Wallace & Gromit

[Mr. Breathmask 566]

It's finally coming.

After being announced ages ago, the Wallace & Gromit movie is finally starting to peek over the horizon. I can't wait. If it's as good as the shorts (particularly the complete and utter brilliant The Wrong Trousers) we're in for quite a ride.

- Marc

[Goldsmithfan 6]

That movie should be f***ing awesome. I've been looking forward to it for a little while myself.

I prefer A Close Shave.

[Marian Schedenig 8,900]

That's an awesome poster! Wrong Trousers is definitely the best W&G short. And CR:1 is great as well.

Marian - hoping Julian Nott is still attached to this?

The Great Escape (Elmer Bernstein)

[Goldsmithfan 6]

Wrong Trousers is definitely the best W&G short.

That's an opinion.

AN OPINION

[Jynxpossum 0]

Can't wait either. The Wrong Trousers is also my favourite Wallace and Gromit Short.

[RomanticStrings 12]

That's an opinion.

AN OPINION

That's an opinion... sort of.

~Conor

[pixie_twinkle 60]

I've been a fan of Wallace and Gromit ever since I first taped A Grand Day Out as part of a Channel Four animation festival back in 1990 or so. It was part of an Aardman segment that also included the terrific War Story and Creature Comforts. All three were amazing. Then a few years later The Wrong Trousers came out and it was obvious that the budget, scale, ambition, and overall ante had gone up a few notches. I had the pleasure of meeting Nick Park in Sheffield back in 1996 or so. He told me that he was working on a feature film of Wallace and Gromit. I was surprised when we got Chicken Run instead! Now finally I'll get what I've been hoping for since 1990, a Wallace and Gromit feature. I'm more excited about this than PJ's King Kong remake. This is my most anticipated film of the year, along with Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Brothers Grimm. Yeah! Nice poster too. I watched the trailer on IMDB last month. Looks great!

[Mr. Breathmask 566]

BTW, has anyone here seen those awesome Angry Kid shorts? You can watch them over at AtomFilms.com

[Mr. Breathmask 566]

The trailer is out.

Man, this is gonna be good. It's just become my most anticipated film of the year.

[Marian Schedenig 8,900]

LOL

[tomsmoviemadness 3,466]

Lorne Balfe just posted the following on his Instagram. This probably means he's scoring the new film instead of Julian Nott. Real shame.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-IpNI8tq4K/?igsh=M2ZoOWc0d2NpdXBl

[Richard Penna 4,109]

Oh hell no. I was listening to a promo of Nott's W&G music the other day. Why are producers scared of time honoured music?

[HunterTech 1,186]

Well, I hate to say it, but they did at least pick someone who has already worked on a W&G thing before. Sure, the MV involvement was unfortunate, given the story Nott has told about Zimmer and Chicken Run, but it's not a name that's purely (only mostly) chosen because he runs a composing factory of his own. Jim Dooley or RGW might've been more interesting names from that crew to handle this, but it's rooted in something still.

[Jurassic Shark 12,902]

35 minutes ago, HunterTech said:

Sure, the MV involvement was unfortunate, given the story Nott has told about Zimmer and Chicken Run

 

What did he say?

[Edmilson 8,728]

One thing you can't deny about Lorne Balfe: he has AMAZING networking skills. Probably better even than Hans Zimmer himself.

[HunterTech 1,186]

Is that so impressive when this isn't his first W&G rodeo?

[Jurassic Shark 12,902]

He probably has a lot of dirt on film executives.

[HunterTech 1,186]

 

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

What did he say?

 

Source

 

Quote

Was there any particular reason you did not score the Aardman animated feature CHICKEN RUN, after providing temporary tracks for it?

Obviously that was a disappointing episode for me. Nick Park and his production company Aardman put me forward to score CHICKEN RUN and for a short while I was going to do it. But, quite frankly, Jeffrey Katzenberg and his team at Dreamworks (the financiers and co-producers of the movie) preferred to work with the team they had used before on ANTZ, a couple of composers who are part of Hans Zimmer’s composing conglomerate Media Ventures. There’s a lot of commercial interests at stake with these big Hollywood films, a lot of politics goes on, and I can’t engage in that five thousand miles away in the UK, and in any case I don’t have the status to be a political player. So I was blown out of the water without much difficulty!

In fact I had a couple of meetings with Hans Zimmer, and I remember him telling me he found my style of music a bit old-fashioned. He recommended I modernise!

At first I was puzzled by his opinion, but the more I thought about it I did begin to wonder whether there was something in what he was saying. Like many other film composers, I have been writing in that very classical, almost John Williams inspired, style for some time. Maybe that highly-trained traditional symphonic style is sounding a little tired now. Maybe even the symphony orchestra itself, if used in a traditional way, is starting to sound a bit tired on film soundtracks! Sacrilege, I know! But it’s quite interesting that some highly sophisticated composers like Thomas Newman seem to me to be slowly adopting harmonic and melodic idioms, and choices of sounds, that almost seem inspired by the music of untrained synth composers, yet the result seems fresh and exciting. I think we’re seeing a slow but real evolution in the language of film music. Almost a dumbing-down from the point of view of classical tradition and technical perfection in a conservative sense, but I don’t think this is a problem. Myself, I’m also exploring a bit more and experimenting with some of my more recent work. And at the same time, I certainly think we should all be resisting those dreadful Hollywood clichés, that are just as tired, which Hollywood factory music adores, those awful sudden key changes to manipulate excitement, and all those annoying orchestral whooshes and wheezes and gran cassa (bass drum) thumps that are shoved in at the slightest excuse.

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,902]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

Oh hell no. I was listening to a promo of Nott's W&G music the other day. Why are producers scared of time honoured music?

 

Why hasn't this gotten a proper release?

 

6 minutes ago, HunterTech said:

a dumbing-down from the point of view of classical tradition and technical perfection in a conservative sense

 

Talk about kicking in open doors.

[Alex 2,882]

6 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

What did he say?

Deleted, as already answered.

[Tallguy 4,236]

That's a Feathers toy from KFC. I have one on my desk.

[tomsmoviemadness 3,466]

 

 

[filmmusic 2,156]

15 hours ago, HunterTech said:

In fact I had a couple of meetings with Hans Zimmer, and I remember him telling me he found my style of music a bit old-fashioned. He recommended I modernise!

I can't imagine what he honestly thinks of John Williams!

[Tallguy 4,236]

Does anyone think Chicken Run sounds particularly modern? I mean, it's a pastiche of WWII POW movies with kazoos!

[Richard Penna 4,109]

I played the train chase from The Wrong Trousers (it's one of the cues on Nott's promo) to someone a few weeks ago and they recognised it. One of the best pieces of stop motion ever, considering when it was done. I could play anything from Zimmer's scores from the last 5 years and they wouldn't have a clue.

 

Chicken Run is definitely not modern - not a single RCP influence in sight. Zimmer can be a right twat sometimes.

 

16 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Why hasn't this gotten a proper release?

 

I wonder whether it's just too obscure, in a general sense. Who would work on it - Silva maybe?

 

But I'd sooo buy a release of music from the original specials (I don't think A Grand Day Out has a score outside of the theme, iirc?)

[Tallguy 4,236]

16 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

I could play anything from Zimmer's scores from the last 5 years and they wouldn't have a clue.

 

The last 5 years is not a great sample set. I bet you could play a couple of things from the past 10. Certainly 15. Chicken Run is 24.

[Tom Guernsey 2,615]

Hopefully Grassland Vomit (Lorne Balfe) is "assisting" Julian Nott in the same way JN was "assisted" on the first W&G movie (not to any significant detriment, fortunately, the score is still very much JN, lots of great themes and huge fun). I could be wrong, but my recollection is that Dreamworks effectively "imposed" Hans and the Gang on JN but that Aardman didn't have the same relationship with Dreamworks any more so would have assumed they had more freedom to just let JN do his thing. To JN's credit, I do remember him saying something along the lines that Hans had provided useful advice in terms of structuring his music for a longer form score and in developing themes etc.

 

But yes, Hans can be a right twat. Also... have you seen W&G?! It's basically set in nostalgic quasi 50s England, it's about the most old fashioned thing you can imagine (in so many brilliant ways). I'd understand if JN was scoring a Marvel movie, but seriously... it's W&G FFS. What a twat.

 

It is a shame that nobody has put together an album of music from the W&G shorts. I have the promo (or whatever it is) with about 12 minutes on it, but would be good to have some more...

[Richard Penna 4,109]

It would be a bit different had Dreamworks imposed someone like Powell/HGW to help Nott adapt his music for a longer-form. Stylistically they're in the same sort of mentality as Nott.

 

I rewatched Grand Day Out and I had misrememdered - there is a small amount of score, albeit a lot more jazzy and bordering on source material than the others. I'm not a massive fan (musically) of A Matter of Loaf and Death - it's perfectly fine material but isn't quite standing out to me as much. It's Wrong Trousers which is not only the best of the four but also has the most memorable score for me.

[Jurassic Shark 12,902]

Let's face it, the gig has gone to Balfe.

 

[Anthony 600]

On 04/08/2024 at 7:38 AM, Tom Guernsey said:

Hopefully Grassland Vomit (Lorne Balfe) is "assisting" Julian Nott in the same way JN was "assisted" on the first W&G movie (not to any significant detriment, fortunately, the score is still very much JN, lots of great themes and huge fun). I could be wrong, but my recollection is that Dreamworks effectively "imposed" Hans and the Gang on JN but that Aardman didn't have the same relationship with Dreamworks any more so would have assumed they had more freedom to just let JN do his thing. To JN's credit, I do remember him saying something along the lines that Hans had provided useful advice in terms of structuring his music for a longer form score and in developing themes etc.

 

But yes, Hans can be a right twat. Also... have you seen W&G?! It's basically set in nostalgic quasi 50s England, it's about the most old fashioned thing you can imagine (in so many brilliant ways). I'd understand if JN was scoring a Marvel movie, but seriously... it's W&G FFS. What a twat.

 

It is a shame that nobody has put together an album of music from the W&G shorts. I have the promo (or whatever it is) with about 12 minutes on it, but would be good to have some more...

 

Amen to all of this! I'd love more music from The Wrong Trousers especially!

[tomsmoviemadness 3,466]

 

 

[Alex 2,882]

Even Julian Nott is there

[Richard Penna 4,109]

Good sign that he's there. I don't know why producers think that he's not capable of scoring a film like this on his own though. Nothing I've heard from Balfe indicates that this is the right assignment for him.

[Alex 2,882]

 

I imagine this will be very similar to the Julian Nott+RCP effort of 2005.

[Edmilson 8,728]

Interesting to see they're recording with the entire orchestra. I thought RCP composers, or just young composers in general, preferred that striping method of recording strings first, then brass, etc.

 

Nice videos btw.

[Jurassic Shark 12,902]

Probably AI generated video.

[Richard Penna 4,109]

I love that sample - the score's definitely headed in the right direction, regardless of which one of them wrote that piece.

[Mr. Who 974]

23 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Interesting to see they're recording with the entire orchestra. I thought RCP composers, or just young composers in general, preferred that striping method of recording strings first, then brass, etc.

 

Nice videos btw.

I think that it’s often directors who like recording in stems as it gives them greater control in post.

[The Great Gonzales 6,224]

23 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Interesting to see they're recording with the entire orchestra. I thought RCP composers, or just young composers in general, preferred that striping method of recording strings first, then brass, etc.

 

Nice videos btw.

They don't need to do it anymore because of AI stem separation