Admittedly, it's not a Caldera release, but it's glorious regardless; and it's about film music - yay!
In August, my book 'The Struggle Behind the Soundtrack' will be published in the US. Its aim is to examine the current working conditions for composers in film and television - in Hollywood and beyond. How have temp tracks and digital editing influenced their work? Is it still possible to deploy long, sustained melodies in modern blockbusters? How has orchestration and ghost writing changed over the decades? (And who employs ghost writers? Is it just everybody?) Part of the book includes an in-depth analysis of Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions and the influence he has had not only on film music. For the first time ever, the set-up of Zimmer's company is examined via in-depth interviews with assistants, interns, programmers and co-composers. In essence, the book should (hopefully) answer the question of how we got where we are now in film music by covering the effects of temp tracks, digital editing, companies such as Cutting Edge, elaborate sound design, and much more.
Although it is not a collection of interviews, I did interview over three dozen of composers, editors and sound designers such as Angelo Badalamenti, Klaus Badelt, Lorne Balfe, Marco Beltrami, Bruce Broughton, Carter Burwell, Mychael Danna, George Fenton, Murray Gold, Henry Jackman, Abel Korzeniowski, David Lynch, Walter Murch, John Ottman, Rachel Portman, Alan Silvestri, Randy Thom and Christopher Young. They are quoted in the book.
(If you find some grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in this post, don't you worry - my book was proofread by several native speakers.)
I hope my book can clear up some misunderstandings about the current film music landscape, answer some questions and provide brilliant entertainment of the highest order. It's not an academic book with fancy language, rest assured. I don't like those myself.
Since its publication, I have been very fortunate that many critic have (hopefully) read my book and reviewed it. MundoBSO dedicated a whole series of articles about it, while other outlets have kindly showered it with praise:
"Stephan Eicke shows the dark reality of a Hollywood ripe with abuse, pressure and exploitation. […] This book is full of brave statements, and a must-read for those who want to have a future in Hollywood. Those who are hoping for the best can prepare for the worst. It is a fundamental book." Fotogramas
"Stephan Eicke is one of the most intelligent, knowledgeable and fine cynics in this medium. He’s an ant in an environment of cicadas. Admiration and respect!" MundoBSO
"Eicke’s book is a very interesting one by investigating a topic not elsewhere covered in film music books and daring to point a spotlight at struggles that lie within the film music workplace. There’s enough information at hand here to warrant consideration, and to lend some understanding of conditions under which composers have to work." BuySoundtrax
"This book is an entertaining analysis of the working conditions for composers. It’s an especially lively read because it is built around interviews with 40 composers." ray magazine
"This is a very interesting book; the chapter on Hans Zimmer alone makes it worthwhile and I have to say I learned a lot from reading it. Recommended." Hellbound
A few copies are available at a greatly reduced price at the moment. I bought a few copies from my publisher because I thought the pandemic has hit us all financially, and some people may not be able to afford the full retail price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164443364142
Here is an excerpt from the first chapter, The Sound of Change, to whet your appetite:
My dear friend Chris and I embarked on a journey from New York City to New Jersey one morning in early October 2013, rode past the large trees with their yellow and red leaves and the houses which stand back from the street, nearly in the woods. After about 45 minutes, we reached a small town, a village really, sleepy, quiet, with only a few shops and two or three restaurants. David Shire lived here, the composer of scores such as Zodiac, The Conversation – and nearly Apocalypse Now, which he had gotten fired from before he could eventually record it.
In time for our appointment, I knocked on the door and a tall, skinny elderly man with sharp blue eyes opened, noticeably distressed. As it turned out, David Shire had just taken his two dogs out for a morning walk and one of them had been hit by car while crossing the street. I arrived at a bad time. Shire had just moved in a year before and parts of the house still looked unfinished. The corridor was so narrow to all sides that I had to squeeze my way through it, following my host to the right through a sparsely decorated wooden seating area. To the left was a small kitchen, straight through a noble and elegantly furnished piano room, remarkable different from the rest of the house. Shire's wife, actress Didi Conn, was in New Haven to act in a play that day. While Maddy, a giant gray boarder collie, roamed around our feet, Shire made himself a cereal, anxiously waiting for the call from the vet where he had taken his injured dog to. When I called Shire one week later, I learned the dog died soon after I had left.
We began talking in the kitchen and moved in his studio after he had finished his breakfast. I sat down on a couch with pillows so soft that I sank in a couple of inches and didn't even bother trying to get up because I knew it would cost me too much energy. To the right of the sofa was a small shelf with videos from the movies Shire had scored. Placed in the middle of the shelf was the Oscar he had won for the song It Goes As It Goes. Towards the end of the room at the right was an upright piano, a fireplace and a modest computer set-up to the left. Maddy lay down in front of the furnace, her fur blending in with the floor, making it impossible to distinguish dog from carpet. Shire was glad to do the interview, concentrating on elaborate answers, only jumping up occasionally when the phone rang, hoping it was the vet with good news. “I have gone through a period in the last 15 years of gradually becoming more and more marginalized and going through the various stages of reaction to that”, he admitted at one point. “First disbelief, then frustration, anger, depression and then acceptance. There are so many good people coming up and it's nice that some people remember what I did. And that is important. I tended to feel for a while that once you are not active anymore, that's it. And to be honest about it, I never felt that I reached the legendary status that John Williams did.”
Shire was modest about his achievements but probably correct in the evaluation of his status. Although he had shown a musical versatility unmatched by his most of his peers to this day, he never made it to the A list. He was hardly mentioned in the same sentence as John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith. Yet his achievements include The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 where he fused twelve-tone music with funk; The Conversation where his bluesy score become one entity with Walter Murch's sound design; Zodiac, with its dark, brooding, Charles Ives-inspired impressionism; Short Circuit with its mix of orchestral and electronic colors; Return to Oz with its inspired, large orchestral themes; The Hindenburg with its Richard Straussian late romanticism – and the countless musicals and revues he wrote along with lyricist Richard Maltby.
As the fame and success of the composer is always dependent of the films they work on, it comes as no big surprise that Shire became marginalized. He was unlucky in many respects. None of it was his fault. When the New Hollywood arrived in the late 60s and early 70s, he was asked to score pictures which became some of their directors' biggest flops – indeed, some of the biggest flops of the era. He did Drive, He Said, directed by Jack Nicholson, Steelyard Blues and The Fortune. Even more importantly, he lost important projects: Shire was offered Rocky but turned it down because he didn't want to do a boxing movie. John Badham wanted him to score WarGames but the producer not only refused but screamed, “David Shire? I would never ask him! I would never go near him! I hate him! Don't ever mention his name again!” When Badham and the producer walked around the studio a few weeks later, he started yelling again, “There is this David Shire! This terrible person!” Badham looked at the producer and explained, “That's not David Shire. That's Dave Grusin.”
Return to Oz, despite all its cinematic qualities, was terribly marketed and had a heavy conceptual problem: it was too dark and gruesome for kids. After Return to Oz, Shire would only work on feature films occasionally, instead being employed to work on television movies before David Fincher rediscovered him for Zodiac in 2007. Zodiac didn't lead to a successful comeback in Hollywood. When he eventually found work, it was because of earlier scores of his to which he was asked to pay homage. Shire is still surprised that he received most offers to compose for movies because of his score for The Conversation, an unobtrusive piano score, rather than because of Return to Oz, “for which I was able to work with one of the best orchestras in the world. But, as I like to say, 'Life is what happens while you make other plans.'”
For anybody who is interested (and for everybody who isn't): Conrado Xalabarder of MundoBSO just spoke with me about the book release, The Struggle Behind the Soundtrack, and some of the challenges the industry is facing
I'm sorry I didn't catch this thread the first time around, Stephan, but I just ordered your book at Amazon and am very much looking forward to reading it.
I'm sorry I didn't catch this thread the first time around, Stephan, but I just ordered your book at Amazon and am very much looking forward to reading it.
Thank you so much, Preston. I hope you will enjoy it
How much rejected score talk is there? I just want an idea so I can decide whether or not to promote the book on my Rejected Film Scores website.
It's a good few pages. The subject is used to illustrate and prove a wider point about test screenings, temp tracks, and orchestral mock-ups/demos.
