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haakman
May 5, 2011

ComposerGuy posted:

Generally speaking, this is pretty much how all of us should go through life already. Thanking Mahler every day.

Yup. The first time I listened to Mahler after years of film scores blew my loving mind.

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Jewmanji
Dec 28, 2003
I just saw Monster's University, the score of which was pretty forgettable, but the short before it, "The Blue Umbrella" was not only one of the most charming and impressive things that Pixar has ever done, but featured Jon Brion for the score. I don't know what the general consensus is about Brion- I can understand if some people find him overwhelming saccharine- but I find his melodies to almost supernaturally sweet and catchy. Does Pixar ever released scores/soundtracks for their shorts?

edit: I'm lazy and should have done a bit of googling, it's on itunes.

haakman posted:

Yup. The first time I listened to Mahler after years of film scores blew my loving mind.

For that matter, I also find that Sibelius (sym. 1) and Shostakovich are the same type of treat (don't know about Sibelius, but Shostakovich himself was a prolific composer for silent film).

Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jul 6, 2013

Hewlett
Mar 4, 2005

"DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!"

Also, drink
and watch movies.
That's fun too.

Jewmanji posted:

I just saw Monster's University, the score of which was pretty forgettable, but the short before it, "The Blue Umbrella" was not only one of the most charming and impressive things that Pixar has ever done, but featured Jon Brion for the score. I don't know what the general consensus is about Brion- I can understand if some people find him overwhelming saccharine- but I find his melodies to almost supernaturally sweet and catchy. Does Pixar ever released scores/soundtracks for their shorts?

I thought the short was pretty good, and Jon Brion's work is amazing (just like with his ParaNorman score and others, some of which are linked earlier in the thread). However, it did admittedly feel a bit weird that Disney released two shorts in a row before their major tentpole animation releases that have the same basic premise: boy meets girl, boy loses girl to hustle and bustle of big city, goes through a series of mishaps to get back to her, all through the guise of anthropomorphized everyday objects (paper and the smiley-face city objects, respectively). It's not a complaint about either short individually, of course, but the trend itself is interesting.

Jewmanji
Dec 28, 2003

Hewlett posted:

I thought the short was pretty good, and Jon Brion's work is amazing (just like with his ParaNorman score and others, some of which are linked earlier in the thread). However, it did admittedly feel a bit weird that Disney released two shorts in a row before their major tentpole animation releases that have the same basic premise: boy meets girl, boy loses girl to hustle and bustle of big city, goes through a series of mishaps to get back to her, all through the guise of anthropomorphized everyday objects (paper and the smiley-face city objects, respectively). It's not a complaint about either short individually, of course, but the trend itself is interesting.

I actually don't know what you're referencing- was this the short before Brave? I also haven't seen ParaNorman, which is silly considering the reviews, my appreciation for Coraline, and Brion- I should go get it this moment!

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Boy, Zimmer's disappointing me something fierce lately. First the remarkably bland "Gladiator-lite" of "The Bible", the utterly unforgettable "Man of Steel" and now "The Lone Ranger" which is like "PotC: The Dead Man's Chest" without the charm. It tries to be interesting towards the end by taking the William Tell Overture and doing some "things" with it but kinda fails at that.

Guess I'll just wait and see if he returns to form with "Interstellar", whenever that comes out.

Hewlett
Mar 4, 2005

"DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!"

Also, drink
and watch movies.
That's fun too.

Jewmanji posted:

I actually don't know what you're referencing- was this the short before Brave? I also haven't seen ParaNorman, which is silly considering the reviews, my appreciation for Coraline, and Brion- I should go get it this moment!

Sorry, I mean Paperman, the short before Wreck-It Ralph (which I know wasn't Pixar, but it's definitely part of Disney's tradition of releasing a short before their major animation tentpoles, under which Pixar falls).

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe
I picked up the LaLa Land release of the extended score of "Home Alone" yesterday. I always forget just how much I love that score...is there another score in film history that just so perfectly screams "CHRISTMAS, MOTHERFUCKERS"? I submit there is not.

The way Williams plays with carols all over the score (while inventing a few of his own), and his ability to get real range out of them from a mood standpoint is just spectacular. "Setting The Trap" is the best arrangement of what is essentially "Carol of the Bells" ever (with his own "Star of Bethlehem" thrown in for good measure, playing off each other). The nods to "The Nutcracker" in other places are also well executed ("Holiday Flight" being pretty much a send up to "Trepak" with some Copland sensibilities thrown in).

I have to admit, though, that my favorite motif in the score is the one for the burglars, Harry and Marv. That low woodwind-heavy theme is just the right balance of sinister and softly comedic. It lets kids know that the bad guys are bad guys without being too scary about it. Plus I'm a sucker for that dual Bassoon-Bass Clarinet thing he's got going on.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

I have to agree with pretty much all of that, despite never having the chance to check out the extended score. :( I recently got some Williams compilation album that has some of his most famous work on it and there are two tracks from the Home Alone movies which reminded me how awesome those scores are. Also helps that I used to watch both movies every Christmas as a kid so the music very much encapsulates the whole season for me, even more so than actual Christmas songs.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

ComposerGuy posted:

I picked up the LaLa Land release of the extended score of "Home Alone" yesterday. I always forget just how much I love that score...is there another score in film history that just so perfectly screams "CHRISTMAS, MOTHERFUCKERS"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1Yo3NXjtM :D

Darko fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Jul 11, 2013

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe

Well, yes, but the whole score!

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

ComposerGuy posted:

Well, yes, but the whole score!

The whole movie is about Jesus and what Christmas is reallly supposed to be about so there! :)

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe

Darko posted:

The whole movie is about Jesus and what Christmas is reallly supposed to be about so there! :)

Christmas is about decorating trees and sledding down staircases so I don't know what you're talking about. :colbert:

haakman
May 5, 2011
Don't forget committing actual bodily harm against your fellow man, using Micro Machines.

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe
Apparently, Williams will be back for the new Star Wars trilogy. Dude is 81.

Get crackin', Disney. You need to move on this poo poo.

...please live John. :cry:

Well Manicured Man
Aug 21, 2010

Well Manicured Mort
81 is old, and sure he's no spring chicken, but he's in good health and I'm sure he still has quite enough life in him.

John Williams is what got me into film scores (and just plain old listening to music for fun). His death isn't something I have any interest in thinking about.

Jewmanji
Dec 28, 2003

Well Manicured Man posted:

81 is old, and sure he's no spring chicken, but he's in good health and I'm sure he still has quite enough life in him.

John Williams is what got me into film scores (and just plain old listening to music for fun). His death isn't something I have any interest in thinking about.

I wonder how much good material he can write on a good day. Or if he can compose the theme in one day and then spend a few weeks orchestrating it.

The Time Dissolver
Nov 7, 2012

Are you a good person?

Jewmanji posted:

I wonder how much good material he can write on a good day. Or if he can compose the theme in one day and then spend a few weeks orchestrating it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7T98bF0O60

haakman
May 5, 2011
Howard Shore was around 3-4 minutes a day on Lord of the Rings...

... so double that for Williams.

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe

Jewmanji posted:

I wonder how much good material he can write on a good day. Or if he can compose the theme in one day and then spend a few weeks orchestrating it.

Williams writes in 4-line piano staff (usually 3 treble and one bass with a percussive line) with notes and then passes it off to his orchestrators to extrapolate. His years of jazz experience means he can do it pretty quickly.

Phy
Jun 27, 2008



Fun Shoe
How do we feel about Michael Kamen? Because I groove on the themes from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and From The Earth To The Moon. (They are almost the exact same music so that is not surprising.)

Also, for a very long time I've loved what Graeme Revell did for Red Planet. The quasi-operatic score is really meant for a better movie than Val Kilmer fighting a drone on Mars.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Honestly, the only works of Michael Kamen I'm familiar with are Band of Brothers, the first X-Men movie and the orchestrated concert he did with Metallica. Band of Brothers has great music in it and Kamen is responsible for the X-Men "theme" that John Ottman did some great things with in X2. I can't for the life of me remember the music from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood or From The Earth to the Moon though.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Stare-Out posted:

Honestly, the only works of Michael Kamen I'm familiar with are Band of Brothers, the first X-Men movie and the orchestrated concert he did with Metallica. Band of Brothers has great music in it and Kamen is responsible for the X-Men "theme" that John Ottman did some great things with in X2. I can't for the life of me remember the music from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood or From The Earth to the Moon though.

The Robin Hood theme was used in, like, 50% of trailers in the 90s (with Shawshank being the other half), so you should know it, actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Edkb2Qo9c

Kamen has some gold, but lately, has produced nothing of note. There are a few composers like that, or people that were great in the 80s and then fell off a cliff.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Darko posted:

The Robin Hood theme was used in, like, 50% of trailers in the 90s (with Shawshank being the other half), so you should know it, actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Edkb2Qo9c

Kamen has some gold, but lately, has produced nothing of note. There are a few composers like that, or people that were great in the 80s and then fell off a cliff.
His less than stellar productivity of late could do with the fact that he's been dead for a decade now.

And thanks to the link you posted, I now remember I have heard the Robin Hood theme in a few trailers but I think the most-used theme in trailers goes hands-down to Zimmer's "Backdraft" theme (2:55 onwards). That poo poo was everywhere in the 90's.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Stare-Out posted:

His less than stellar productivity of late could do with the fact that he's been dead for a decade now.

Yeah, I phrased that completely wrong, hah. I meant, "in later years" and meant to compare it to people that fell off a cliff. Kamen was weird in that he only did a couple of good scores, but the ones he did stood out greatly.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Darko posted:

Yeah, I phrased that completely wrong, hah. I meant, "in later years" and meant to compare it to people that fell off a cliff. Kamen was weird in that he only did a couple of good scores, but the ones he did stood out greatly.
It seems like he was a dude whose output quality depended a lot on the material he was composing for and didn't thrive quite as much if he was out of his element. As for his death, I didn't hear about it until a few years after the fact, and the exact same thing happened with Poledouris (which I was a lot more bummed out about admittedly) when I started wondering how I hadn't heard any of his music in a long while.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Stare-Out posted:

And thanks to the link you posted, I now remember I have heard the Robin Hood theme in a few trailers but I think the most-used theme in trailers goes hands-down to Zimmer's "Backdraft" theme (2:55 onwards). That poo poo was everywhere in the 90's.

Here's the top ten list, actually (soundtrack.net):

"Redrum"
Immediate Music (used 28 times)

Come See The Paradise (1990)
Randy Edelman (used 27 times)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9GNeTUzQis

"Tightwire"
Immediate Music (used 26 times)

"Naked Prey"
Immediate Music (used 25 times)

Aliens (1986)
James Horner (used 24 times)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy1all0-sF0 (1:10 ish)

Stargate (1994)
David Arnold (used 22 times)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrlIZyAUFsE (50 seconds in)

"Blasphemy"
Immediate Music (used 19 times)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Wojciech Kilar (used 18 times)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvImYvzHohY&list=PL2D72A733ECE9D63D

Mortal Kombat (1995)
George S. Clinton (used 17 times)

Carmina Burana: "O Fortuna"
Carl Orff (used 17 times)

Sea Of Love (1989)
Trevor Jones (used 17 times)

Trailerhead: Triumph: "Ode to Power"
Immediate Music (used 16 times)

"Red Wire Blue Wire"
Immediate Music (used 15 times)

Number 11? Backdraft :)

http://www.soundtrack.net/trailers/frequent/

I know everything on the list offhand, but not Sea of Love, and I can't figure out what that even sounds out (and even Youtube isn't helping me).

Edit: editing in links to the relevant music.

Darko fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Aug 12, 2013

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

That's kind of surprising. Aside from Carmina Burana and Aliens, I honestly can't really remember any of those in any trailers I've seen. I'm sure I've come across them but still can't think of any. "Sea of Love" is a bit of a puzzle too, yeah.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Stare-Out posted:

That's kind of surprising. Aside from Carmina Burana and Aliens, I honestly can't really remember any of those in any trailers I've seen. I'm sure I've come across them but still can't think of any. "Sea of Love" is a bit of a puzzle too, yeah.

Well, Stargate's was used EVERYWHERE. You probably definitely would get that one.

The funniest thing is that Dragonheart used Stargate's music in its trailer, but Dragonheart's actual score is one of the most used trailer musics.

Dragonheart's trailer with Stargate's music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF9tgeo1HuA
Seven Years in Tibet using Dragonheart's music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ-KNWJeQ4g

Come See The Paradise's used everywhere in trailers music starts at 1:10 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdSZaTBWQqw

Random Dracula gets used - I've heard quite a few different things using various tracks from it. Here's one using the main theme at the beginning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8CYpb7zrjs

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

It seems like more and more trailers for films are using music from their own scores now, which is nice. I mean, when it's not Immediate Music or Two Steps From Hell or something. Seven Years in Tibet has a terrific Williams score and man, what a missed opportunity to not use that for the trailers.

20th Century Fox, funnily enough, has recently used John Murphy's music from "Sunshine" a whole bunch in its trailers. It's funny because Murphy had to fight like hell to get the Sunshine score released and even released a "private" version of the score on his own. I think it took like two or three years for the score to get an "official" release.

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
On the subject of trailer music, I have a ridiculous love for Chopperhead by Two Steps From Hell. You could score the trailer for On Golden Pond with Chopperhead and make it seem like it would be the most exciting movie you'd see in your entire life.

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


Darko posted:

Come See The Paradise's used everywhere in trailers music starts at 1:10 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdSZaTBWQqw

That reminded me of another Randy Edelman piece from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story that was used in just about every heroic-sounding movie in the 1990s (main cue starts at about 2:15).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y0u_oUhEMY

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

exquisite tea posted:

That reminded me of another Randy Edelman piece from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story that was used in just about every heroic-sounding movie in the 1990s (main cue starts at about 2:15).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y0u_oUhEMY

I closed the site and can't check at the moment, but Dragon is ranked like 15 or something. It's kind of a useful resource; you can click the title and see what trailers it's used in for most.

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


It's weird that the main theme to The Cider House rules apparently isn't listed because I swear I've heard that a whole bunch for other stuff.

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe

exquisite tea posted:

It's weird that the main theme to The Cider House rules apparently isn't listed because I swear I've heard that a whole bunch for other stuff.

This is likely because Rachel Portman uses the same chord progressions in almost literally all her main title themes.

(I still love you Rachel)

Sagebrush
Feb 26, 2012

ComposerGuy posted:

The same thing happened with "Troy". He had to write the score AND get it recorded in less than 2 weeks (due to the composer originally hired, Gabriel Yared, being rejected at the last minute).

Is there any explanation for why, exactly, Yared's score got rejected? I've got it and it's quite something. Lots of middle eastern influence and a much more complex set of themes overall than James Horner's really dull generic action score. Can you tell from this theme if the Greeks are supposed to be good or evil? Maybe a little of both? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O007vSksRo

Also, I've been listening to Ramin Djawadi's score for Pacific Rim and finding it a really nice mix of classic orchestral themes and ambient electronica. This theme is a great one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpvGBukpMpY Granted, it's pretty obvious from the music exactly when in the film they were introducing the Chinese and Russian combat teams, but I don't think the music suffers as a result.

e: as far as post-2000 James Horner stuff I really like, his score for Enemy At The Gates is really nice. This long, drawn-out cue in particular always makes my hair stand on end https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-SahfFVCeA

Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Aug 13, 2013

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe

Sagebrush posted:

Is there any explanation for why, exactly, Yared's score got rejected?

Basically it got trashed by a test audience. They said they thought the score was too "brassy and bold" or some such nonsense and the producers panicked (as producers do) and called in Horner to replace it. This was a month before the film was set to release.

Speaking of Yared and rejection...he just got rejected AGAIN. He was the composer on "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones"...but that score has been rejected. Atli Örvarsson is scoring it now instead, who is, OF COURSE, another of Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Clones.

Joy.

Poor Yared. He doesn't deserve all this poo poo. The man has a loving Oscar for god sakes.

haakman
May 5, 2011
Too brassy and bold? Have they even heard Horner's score for it?!?

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Sagebrush posted:

e: as far as post-2000 James Horner stuff I really like, his score for Enemy At The Gates is really nice.

Let me ruin that for you then.

Fast forward to 2:52 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYvpBsLhVlI
Now listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhwmNwQJrdI

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe

haakman posted:

Too brassy and bold? Have they even heard Horner's score for it?!?

I didn't say it was a GOOD reason!

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Darthemed
Oct 28, 2007

"A data unit?
For me?
"




College Slice
Graeme Revell is such a mystery to me. He went from doing harsh industrial noise with SPK, to turning SPK into himself and a female vocalist to do synth-pop, to doing scores for the Power Rangers and Street Fighter films. His refusal to talk about SPK in interviews only makes it harder to figure out what happened to change his focus so completely (aside from needing to pay the bills).

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