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Posted: |
Aug 18, 2019 - 10:04 AM
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By: |
dogplant
(Member)
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I had the pleasure of experiencing "Jurassic Park" with, I estimate, maybe 15,000 people at The Hollywood Bowl where the phenomenal crusader of film music David Newman conducted the LA Philharmonic playing John Williams' score live to picture Friday evening. It was terrific fun.
This was not my first live-to-picture show. In 2011, I had seen Ludwig Wicki conduct the Munich Symphony Orchestra and the Phoenix Boys Choir, playing Shore's "Fellowship of the Ring" at the Honda Center in Anaheim. That was also phenomenal – especially the Ford of Bruinen sequence.
I wondered, back then, how Peter Jackson must have surrendered his sound elements to the concert production so that they could strip out the music and effects track, allowing concert-goers to experience just sound effects and dialog, as the score was played live. But I have never read any technical description of how this is achieved, and I was very curious how they'd do this for a 1993 film, where sound elements, I would have assumed, were never intended to be mixed without music?
Does anyone know how that works?
I always thought it was standard practice, historically, for most big movies to be mixed with dialog separate, for foreign language overdubbing, and then the 'M&E' – music and effects track – as a separate deliverable. I assumed special filmmaker relationships with more recent digital deliverables have enabled special sound mixes for these concerts, sans recorded score. Thus, the John Williams concert presentations where I've seen 'Indy's First Adventure' from "Indy 3" and the bike chase and departure from "E.T." both with Williams conducting at The Hollywood Bowl.
But I know, more recently, there have been many older live-to-picture shows – pardon my pedantic dating of each film, but I want to impress how far back these go – "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), "Casablanca" (1942), "Vertigo" (1958), "Psycho" (1960), "West Side Story" (1961), "Silent Running" (1973), "Jaws" (1975), "Close Encounters" (1977) and soon we will getting "Superman: The Movie" (1978).... So, how do they do that?
Wikipedia says projection material is prepared with 'music suppressed,' but that sounds like hand-waving to me. In my experience, movies are not made that way. No one had any reason to make a music-free mix of their film, back in the day. What would be the point? And surely all the audio stems would have been long lost, resulting in most cases in mono magnetic or optical audio tracks, which would surely be impossible to pull apart.
For "Jurassic Park," I didn't spy any choir on stage, and I think somewhat they preserved the choral parts of the score, either with the dialog and effects mix. Or, was that some kind of live synthesizer wizardry? I don't know. Early on, the 'We got Dodson' scene still had the Costa Rican cantina music mixed into the track, as one might expect. But 'Mr. DNA' seemed to be a combo, I think, with David and the LA Phil providing the 'pom pom pom' orchestral parts to the Carl Stalling bits. It was very effective. And, it was a real eye-opener, and an amazing workout for the players. To give them a rest, in preparation for the grand finale, they split the movie in two, with an Intermission at about the halfway point. The second half was an almost unrelenting rollercoaster, from cue to breathtaking cue. My hair stood on end. And they gave it their all, to a standing ovation, for the End Title.
I've not seen any other recent music-to-film concerts, but clearly they are a force to be reckoned with, and, I now think, a force for good. And I guess we can forgive the concert-goers who are eager to race to regain their cars and leap to their feet, chattering loudly and clanking all their concert-going paraphernalia, as soon as the movie begins to end, even though there are still 70-80 musicians giving it their all on stage, not more than 100 yards in front of them! It's a Night-at-the-Pops-type party atmosphere, and it must be intoxicating for young audience members to experience.
Bravo to all involved in producing these events, all over the world: https://filmconcertslive.com
And what a phenomenal job David Newman does. He is a marvel.
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Raiders, Home Alone and Back to the Future all use sequel music for the Entr'acte, so that's become something of a tradition. It was originally proposed for Jaws, but I suggested using the concert version of "Out to Sea" instead, which lent itself perfectly to where the break was.
To enlighten a bit about this process, generally speaking from the mid-1960s and onward there is a decent chance that separated dialogue, music and effects are retained by the studios, but each studio did and does things differently, so it varies. Prior to the '80s these are invariably mono, so that was the basis for what we call the "embedded" track for Close Encounters. For parts where there is no music, the final mix might be used, but having dialogue and sound effects separate is always helpful for the concerts because it allows for some flexibility in making sure the effects don't overpower the music and that the dialogue is audible in the variety of environments in which the concerts are performed. Each venue has to tech the tracks to their own acoustics.
Into the '80s and beyond it became standard to retain the finished "dubbing units." So, for example, there are 35mm 4-track separated dialogue, music and sound effects mags for E.T. that were later repurposed for 5.1, so therefore Universal has 5.1 separations of each of the three stems. That's what exists on Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc.... separate 5.1 stems of dialogue, sound effects and music. You just drop the music out and work with the other two stems to rebalance it for the needs of the concert, and, as I said, adjusted accordingly for each venue.
It's certainly a challenge with older films when no separations exist. Often the live orchestra plays while the music from the movie is also audible, which can be awkward, but the films might be subtitled so that the level can be brought down, with perhaps carefully programmed boosts for important dialogue. There have also been occasions where a brand-new effects bed is created (I've done this myself a few times) and then bits of dialogue are "flown in." There is also some so-called "music removal" software that only has limited application, but it is used when needed.
I checked the Jurassic Park multi-track to see if the choir was discrete on the recording, but it was not, so a synthesized choir was made which is not played embedded in the film, but is instead activated by the synth player performing with the orchestra. The decision to have live choir or not is based on how much choir is in the score and how important it is. There are financial and logistical considerations involved. It's required, for instance, to anyone who wants to book Home Alone and Close Encounters.
On Jurassic I was able to extract the shakuhachi flute from the multi-track for the two cues in which it is used. It was turned into a synth cue which is played by one of the musicians. This avoids the need to bring in someone with the instrument. Other synth parts in the score were "re-voiced," particularly "Dennis Steals the Embryo," but there is actually synth all through the score, including throughout the cue when the brachiosaurus is first revealed.
Having an intermission is not entirely just to "give the orchestra a break" for the heck of it; the musicians union stipulates that there must be a break at least once in 90 minutes. So the interval is carefully chosen not only for where it makes presentational sense but so that each half comes in under 90 minutes. If it goes over, then overtime rates are paid!
Finally, I'll just say that evenings at the Bowl are fun, but these concerts are, in my opinion, better in proper concert halls where the orchestra is heard acoustically rather than amplified like it is at the Bowl, where it's essentially mixed to speakers along with the dialogue and sound effects. So it's sort of like just going to see the movie with alternate takes of the music mixed in. In concert halls audiences usually stay seated through the credits and I have found it to be a much more satisfying experience in general.
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Mike Mattessino is correct - I fortunately saw all three Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Home Alone and CEOTTK with the SF Symphony in their concert hall and it was infinitely more exciting because you can hear and see the music being played more clearly.
The Jurassic Park presentation was the same there as it was at the Bowl - a synth keyboard player performed the sampled shakuhachi flute which plays at EXTREMELY LOW volume and the choir is also synth sampled which is also played at an extremely low level.
The “Dennis Steals The Embryo” cue was really fascinating because all of the synth “drum” parts are replaced by live percussion. Interestingly enough the SF Symphony performance featured bundled wood sticks in the percussion section while the Bowl performance did not.
For the SF Symphony performances, Return Of The Jedi did not feature any sampled choir so the emperor’s theme was played without any choir, which was really cool because you could more clearly hear this very eerie harp part.
Home Alone had a live choir, which was cool because they sang all the songs in the church scene. “Setting The Trap” was performed like “Dennis Steal The Embryo” though with a live trap set playing the normally synth-drum beat. This was a little disappointing because the original soundtrack features this crazy sixteenth note snare drum section that wasn’t played in the live performance, I guess since they were occupied with playing the live beat.
Any idea though where live scores are done in LA besides the Bowl?
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No one saw this coming when Disney Hall was built, and unfortunately that's not a good venue for these concerts because it has 360 degree seating. So if you put up a screen, you can't sell at least a third of the seats.
They lend themselves to the Bowl experience programmatically but not acoustically. The American Youth Symphony has now done a few at UCLA's Royce Hall and they have been wonderful in both performance and with how it sounds there. These usually happen in November.
These have also been done at OCPAC in Costa Mesa, just a bit to the south, and recently Rudy was done at Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
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This was my first time at a live to picture film music concert. I had a blast! My wife and I shared a box with another couple -- she a violinist and he a composer/conductor. They were delightful to spend time with during dinner and intermission, and he was a strong a film score enthusiast as I (perhaps more). What a wonderful evening!
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No one saw this coming when Disney Hall was built, and unfortunately that's not a good venue for these concerts because it has 360 degree seating. So if you put up a screen, you can't sell at least a third of the seats.
They lend themselves to the Bowl experience programmatically but not acoustically. The American Youth Symphony has now done a few at UCLA's Royce Hall and they have been wonderful in both performance and with how it sounds there. These usually happen in November.
These have also been done at OCPAC in Costa Mesa, just a bit to the south, and recently Rudy was done at Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
Thanks for the info!
Yes, I was super lucky to see the Youth Symphony play E.T. live - the harp is really incredibly intricate and was played well. I wondered if the musicians were impressed by the movie / music or not?
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