This News Friday 11/21/97
by Lukas Kendall
This is the slowest time of the year for "news," since so
much stuff is in the process of coming out--new films, new scores, reissues--and
companies are not yet ready to announce their plans for next year. PolyGram
will issue on CD Valley of the Dolls in February, featuring John(ny)
Williams arrangements of Andre Previn songs and big band music. This is
important for Williams collectors to put something on their CD racks between
Superman and The Witches of Eastwick (if they're that lucky).
I checked with contacts at Fox to see what was behind the anecdote on
Aint
It Cool News about Williams scoring a new Warren Beatty film there.
That's completely not true, somebody must have been pulling Harry's leg.
Ennio Morricone will score the next Warren Beatty film, which isn't even
near that point yet, and he'll record it in Rome.
As far as I know there will not be a score CD to The Jackal.
Talk about last week's news, huh? I hear they really screwed around with
Carter Burwell's score, so I doubt he'll push to get a CD out.
I saw I Know What You Did Last Summer just out of curiosity to
see what this new wave of teen-jeopardy movies had going for it. This was
excruciating from beginning to end, the stupidest piece of un-scary nonsense.
And people said the acting in Starship Troopers was bad...? I'm
usually more than happy to look at teen cleavage for a couple of hours,
but this was a non-stop commercial for push-up bras or something. I am
dumbfounded as to this movie's success, and I found John Debney's score
(which only stopped when a loud alterna-teen-rock song came on) a characterless
pastiche of Chris Young horror and Alan Silvestri suspense. Pee-yew. No,
there's not going to be a score album, although I'm told there will be
a promo.
Corrections
In that story
last week about the agent who ran over a studio golf cart, at the
risk of pointing out the true perpetrator, I must at least clear the name
of one innocent party. It's not Richard Kraft. Richard, however,
does have his own baggage, such as the fact that he can point out all the
places at Disneyland where people have died.
Last week, we mentioned a Tchaikovsky Romeo & Juliet "ballet"
somewhere. It's a fantasy overture, not a ballet. We must have been thinking
of Prokofiev's ballet. And we also referred to The Beast with "Two"
and not Five Fingers.
In James Southall's review
of Swept by the Sea,
he alleged that the film may never come out in the U.K. That ain't true,
it will be out out in February, the same time the also Barry-scored Goodbye
Lover will be out in the U.S.
From: Al Tran, al@mail.utexas.edu:
As I rummaged through past daily columns, I came across the July
14 piece titled "Japanimation
Film Scores" by Oliver Barder. While generally a good overview
of some of the most visible examples of anime in the US, I did note some
errors in his section on composer Kenji Kawai. I know this article is about
4 months old, but I don't recall these addressed.
First of all, Barder writes that one should be careful to seek out
the film scores and not the television ones "because the latter is
done by a different and inferior composer." Kawai composed all of
the music of the Patlabor series (television, original video animation,
and film) with the exception of the songs, which were collaborations with
various lyricists. I personally don't find it at all inferior. The score
is quite servicable, made up mostly of electronic or pop instrumental cues
that complement action often in the manner the writer described it concerning
the film scores.
Not only that, Kawai's first was not the 1989 Patlabor movie, but
the original seven episode OVA series in 1988, also directed by Mamoru
Oshii.
Third, the majority of Yoko Kanno's music for Macross Plus was actually
released domestically in 1994 by JVC on 2 discs. Thus, its as readily availiable
and cost as much as any domestic CD. Volume 1 contains mainly her symphonic
score, while volume 2 has rock and jazz instrumentals and songs featured
in the series. Not complete (I believe a few songs were omitted), but very
representative of her diversity.
But these of course, are minor complaints in relation to the piece
in general. It was a fine primer to anime music.
My only connection to anime is that I used to watch Robotech in the
1980s.
Finally, the piece about Hans
Zimmer yesterday mentioned the use of "Singin' in the Rain"
in Face/Off, scored by Media Ventures composer John Powell. Yes,
the song actually was "Over the Rainbow," and Recordman, aka
Mike Murray, had these sentiments:
From: Mike Murray <recrdman@ican.net>
Er..., I only saw this film once (thank goodness), but wasn't the
allegedly ironical song "Over the Rainbow"? Or did the scoremeister
attempt it in the film also with "Singing in the Rain" at a moment
of eye-rest on my part. Maybe Andrew was just confused with "A Clockwork
Orange", or maybe it was just an homage to latter...so deep. Maybe
I'm just confused with the spate of all these "action" forgettable
films. In any event this was such a sledgehammer musical cliche "irony"
I wanted to barf. I can just hear the conversation pre-production now:
"Let's see, when we blow a bad guy's brains out, we'll play "Over
the Rainbow" in the background, so arty, so innovative, what a message
on our times!" Pulleeeeze! This is such a cliche now.
Want to Be a Composer?
Last week I announced our plans to cover aspiring composers and how
to be one in FSM in 1998. For starters, see the column
here on the site.
From: Lustog@aol.com
What I find lacking from most interviews with top composers is how
they were able to break into the industry. Specific things that they did
or didn't do, their educational background, how they supported themselves
in the beginning, these are the most interesting things to an aspiring
composer like myself.
We'll get to these, but they vary so much. All I'll say for now is that
some of the most successful composers today came from wildly different
backgrounds--record producing, songwriting, being in a band, or Broadway--and
made it big because they were able to do a film that got some attention,
and come up with some interesting music for it. Plus they're nice, trustworthy
people.
Also, Jasper Randall, who is presently in the USC film scoring dept.,
brings us information to help answer the question of what kind of money
is spent on a score:
As far as finances go for films and film composers, it can vary
as much as the film itself--there is no set price. (Film composers, if
you did not know, do not have collective bargaining (i.e., a union), so
the amount of money a producer wants to spend on the score and composer
is really based on how important he or she feels the music is to the film
as a whole. Lukas was right in his figures, although I've heard that Williams
is more around the 1 million mark. Also, understand that not all composers
receive a seperate "fee". Instead, many times the deal is a "package"
one, where you have a specific amount of money to start with, and whatever
is left over at the end is yours. This is becoming more and more common
in T.V., for instance. A-list composers, like Williams, are paid a composer's
fee, with the studio or production company covering all other expenses.
(You can see what the better deal might be.)
One more thing: Don't get stuck entirely on what a composer might
make up front. There are many other ways to profit from one's music. Many
times the composer will negotiate with the studio to retain things such
as the publishing rights or writer's share of their music. Although the
studios usually demand publishing rights (for legal purposes), they do
often grant the composer their writer's share. This allows them to collect
ASCAP, or BMI residuals (royalties). These payments can add up to hundreds
of thousands of dollars down the line, and should be taken very seriously.
An hour show broadcast on T.V. can pay around $1,000-2,000 PER SHOWING!
So you can see what a big deal it is if you are, let's say, the composer
of Star Trek, or MASH. I've even heard that some T.V. composers refuse
to write for film because it doesn't pay as much in the long run. I guess
it just depends where you are on the ladder.
Lastly, if you want a rough figure on what film scores cost, the
average music budget for a movie is anywhere from 2-3% of the total cost
of the film. This will vary of course, but only with producers and directors
who care anything about the music and realize how vital it is in the big
picture (Speilberg, Lucas, etc.--we need more of them!)
Matters of Trivia
From: Henrik Jordan <henrik.jordan@berlin.snafu.de>
Just a little Bond Info: A Friend of mine from a Berlin Radio Station
told me that originally British Pop group Pulp was to sing the title tune
for Tomorrow Never Dies.
However, the song was rejected and Pulp are going to release their
song under the title Tomorrow Never Lies (surely they weren´t permitted
by the Eon clan to use the actual title) on one of their next singles or
so.
I think there are probably several "rejected" Tomorrow
Never Dies songs--they go through quite a process of auditioning to
find one of those things, they're such a big deal.
From: James Mansfield <james_mansfield@fa.disney.com>
In the Friday News of 11/7 a reader posted the following:
From: kevin@paradigmsim.com
Regarding the inquiry from a correspondent last Friday as to "What
has happened to Bill Conti?" It might be worth noting that Conti has
scored some IMAX films (Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, others?). The soundtrack
music is available on CD.
Wow! The wonderfully "Contiesque" music I remember from
Grand Canyon, available on CD? I'd love to find out whether this is true
and, if so, where I could obtain these scores. Unfortunately, my attempted
Email to Kevin keeps bouncing back. Do you know if and where this disc
might be available? I've never seen it in any of the mail-order catalogs
where one might expect every title to show up sooner or later.
Folks, can anybody help? I know I've seen this info posted--check the
FILMUS-L
archives.
From: Darren Primm <daz@ee.mu.oz.au>
You forgot one score of Michael Kamen's that's excellent. The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It mixes so many different styles of
music together, orchestral, baroque, choral, song :), electronics. Its
a wonderful score and well worth seeking out if you havent got it.
This is in reference to the Kamen
overview earlier this week.
Media Alert
Check out the new Starship Troopers area of the Varese
Sarabande web site. About Troopers, and Zoe Poledouris's
song "Into It" heard in the film and included at the end of the
disc... now, I know soundtrack collectors are a notoriously square bunch,
but the amount of comments I've read about this being "torture"
or complete "noise" is ridiculous. Please, tell me nobody is
this out of touch. Zoe has a local L.A. band and her music, while unique
in many ways, falls into a known genre of contemporary electronica, folk
and rock of which there are a lot more fans than there are of movie soundtracks.
John Morgan of Marco Polo CD fame lets us know:
The interview will Bill Stromberg and myself concerning the Marco
Polo horror related film music discs will air on the SCI-FI Channel on
the following times and dates. Please note these are all East Coast time,
so for those on the west coast, you must subract three hours.
Friday, November 21 at 3:00 pm
Saturday, November 22 at 12:30 pm
Sunday, November 23 at 9:00 am
That's this weekend, so tune in!
More Horner
Horner fans, this one's for you. I couldn't respond to it directly because
the writer's reply-to address was garbled.
From Sergio Rivas Ortiz:
I am writing about your opinion of James Horner's Work which, honestly,
I think it is unfair. I will base my arguments in two points.
The first one is that referring to the so-mentioned musical recycling
that James Horner make in some of his soundtracks. About that I just can
say that one should not only judge a score for one of its parts but for
the whole of it. Not to forget that Mr. Horner has been always a very original
composer as far as main themes are concerned.
The second one refers to the quality of his music. I would like
to say a few things about this matter. First, Mr. Horner is the one composer
comparable to John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, and I will explain why.
Second, Mr. Horner has demonstrated with his scores that he is able to
write music of great passionate charge. He composes music that can describe
a feeling for a precise moment in the film. His music and the film are
joined in a magical symbiosis. That's the important thing when you judge
a soundtrack: if music works with the film. And James Horner's scores works
in a wonderful way.
Besides of this, his music can be listened without the film; it
is classical music by itself. Just a few composers can do that. So we have
James Horner, a composer who can write the perfect music for a film and
also classical music (ask Sony Classical what they think about Mr. Horner's
Work). You have said that Mr. Horner has not composed anything good after
Sneakers. I disagree with you. You have just to listen soundtracks like
Searching for Bobby Fisher, Apollo 13, Legends of the Fall, The Spitfire
Grill, Ransom, Balto and the great Braveheart. If you keep aside your possible
prejudices about Mr. Horner you will agree with me. We all know that James
Horner is one of the best composers of the moment, he is only 44 and he
has already gained credits for his so criticized glory, and he will in
the future.
If I wasn't writing this at 12:10AM Friday--in other words, I gotta
finish and load--I'd come up with a reply. Have a nice weekend, everybody.
Send comments to: Lukas@filmscoremonthly.com
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