self-contained setpiece after the other, but still combined in a way that flows beautifully. And just the right length. Not expecting anything even remotely in the same ball park from INDY 5, especially not after reading about Mangold wanting a 'big fat album' and 'as many cues as Williams can bear', but I hope for as long as I can. Williams is a masterful album producer, so I hope he can see through all of that and provide something worthwhile.

[aj_vader 444]

If it is really down to Williams why we haven't had Star Wars and Indy expansions, why would he approve *insert current expanded releases list here* before Star Wars and Indy? 

 

Maybe it's happening but just taking an extremely long time because they are still trying to find the best sources? 

We can hope right? We can speculate? This is normal behaviour right?

[King Mark 3,225]

I think a combination of corporate greed (we'll just sit on these recording sessions that might make us money eventually)  mixed with cheapness/laziness (why would we hire some guy to go over the recordings and edit/remaster all this), or that nobody in a position of power cares at all that are the reason we haven't got expansion of the Star Wars scores (at least Prequels and sequels)

 

I don't think Williams is against it, but he's certainly not helping making it happen, unlike most other composers who are proud of their work

[Manakin Skywalker 3,895]

1 hour ago, aj_vader said:

why would he approve *insert current expanded releases list here* before Star Wars and Indy?

 

 

[aj_vader 444]

1 hour ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

 

This broke me! 🤣

[pete 737]

2 hours ago, aj_vader said:

If it is really down to Williams why we haven't had Star Wars and Indy expansions, why would he approve *insert current expanded releases list here* before Star Wars and Indy? 

 

I think you're describing two entirely different processes. Williams does decide what's on his original soundtrack releases. While approving an expansion isn't only up to him, and it's a more complicated process as we're talking about making new contracts with parties that were involved in an older movie 20-50 years ago. One release was delayed waiting for Tom Cruise to approve use of his image. That wouldn't happen with a film he just worked on, for example. 

[Manakin Skywalker 3,895]

16 minutes ago, pete said:

I think you're describing two entirely different processes. Williams does decide what's on his original soundtrack releases. While approving an expansion isn't only up to him, and it's a more complicated process as we're talking about making new contracts with parties that were involved in an older movie 20-50 years ago. One release was delayed waiting for Tom Cruise to approve use of his image. That wouldn't happen with a film he just worked on, for example. 

 

Well the thing is in this case Disney has free reuse for any music from the original six films; as they were not recorded in LA so there are no additional contracts or fees that would be associated with reusing that material.

 

Now of course the newer films would be an issue, with AFM and all. But they approved Rogue One for release, despite being under the same circumstance. From what we've seen, Disney/Lucasfilm seem to be perfectly fine with releasing a hearty amount of music. In the case of John Powell, it was him who had to initiate talks to get his expansion made.

[A Farewell to Kings 3,805]

To be fair, digital music can use less artwork.

[pete 737]

25 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Well the thing is in this case Disney has free reuse for any music from the original six films; as they were not recorded in LA so there are no additional contracts or fees that would be associated with reusing that material.

 

Now of course the newer films would be an issue, with AFM and all. But they approved Rogue One for release, despite being under the same circumstance. From what we've seen, Disney/Lucasfilm seem to be perfectly fine with releasing a hearty amount of music. In the case of John Powell, it was him who had to initiate talks to get his expansion made.

Good points!

[Nick1Ø66 3,829]

20 hours ago, crumbs said:

Mangold: Asked JW for "big fat album" for Indy 5 with "as many cues as John can bear"

 

Well I hope it doesn't have too many notes.

[mrbellamy 5,718]

Would be very happy if this results in a lean mean John Williams OST with a big fat digital release. 

[Drew 564]

20 hours ago, enderdrag64 said:

I believe I've said this before on this forum but CDs could hold almost double the amount of music they generally do with no changes whatsoever to the design - just encode the music in flac or equivalent instead of uncompressed PCM.

 

I'm honestly not sure why this was never done before, I'd imagine it would make releases a lot cheaper (no need for 2 CD sets) - perhaps it was for backwards compatibility with older stereos? Still it wouldn't be too hard to make them compatible, you'd just need a way to update the firmware.

 

But yeah like Manakin said digital releases don't have any such limits anyway 

 

The same reason DVDs are still so limited: Compatibility with old players. They could easily put FLAC files on a CD and H.265 or AV1 files on a DVD, but that would make them incompatible with old players.

[A. A. Ron 1,017]

11 hours ago, Thor said:

 

Oh yeah, that's part of it too. Save for a couple of highlights, it's not a terribly interesting score.

You only think that because the album does such a terrible job of representing what the score has to offer.

[Drew 564]

It's not just corporate greed preventing expanded albums. George Lucas himself made no effort to do it while he was still in power. He didn't even produce the Concord 2008 set - Laurent did.

[Marian Schedenig 6,522]

9 hours ago, Drew said:

The same reason DVDs are still so limited: Compatibility with old players. They could easily put FLAC files on a CD and H.265 or AV1 files on a DVD, but that would make them incompatible with old players.

 

Again, it's not about "old players", it's about standards: Many new players can play FLACs in some form, but I'm sure not all can (even if they can handle eg MP3), and most people who haven't tried before probably couldn't tell if their own player can. Plus there's not commonly defined way for how to handle them, e.g. in what order to play them, or how to navigate. CDDA is a standard, as are DVD-V and DVD-A. If you have a matching player, you can expect a disc with the matching technology to work in it (if it doesn't, you're probably entitled to get the player or disc fixed or replaced/refunded, depending on what the problem is). But there is no standard for FLAC discs. You can't find a label on such a disc and check that your player has the same label to make sure that it'll be compatible. FLAC CDs or DVDs would just be data discs containing FLAC files, and they would be guaranteed to be readable by devices (typically computers) that can handle whatever filesystem was used and to be playable by software that can play FLAC files. That isn't something you can sell to everyone who expects the disc to play on "a CD/DVD player".

[Drew 564]

It's about old players in the sense that the old players do not have the computing power to play back newer codecs.

[Jurassic Shark 9,819]

7 minutes ago, Drew said:

It's not just corporate greed preventing expanded albums. George Lucas himself made no effort to do it while he was still in power. 

 

What do you mean? We got the SE expansions, right?

[Drew 564]

AOTC and ROTS got no expansions at all.

[Marian Schedenig 6,522]

4 minutes ago, Drew said:

It's about old players in the sense that the old players do not have the computing power to play back newer codecs.

 

But it's not about computing power because you can't just sell a disc with a label "requires a player with a computing power of at least X", because 1) nobody knows their player's computing power (there's not even a standardised way to measure it) and 2) having enough computing power doesn't guarantee that it has the necessary software to play the content.

[Jurassic Shark 9,819]

7 minutes ago, Drew said:

AOTC and ROTS got no expansions at all.

 

The OSTs are sufficient.

[Drew 564]

1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

The OSTs are sufficient.

 

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