Recommendation - Film Documentary "Score"

[seen-it-all]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

So since DCI is closer to Stage productions than film, why does the DCI design have to start with, and be solely driven by, the visual which in turn many times forces the non-cohesive phrases, chopped melodic content, strange impacts and runs? (again, those disjunctive aspects are not laziness on the arranger's part, that is just the way film music is actually written)

Many times, some film scores actually WERE arranged to make a lot more coherent musical sense, but much of it either gets completely lost in the overall sound mix, swallowed up by the sound effects, etc, OR they splice up the music to better serve the visual...not unlike what happens way too much (IMO) in drum corps these days.

[George Dixon]

44 minutes ago, seen-it-all said:

Many times, some film scores actually WERE arranged to make a lot more coherent musical sense, but much of it either gets completely lost in the overall sound mix, swallowed up by the sound effects, etc, OR they splice up the music to better serve the visual...not unlike what happens way too much (IMO) in drum corps these days.

sometimes the music is written and the film is edited to it and other times the film is edited and the music is composed

just like drill and music in drum corps

[Stu]

21 minutes ago, George Dixon said:

sometimes the music is written and the film is edited to it and other times the film is edited and the music is composed

just like drill and music in drum corps

Very, very, very few times are films visually edited to the music. And then they are mainly obscure documentary or art films like Koyaanisqatsi. For the overwhelming number of movies the music score is added in the latter part of the editing phase, written to time-line visual cues that cause phrasing havock, and that is why it becomes distinctive to listen to (just like many modern day DCI designs).

Edited September 8, 2017 by Stu

[George Dixon]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Very, very, very few times are films visually edited to the music. And then they are mainly obscure documentary or art films like Koyaanisqatsi. For the overwhelming number of movies the music score is added in the latter part of the editing phase, written to time-line visual cues that cause phrasing havock, and that is why it becomes distinctive to listen to (just like many modern day DCI designs).

That's simply not true. Did you really watch the documentary, this is covered extensively including how James Cameron edited the sketching scene of Titanic to the piano work sent over by Horner. They cover many examples

 

[Stu]

31 minutes ago, George Dixon said:

That's simply not true. Did you really watch the documentary, this is covered extensively including how James Cameron edited the sketching scene of Titanic to the piano work sent over by Horner. They cover many examples

 

That simply is true.  I hate tooting my own horn, but as a composition major that did some inter-session course study with Jerry Goldsmith while he was on sabbatical from the USC Screen Scoring Program, and with friends who compose to film, I know exactly what goes on with most movie scoring.  Yes I watched the doc; but what Cameron did with Horner’s music in that sequence is extremely rare in major movies.  99% of the time movie scores are written, recorded, and synced during the final editing via a time-line to the visual motion, impacts, transitions, stops, starts, etc.  It is an interesting process, and most composers are not adept at writing to a clock sequence where the first transition is at 15.03 sec, the motion stops from 29.52 sec to 30.16 sec, the impact is at 43.68 sec, and the scene cuts abruptly at 47.09.  I know that I was not able to do it.  That is why most all music from movies, if heard as stand-alone ‘in its original form’, is disjunctive (sort of like what DCI shows now do!).  Again, what Cameron and Horner did in this doc is rare in Hollywood movies.

[N.E. Brigand]

5 hours ago, Stu said:

[...] You never witnessed the music of Andrew Loyd Weber's Phantom butchered and chopped on Broadway in order to support the almighty visual design on stage [...]

Amusingly, I think Phantom of the Opera sounds better as performed by SCV than it does in its original form.

[N.E. Brigand]

 

3 hours ago, Stu said:

Very, very, very few times are films visually edited to the music. And then they are mainly obscure documentary or art films like Koyaanisqatsi. For the overwhelming number of movies the music score is added in the latter part of the editing phase, written to time-line visual cues that cause phrasing havock, and that is why it becomes distinctive to listen to (just like many modern day DCI designs).

The most famous example is probably Alexander Nevksy (1938), directed by Sergei Eisenstein and composed by Sergei Prokofiev. That said, I agree that it's unusual for a director to edit (much less shoot) to the film's score.

However, and I don't know if this is discussed in the documentary, it is apparently very commonplace for directors to edit to "temp music", typically the music from another movie, and then, I have heard, all too common for the director to ask the composer to write something that sounds like what the director heard while editing.

[Stu]

6 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Amusingly, I think Phantom of the Opera sounds better as performed by SCV than it does in its original form.

Interestingly, SCV also did not chop and bop the music arranging back in the eighties.  Also, I cannot listen to the original version of Festive Overture any more without hearing Ralph Hardimon's percussion scoring in my head!!!

[Stu]

Just now, N.E. Brigand said:

 

The most famous example is probably Alexander Nevksy (1938), directed by Sergei Eisenstein and composed by Sergei Prokofiev. That said, I agree that it's unusual for a director to edit (much less shoot) to the film's score.

However, and I don't know if this is discussed in the documentary, it is apparently very commonplace for directors to edit to "temp music", typically the music from another movie, and then, I have heard, all too common for the director to ask the composer to write something that sounds like what the director heard while editing.

2001 A Space Odyssey; while Also Sprach Zarathustra is now iconic, Alex North was shafted by Kubrick.  Look it up.

[Stu]

4 hours ago, seen-it-all said:

Many times, some film scores actually WERE arranged to make a lot more coherent musical sense, but much of it either gets completely lost in the overall sound mix, swallowed up by the sound effects, etc, OR they splice up the music to better serve the visual...not unlike what happens way too much (IMO) in drum corps these days.

Many times composers will draft initial 'themes' based on scripts and story-boards; then adjust those themes to the time-line during the final edits of the movie.  And those initial themes typically are scored for the CD soundtrack.