Exploring the Impact of Over-Editing on Film OSTs

[Bespin 8,483]

I would like the opinion of experts on the subject of over-editing music in film OSTs now that it's so easy with technical means.

 

I know that editing film music for albums has always been done, but sparingly, with makeshift means, often yielding mediocre results. For instance, in the first Star Wars soundtrack, some tracks were edited and combined, including the theme, but the album still contained many tracks as they were recorded.

 

Today, with technology, we can make dozens of micro-edits in a single cue, which I find somewhat excessive. I would like to know, from your perspective as experts with a better overview of soundtracks released in recent decades, what is your take on this?

 

Are soundtracks where 99% of the tracks are micro-edited becoming obsolete, or are they still relevant? Also, I'm curious to know, around which years there was a decisive turning point (if there was one), or with which soundtrack it became apparent that "Oh, OSTs will never be the same again."

 

Do you have any concrete examples?

[Bayesian 1,363]

Great questions, Bespin. I’m definitely curious about the answers too. I just wanted to pop in and clarify that what we on this forum refer to as “micro-edits” are just simply “edits” in a professional sound engineer/mixer/editor’s context. (I once posed a question about that terminology here and that was my takeaway.) Technically, the only thing big, small, or micro about an edit is maybe how much original material gets displaced from the affected cue. Otherwise, it’s the always fundamentally the same mechanistic action to cut in or cut out something that wasn’t captured in the original recording. 

 

If I’m wrong on this, let’s get that cleared up also. I’m sure I’m not the only one confused by the use of this forum vernacular. 

[Jay 37,369]

Yes that's right, "microedit" is a forum term that nobody in the industry actually uses.

[Bespin 8,483]

So, are there composers who are known to use edits frequently in their OSTs while others don't? Is it solely a matter of budget and time? Is the composition of 'Concert Suites' a trend that is fading away?

[GerateWohl 4,370]

41 minutes ago, Bespin said:

Is the composition of 'Concert Suites' a trend that is fading away?

I guess, it is a very different of skills. At a concert suite a composer must have knowledge about orchestral dynamics, the sound environment of a room and the sound body of an orchestra.

When composing a motion picture score today, one can record instrument groups separately, then mix them together for the actual soundtrack regulating the volume in correlation to the sound effects and to the match points of the film edits. That is of course an important special skillset. But this orchestral writing on its own is a skillset that is not required for that kind of work. Probably since a very long time and it gets less and less important.

And in a score like Dial of Destiny you actually hear, that the composer knows how to compose for orchestra. And in a score like Oppenheimer you don't hear it. It might be the case, that Göransson has these skills as well. But you don't hear it in the score.

I said it before. Görasson is one of these modern composers work rather like DJs than like orchestral composers, mixing and editing soundtracks by software. 

That's neiter worse or better, just different, and not my taste in film music.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

And in a score like Dial of Destiny you actually hear, that the composer knows how to compose for orchestra. And in a score like Oppenheimer you don't hear it. It might be the case, that Göransson has these skills as well. But you don't hear it in the score.

 

While that's obviously a valid and shared view (although I don't agree at all, and I sense that our tastes are very different) I don't think the comparison is relevant to how the scores are treated on album.

 

But I get a sense that fewer composers are in the mindset of excessive editing on OSTs, partly because anyone who's gotten into scoring within the last 5-10 years or so has started work in a world where the capacity of a CD isn't anywhere near as important as it was, and all the AFM fee rubbish for initial score releases has been put to bed. And since we now get huge albums dropping digitally and more TV shows are getting near compete releases, we're more looking at trims here and there for tidiness, but not edits that change the fundamental composition.

 

LotR was mentioned recently - clearly Shore had to work with an editor on those because if he just selected whole cues and plopped them on disc, you'd fill up a CD after only a large handful - a score of that size either needs a lengthy release (more than a CD) or needs a heck of a lot of material removed to allow him to put a variety of ideas on the album. I think LotR also indicates that evolving editing technology is less important than the abilities and care of the editor - no one's ever complained about poor quality of edits, despite that they were done over 20 years ago.

[Bespin 8,483]

Well, since everyone is just looking at each other and nobody is really stepping in with concrete examples, I'm going to go to the page listing the breakdowns and analyze a few OSTs of the last 2 decades to see what the situation is.

 

The first observation I made concerns the three OSTs of Howard Shore's LOTR trilogy, where I noticed that throughout the film trilogy, there were only 3 or 4 cues on the OSTs that were the cues as recorded, thus without any merge or edit. I found that to be very, very few.

 

I won't extend my analyses to the musical scores since I don't own them. As we know, there are famous examples (for instance, the Star Wars theme) where the edited cue on the OST have become an actual score and is now performed as if it was composed that way. If you have other examples, feel free to mention them here.

 

Oh, I almost forgot, the purpose of this thread is to prove that OSTs, with all the technical means now available to composers and producers, are becoming less and less relevant, thereby giving more value to extended versions.

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

On 5/3/2024 at 8:00 AM, Bespin said:

Is the composition of 'Concert Suites' a trend that is fading away?

 

Was it ever really a wide spread non Williams trend among modern composers?

 

I think from the 80s to now, Williams is the only composer who routinely wrote elaborate concert suites for his thematic material for nearly every score.

 

Few composers do this as regularly as him.

[Edmilson 7,466]

4 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Was it ever really a wide spread non Williams trend among modern composers?

 

I think from the 80s to now, Williams is the only composer who routinely wrote elaborate concert suites for his thematic material for nearly every score.

 

Few composers do this as regularly as him.

Zimmer does it, but AFAIK mostly before actually scoring the film, in order to have some material that he (and his collaborators) can use - see the sketchbooks for Dune, WW1984, etc. I remember reading somewhere that The Da Vinci Code OST is mostly his suites and ideas for the movie than actual movie cues.

[Bespin 8,483]

1 minute ago, Edmilson said:

Zimmer does it, but AFAIK mostly before actually scoring the film, in order to have some material that he (and his collaborators) can use - see the sketchbooks for Dune, WW1984, etc.

 

Is it true that a theme of 2 minutes wrote by Zimmer gives enough material for 10 hours of an actual score?

[Edmilson 7,466]

6 minutes ago, Bespin said:

 

Is it true that a theme of 2 minutes wrote by Zimmer gives enough material for 10 hours of an actual score?

More like 10 hours of suites, themes and ideas (some of them will be rejected) gets turned into 2 minute cues lol

[GerateWohl 4,370]

18 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Was it ever really a wide spread non Williams trend among modern composers?

 

I think from the 80s to now, Williams is the only composer who routinely wrote elaborate concert suites for his thematic material for nearly every score.

 

Few composers do this as regularly as him.

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek wrote special piano arrangments for the OST of Finding Neverland which won him the Oscar that year.

Alan Silvestri put a Suite of Forrest Gump on the OST and the song album of the movie but maybe that was just an edit of material from the score. I don't know.

Mark Mothersbaugh put a suite of Thor Ragnarok on its OST, maybe also just an edit.

Biggest disappointment in that sense was for me the end titles suite of John Powell's Solo, which according to him wasn't arranged by him but just put together by the music editor. For Star Wars I would have hoped for more.

 

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Zimmer does it, but AFAIK mostly before actually scoring the film, in order to have some material that he (and his collaborators) can use - see the sketchbooks for Dune, WW1984, etc. I remember reading somewhere that The Da Vinci Code OST is mostly his suites and ideas for the movie than actual movie cues.

 

I'm aware of that but that doesn't count. It is just him doodling for 15 mins and slapping it on a "concept" album.

 

I think of a concert suite as an orchestrated special presentation of thematic material - designed to showcase a theme in an overt expansive fashion - in a way it might not have the opportunity to do in the actual film. It is also something that can be played in concerts etc. 

 

Ain't nobody playing a trash Zimmer 15 min "sketch" or whatever he calls that crap in a classical concert hall.

 

2 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek wrote special piano arrangments for the OST of Finding Neverland which won him the Oscar that year.

Alan Silvestri put a Suite of Forrest Gump on the OST and the song album of the movie but maybe that was just an edit of material from the score. I don't know.

Mark Mothersbaugh put a suite of Thor Ragnarok on its OST, maybe also just an edit.

Biggest disappointment in that sense was for me the end titles suite of John Powell's Solo, which according to him wasn't arranged by him but just put together by the music editor. For Star Wars I would have hoped for more.

 

 

This is exactly me point. We are counting a handful going back 20 years.

 

Concert suites isn't a standard practice for several reasons

 

- it is beyond the skill of most composers to write concert suites

- it is beyond the skill of most composers to writes themes worthy of concert suites

[Edmilson 7,466]

19 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

I'm aware of that but that doesn't count. It is just him doodling for 15 mins and slapping it on a "concept" album.

 

I think of a concert suite as an orchestrated special presentation of thematic material - designed to showcase a theme in an overt expansive fashion - in a way it might not have the opportunity to do in the actual film. It is also something that can be played in concerts etc. 

 

Ain't nobody playing a trash Zimmer 15 min "sketch" or whatever he calls that crap in a classical concert hall.

 

 

This is exactly me point. We are counting a handful going back 20 years.

 

Concert suites isn't a standard practice for several reasons

 

- it is beyond the skill of most composers to write concert suites

- it is beyond the skill of most composers to writes themes worthy of concert suites

 

Does the Horner album "Back to Titanic" count? It's mostly his material for that score arranged in "concert" format. Like this:

 

 

[Bespin 8,483]

Here's my analysis (not a scientific one) of John Williams's 42 soundtracks analyzed and published in this thread:
 

 

Here's the evolution of the Edit % over the years:

The decades with the most edits are the 70s and the 2010s (average of 69% and 65%, respectively). The decade with the fewest edits is the 80s (average of 34%).

 

What I can say is that edits have always been a way of creating OSTs for John Williams. In the 80s, he attempted to reduce their usage, but they resurged in force in the 2000s, likely due to technological advancements.

 

OSTs with the least edited tracks (less than 40 %):

1. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
2. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982, due to its nature of containing primarily Concert Suites. Note: The results does not show albums that are 100% made of rerecordings like Jaws)
3. Spacecamp (1986)
4. The Accidental Tourist (1988)
5. The Witches of Eastwick (1989)
6. The Return of the Jedi (1983)
7. JFK (1991)
8. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
9. The Book Thief (2013)
10. Sleepers (1996)

OSTs with the most edited tracks (more than 70 %):

1. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
2. War of the Worlds (2005)
3. The Last Jedi (2017)
4. The Phantom Menace (1999)
5. War Horse (2011)
6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
7. The Force Awakens (2015)
8. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
9. Star Wars (1977)

 

P.S.: I know @Jay has Google Docs on many more scores, but if they're not posted on the Breakdown Thread, it's harder for me to analyze (subtle message). Add at least these ones first and I will recalculate my stats: A.I., The Cowboys, Harry Potter 1, Harry Potter 2, Harry Potter 3, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Superman, Rise of Skywalker.