Film Score Christmas Eve '99

by Lukas Kendall

There have been rumors swirling about that Danny Elfman will score X-Men instead of John Ottman, director Bryan Singer's regular editor and composer. At this point Ottman is still scoring (he has passed on the editing chores) -- it's just a matter of scheduling with his directing and scoring Urban Legend 2.

Japanese readers: visit the Japanese-language companion site to FSM for a translation of Doug Adams's recent article (with MIDI files for each theme) on The Phantom Menace. (This appeared in the hardcopy magazine of FSM only.)

The Los Angeles Times had an article on what happened to the Filmharmonic series of music and image programs that was inaugurated last year with David Newman and 1001 Nights and then seemingly abandoned. To make a long story short, they still hope to do it; the series just proved to be more difficult than anyone imagined. Hopefully this link still works: http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/19991217/t000115132.html

Trailer Help

From: "John Coulter" <jacoulter@tunnellmill.com>

I was wondering if you could possibly help me with something that's really bothering me as far as a piece of music heard in a recent film trailer for SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. I downloaded the trailer from the original Snow Falling on Cedars website and after purchasing the soundtrack to the film was able to realize that the music heard in the first part of the trailer is actually on the CD. HOWEVER, the music that interests me most is the piece heard in the second part of that trailer. IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

Was wondering if you maybe know what this piece of music is. I appreciate your time and effort.

P.S. I've checked out the trailer list at filmmusic.com and MovieTunes, but neither one of them have the information on this piece. However, they do have the most recent trailer information for ANGELA'S ASHES, THE GREEN MILE, etc.

I don't know what this is, unfortunately. Readers, please help?

I think I heard the exact same piece used in the TV spots for The Green Mile and Hurricane. If prison has a sound, it must be this piece. How embarrassing.

Re-Recording Is Hard

From: "musickco" <musickco@musickco.screaming.net>

TRISTRAMJUDGE69@cs.com wrote:

"I recently brought Varese Sarabande's compilation of some of the years selections (The Phantom Menace & Other Film Hits), which I have to say are very good. The significance of purchasing the CD was really due to the premiere recording of The Phantom Menace concert suite, but after many listens the recording is terribly flawed which is very surprising as their Royal Scottish recordings have always impressed me. The primary cause of this is due to the amateurish conducting by a Frederik Talgorn and very poor recording and general orchestral balance."

Certain conductors are just not geared-up or experienced enough to handle studio recordings well. It is no good merely being "able to conduct" - special qualities are called for. One prime facility they must possess is the ability to always pick-up at the same tempo - so that if a piece is recorded in several sections - whether by design or because certain sections need to be covered due to deficiences in playing - the editing of the various sections can easily be accomplished. Having heard the new version of Duel of the Fates there appear to be two glaring edits, poor in themselves, but no doubt in part due to the fact the conductor has obviously not been able to deliver differing takes at the same tempo. A direct edit therefore results in the tempo suddenly changing from one note to another where no change should be inaugurated - very disquieting. Also, the two edits "dip" alarmingly, something I have not heard since the old days when we used to splice sections of open-reel tape together. As to the recording itself, this is just a more "classical" way of miking a performance, although the impact and resonance and detail can be much improved at the mastering stage, most specifically by employing compression. Oh, and the chorus have very ragged entries on a couple of occasions.

From: Donny Gilbert, dggilb@franklincovey.com

I have to respond to a particular e-mail from a reader. Whoever TRISTRAJUDGE69@cs.com is is so off the mark I can't even say. While I'll be the first one to agree that the performances are not the greatest, this persons opinions about the orchestral balances comes from somebody who sounds like he has never stood in front of an orchestra and tried to balance anything let alone conduct. The Duel of the Fates, although a little lack-luster and all over the map in terms of tempo, is probably one of the hardest pieces to perform. It is just written BIG!!!! You could have a 200-piece chorus behind the orchestra and the orchestra will win every time. But that is besides the point.

Having conducted many orchestras and many concert arrangements of film music, the orchestral balances I will say are superb. What I mean by balance is being able to hear the entire chord, which the Flag Parade provides in abundance. A balanced sound is not being able to hear just the first trumpet blasting in its high range, but the first trumpet actually playing quieter than the rest of the section, thus letting the lower parts support the higher ones. If you have ever heard an orchestra play balanced, it is one of the most awesome sounds in existence! The trick is balancing from the bottom up. No secret there. The acoustics will take care of themselves. Frederic Talgorn takes great care in his balancing of sections, and he does this by pulling the higher notes down in terms of volume and letting the lower sonorities of the section support the higher notes (go out and research what is called the Overtone Series, and this will explain why). A great example of this is Hymn to the Fallen. In the brass only presentation of the theme, you will here the entire harmony, and Talgorn is very deliberate in his balances. Notes the descending sixteenth note figures toward the end of this section, you can hear every note in the harmony. Nicely done. The reason that Williams' brass writing sounds so big is not because the first trumpet is screaming, but because the lower instruments actually reinforce the higher ones, making it a big wall of sound. The problem most people are having is that they expect a particular sound, and when they don't get it, it is wrong.

I don't mean to get off on a rant, but, everybody knows what they want to hear, especially when it is a piece they know. When a piece of "classical" music is given a different interpretation, it is called artistic. When a piece of film music is given a different interpretation, it is called bad or painful or any of a number of adjectives. Film music needs a different interpretations to defy expectations a bit. I'm not saying this Phantom Menace CD has the greatest performances on it, but it does have some very fine performances with a great deal of interpretation that needs to happen. If everybody heard these pieces the same, it would get awfully boring awfully quick. (I seem to remember a similar argument about a particular Superman double CD).

Sleepy Hollow Review

See the CD review from Film Score Daily.

From: "Thomas Merritt Scofield" <CarolSco@concentric.net>

I agree with your rating of SLEEPY HOLLOW, but I would say the score bears a closer similarity to Les Baxter's FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, which is one of Tim Burton's favorite films. Many people have commented on the film being influenced by Hammer Films, but I would say that there is just as much influence from Corman's Poe films. I know that Danny Elfman and Tim Burton are fans of Les Baxter and I think this score shows that very well. Compare the opening sequence and titles to Philip Winthrop's arrival at the House of Usher. And, of course, Johnny Depp's flashbacks to his mother and her death are heavily inspired by Corman's PIT AND THE PENDULUM scenes in which Nicholas Medina recalls his mother being buried alive and when his wife is trapped in the Iron Maiden at the film's end both cinematically and musically.

From: EyeScor@aol.com

Not only are the 90's over but how can you possibly compare Danny Elfman to Jerry Goldsmith? Elfman is not only practically an illiterate but has never been as good as Goldsmith in terms of capturing the essence of a scene or a story. Why does it take the rest of us all our lives to master film music and rock and roll guys can do it just because they REALLY want to? The answer is: they can't.

To be a really good film composer you have to have spent some time mastering the orchestra. I wish more film music buffs were better trained musicians then we wouldn't be inundated with articles written by wannabes who never do their homework.

Danny Elfman is by no means an illiterate. I printed this email only so I could rebut it. I think spending 15 years writing and recording some pretty impressive symphonic film scores does qualify Elfman as having "spent some time mastering the orchestra." Maybe his first efforts were primitive -- if still creative -- but today he does have the chops. I've been at some of his sessions and he is on top of every last pin-drop coming from the orchestra.

By the way, two of FSM's most frequent writers, Doug Adams and Jon Kaplan, are music-school graduates. I make no pretense at being anything close to a professional musician but I was a music major at college, too. We're not idiots. We just appreciate talent.

From: Marc Harwood, MarcGothic@aol.com

I loved today's review. Sleepy Hollow is the best score of this decade.

Best of '93 Article

See the article if you've followed every link on this page and still need to kill time.

From: Eric Neill <marten47@hotmail.com>

I found Cary Wong's piece on the best scores of '93 interesting, but I wanted to add a little to his remarks about HEAVEN AND EARTH. This film contained, in my opinion, the finest score of that year, and one of the few truly outstanding compositions of this decade. It ranks with HELLRAISER 111 and a few other gems amongst the tragically overlooked masterpieces of latter day filmusic. I believe this is a score that deserves to be studied and written about. It is a beautiful and fascinating work.

Todd Hayden Interview

We ran this recently in two parts: 1 and 2.

From: Marg Harris, mharris@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca

Thanks for the terrific interview with Todd Hayden. I really enjoyed reading it, and liked the more general questions as opposed to being just about some specific scores. Good food for thought - Thanks again!

From: David Wishart <musickco@musickco.screaming.net>

Whilst I have every sympathy with Glenn Baker and his thoughtful article there is just one point I feel should be clarified:

Glenn writes: "If there is less trash to be found in the days of Tiomkin, it's mostly because there was much less music being written."

I believe that during the heyday of Tiomkin, Waxman, Newman, Rozsa etc that there were six or seven times the number of films being produced than there are today ... and consequently much, much more music was being composed for films. More than that, a ninety minute film would more often than not contain upwards of an hour's worth of music, which is rarely the case today. So, a great deal more music was being composed during the "Golden Age" and beyond than it is today. The reason we can look back to so many musical gems is that time has eroded away dross of the past (though I feel there was much less dross then than there is today) ... and time, of course, will always reveal the true heritage of the past ... and no doubt, in time, numerous contemporary scores will join the august body of truly classic film scores.

The Lava Lamp Soundtrack List

From: "Allan Clark" <telstar@albedo.net>

I have started an e-mail discussion group called "The Lava Lamp Soundtrack List" which might interest you as it is concerned with the sort of soundtrack-related material written about by John Bender in Vol 4, No. 6 of your magazine ("Into the Dark Pool, Again").

The description of the group is:

The Lava Lamp Soundtrack List is dedicated to the exotic side of film music, especially those soundtracks recorded for B Movie, Exploitation and Cult Films of the 1960's and 70's. Additional topics may include soundtrack related material such as production library music and recordings inspired by soundtracks.

You can join this community by going to the following web page: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/LavaLamp Or you can join by sending email to the following address: LavaLamp-subscribe@onelist.com

Merry Christmas!

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