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Generally you have to arrange to go to the studio lot to look at the originals, if they haven’t been lost or misplaced. That’s sometimes the case. They usually have them on file though. You can’t take it home with you (duh) and you can’t photocopy it, but — if you want — you can bring score paper and copy it down as best as you can. They’ll usually give you an alotted amount of time per day.
Bill Wrobel of Film Score Rundowns has spent years studying and analyzing Bernard Herrmann’s scores and that’s what he does as far as he’s told me. He’s even discovered some presumed lost manuscripts from the CBS workshop while rummaging around. Analysis is a useful tool. He sent me his own “Herrmann-esque” score for Hitchcock’s The Birds and, I have to tell you, it’s paid off. I’m going to start mocking it up as soon as I can using Vienna’s samples and Garritan percussion.
Email me if you want a copy of the music in mp3 format when it’s finished.
Comingsoon.net is usually pretty accurate, unlike IMDB.
Besides the one sheet was just released and Elfman’s name is on it.
The guy travels all over the world to exotic locations, finding shrunken heads and two headed calfs, all the while wearing a batwing tie. That sounds like a Tim Burton movie in and of it’s self.
Yet, I’m still in a bit of a haze, but in a good way.
Tim Burton is making a Jim Carrey movie…
It’s like Tim Burton’s Ace Ventura III: When Nature DIESSave for the returning performers and the scene of Bruce’s parent’s dying, I don’t think there’s any continuity with Burton’s films anyway… so I don’t understand why they even bothered.
It was funny to see the doctor at the end of the movie with the Scissorhands hair called “Dr. Burton” though. That was one thing I thought was cool.
Michael Keaton said he liked BEGINS in an interview. I imagine Tim wouldn’t hate it then.
I don’t think Tim and Kevin are moretal enemies though. I think that’s an overstatement.
You probably only like the Sax in TNBC because Danny treated it like any other member of the orchestra and (with the exception of Oogie) not like some cheesy bluesy soloist’s instrument. I’m not a big fan of those bluesy “Noir” type solos myself. But The instrument can be really great on it’s own and, at it’s best, is classicaly Russian. Case in point: listen to Shostakovich’s Jazz Suites or Prokofiev’s Kije Suite for some great Sax.
I swear, 1990-1995 were Elfman’s best years in composition and orchestration. He had his style refined down to an exact science by the time Edward Scissorhands rolled around. It’s easy to tell that those were the years he was most influenced by Prokofiev and Herrmann, playing it dark and believing in the “BIG-ASS HOLLYWOOD ORCHESTRA”. Also, I’m sure it was during this period that he attracted most of his fan-base.
Anyway,
All those clever scores…Wow, there’s a post about this every week. HE WRITES HIS OWN MUSIC! He’s been doing it for 20 years.
Once in a while a mega-movie comes along and carries the box-office, like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or you name it. Aside from that, today’s filmmakers, by and large (technical credits excluded, i.e. FX), are retards compared to yesterday’s greats. Everything depends on fads, trends and vanity.
This goes for TV too. You can watch an old episode of the Twilight Zone with the worst effects ever and still be totally enthralled. Then you can go and watch something from today on the Sci-Fi Channel with great effects but feel notably dead inside. It’s just not the same, especially on that network. They’ll make anything into a movie now. Spider vs. Snake. Snake vs. Rabbit. Rabbit vs. Python vs. Scorpion vs. Mutant Boa Constrictor. It doesn’t matter anymore. They just hire a gaggle of porn actors to double for serious actors and let their FX teams do all the real work. Fuck writing and directing and — hell — even common sense.
And Fellini would have never made a teen movie.
Movies today are nothing but empty candy wrappers. All shine and no substance.Well, they haven’t released a complete score album EVER. Warner owns the music so they obviously have the tracked music from the soundtrack in their library and decided to use it for the documentary. I doubt they’ll put it on CD though. What’s the point?
Still, It would be nice if Elfman made a suite per movie on a new MFADT CD containing cues left off certain CD releases.
For BATMAN, Walker conducted the score. Period. There’s a difference between “writing” and “conducting” and she would have gotten a bigger credit for writing. Case in point, she got credit for writing one cue in NightBreed.
Elfman writes his own music. I think after twenty years that’s pretty obvious at this point. If not, that would be the grand high record for faking it.
People probably come to the conclusion that Walker’s his “ghost-writer” because she later did the Batman: Animated Series, which used the same timbre and sound as the first two Batman movies. Her work on The Flash, likewise, had a strong Elfman feel. She isn’t Elfman though. He’s worked on several movies WITHOUT her.
One great thing to note: Although there isn’t a deleted scenes section, deleted scenes are scattered throughout the “Cinematic Journey” Documentaries. I remember hearing rumors of a scene in the original where Batman saves a child (the kid then asks “Is it halloween?”) and — boom — there is was.
Also, there was an alternate scene in Batman Returns which was kind of weird. Remember the scene in the cave where batman looks at the claw Catwoman left and instinctively says “meow”? Well, originally he cut his finger with the claw, sucked the blood, and then said “meow”. Boy. I wonder why they cut that out.
Anyway, there are more in there that I can’t think of right now but great stuff all together. I haven’t even scratched the surface. Definitely worth the money.
SIDE NOTE: I still can’t believe Max Schreck and the Penguin were Cobblepot brothers up until the last minute of pre-production.
I’m going to have to go back to my site and work on an update some day in the future. Right now the only clips you can hear are embedded onto the page as shockwave flash files. It takes a while to load so that’s a pain in the ass. Oh well. At least I don’t have any of those pesky pop-ups. Tell me how it works for you.
I’ve been making money on my music for a while now and have been lucky enough to update my studio on a regular basis. Here are the essentials, as far as I’m concerned…
Get Gigastudio and Kontakt. They’re both the best virtual samplers out there. If you don’t have them, don’t waste your money on anything else. I’m sorry. Stick with pencil and paper.For Kontakt, the best libraries are EastWest’s series and the Garritan Personal Orchestra. For Garritan, the sustaining instruments suck but the percussion, keyboard and harp samples (anything with a good decay) are some of the most convincing ever produced. The organs and harpsichord are great too.
For Gigastudio, there’s Vienna Symphonic Library, Sam Horns, Big Fish Audio and the list goes on and on. Write me if you want my complete list. Also, you can translate almost any other format sample into GIGA format for fluid writing. It’s incredibally helpful.
I use a “master” computer, with 5.1 surround and an external 200 GB harddrive, for storing temporary .gig instrument samples to be featured in any current “performance”. All the rest of the samples are stored on countless DVDs and CDs.
When it comes to samples, in my own opinion, Vienna is the best out there today (although EastWest is good too). I have mostly all of Vienna’s Horizon Series and just ordered their Pro series Brass and Woodwinds too, which is amazing on first listen. If you listen to the instruments and go with your gut, extreme realism is more than possible. Their performance tool in particular creates the best legato phrases ever realized.
For mixing, I use Adobe Audition, which has a great Dolby 5.1 Surround feature. For scoring I use Sibelius, which is the most flexible and “real-to-life” program out there today. It’s like pencil and paper times ten. It helps orchestrate during the writing process. Elfman uses it for print outs, I know that for sure.
The product of all of this is pretty realistic…
J.R. Flynn
http://thedarktower.125mb.comIt was arranged very well. I’d say it completely mirrors what was heard on film and CD. I played it on my Steinway and I couldn’t tell the difference.
They’re all Elfman. The reason that a lot of people think they’re so familiar is because Elfman structured them, or at least Victor’s solo, into something similar to a 19th Century romantic-era piece, like Moonlight Sonota. The slow arpeggios evoke that mood.
It’s completely Elfman though.
