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A few extra comments, if I may.
Ben-Hur came from the original 6-track recordings. I was surprised how much longer many of the cues are compared with the film. A lot of cutting was done post-scoring.
While working on Body Heat, I discovered that Barry recorded the score in order, and this may have been his working method in general, as The Golden Child was similarly done that way.
King Kong was an enormous project. The first few reels were 24-track with dbx noise reduction. Our engineer, Johnny Dee Davis needed to rent dbx decoders for that. The rest of that show was 16-track Dolby. For a short period, Mike Matessino and I thought we had stumbled upon an alternate score because of the different recording methodologies, but once we heard the music we realized we didn't. We still don't know why they started with one format and switched to another.
Barry also started recording Kong in film sequence, but then things got complex. Most of the alternates on disc 2 are from the earlier 24-track sessions as Barry went back to revise the cues. I was worried that with so many takes putting this together would be a massive jigsaw puzzle, but they always went with the last take.
I'll also note that King Kong was transferred around the same time as La-La Land's Star Trek - The Motion Picture, and the 16-track tapes were played back on the same machine as TMP in Johnny Dee's studio. Also, he used the resolver again, the device that picks up the 60Hz tone on the tape to make sure the machine is running at the correct speed. The Kong sessions lined up precisely with the final movie.
Neil
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Thanks Lukas for finishing off the run! It's always great to read your reminiscences...thanks too to Neil for chiming in with yours. Fascinating details! Please feel free to post additional comments on past installments for projects you worked on (the monumental Brothers Grimm and 5000 Fingers were you, right?)
Yavar
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I'm with you Smitty. I would have hoped at least that Lukas would continue as overseer making sure MGM stuff got out like he's been doing for Paramount, but aside from those two great releases, nothing!
And when FSM was going it was the strongest part of their catalog ...heck we thought we'd be getting *every* good surviving MGM score (TV or Film) at the rate Lukas was putting them out, plus he teased us with all of those great box sets marked 'Vol. 1'!
Yavar
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Thanks Lukas for finishing off the run! It's always great to read your reminiscences...thanks too to Neil for chiming in with yours. Fascinating details! Please feel free to post additional comments on past installments for projects you worked on (the monumental Brothers Grimm and 5000 Fingers were you, right?)
Yavar
Yes I worked on the reconstruction of both of those scores. As Lukas says in the "Grimm" notes, I was "mercilessly hazed" on that one. Looking back on it, it wasn't that bad, but when you're just starting out, being given an enormous project like that seemed a bit daunting, even though I'd already assembled "5,000 Fingers".
The thing with "Grimm" and many of the MGM titles I've worked on, is that the paperwork was clear and easy to organize. Once I figured that out, putting it together was relatively painless. The most fun I had on it was cutting the song, "Dee-Are-A-Gee-O-En (Dragon)". I had it cut one way, but it was a mess, so I simplified it, using five of the six music tracks and using the center channel from the 6 track movie for the vocals. This movie had directional dialogue though, so I had to grab pieces of the vocals from other tracks and put them on the center. It worked out well.
I remember getting some material on that after the main program was done, some missing odds and ends. At this point I can't recall what they were, but I was happy to get them. I remember driving to the studio to get them mixed and talking with my family on the phone. They were at my grandmother's funeral. The album is dedicated to her.
"The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T" was a total mess. I remember my friend and colleague Mike Matessino had a stack of transfers on this one, and every time I visited, that stack seemed a little bigger. I don't recall how I got on it (did I volunteer?, was I recommended?) but I wound up with everything and it became my job to sort it all out. Unlike other projects, I had minimal paperwork and only the released version of the movie, but it was clear that wasn't the movie that was scored! One piece of documentation I found made it all possible. It was hand written and had running times of cues, and it looked like it was for the original longer cut. I used that as my guide, and when I found cues that were close to the listed running times I placed them in that order. When it came time to put cues together with Mike, it was gratifying to learn that they worked out so well.
Neil
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So that's how Neil did it! Great job!
lk
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Thanks, LK. Oh, I left out the part about having to sort through about 400 takes of music on Dr. T.
Neil
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Posted: |
Nov 26, 2014 - 12:39 AM
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By: |
Rollin Hand
(Member)
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Among the problematic last six scores, find the story behind the final masterpiece.
Vol. 16, No. 1: The Wild Bunch (Fielding): Ah, the grand finale—a fitting thematic conclusion to our 250-album, 15-year series. This was a mega-production and I remember going through some three dozen rolls of ½” tape at Warner Bros., folders of the scores at the Warner Bros. music library, correspondence from the Sam Peckinpah Collection at the Motion Picture Academy, gigantic Pro Tools sessions of the transfers (lining up all the stems and overlays)—all for the purpose of making this the definitive presentation. It was fascinating to read the memos between Peckinpah and producer Phil Feldman during the scoring of the picture. We even got ahold of the 1” master for the two tracks recorded specially for the LP, and (from AMPAS) the two tracks Fielding recorded as demos. Check out the supplemental online notes available for free at the site—it took ages to make sure all those slate numbers and recording dates were correct. I had a slight Peckinpah moment myself, if I do say so, when Warner Bros. refused to approve the use of the “Darkey’s Awakening” period overlay due to the lack of legal paperwork, and I put my foot down and said under no circumstances would I take it off. (It is so old, it’s conclusively public domain—and it’s in the movie, after all!) I was prepared to just say we removed it and leave it there, on the assumption nobody would ever listen to it—but they acquiesced.
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Thanks, LK. Oh, I left out the part about having to sort through about 400 takes of music on Dr. T.
Neil
What can I say? I know when to duck...
lk
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Thanks, LK. Oh, I left out the part about having to sort through about 400 takes of music on Dr. T.
Neil
What can I say? I know when to duck...
lk
Oh, and I left out the part about them not saying a reel and part number, too! All of the takes began with a person saying "take" followed by a number (100, 101, 102...).
Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
Neil
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I knew Lukas Always finishes a project he starts. Thanks for writing the last part. It's been a very interesting read!
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