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I am a TV editor myself. There’s always so much to do that composers almost never argue for “more music.” If Elfman was in the spotting session, and they said, “we like this song here.” He probably would have said, “Great!” And they would have gone on to the next scene.
Here’s an interview with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice A.D. 2024 editor Jay Prychidny, where the use of songs is discussed a little. Elfman is never mentioned otherwise.
https://borisfx.com/blog/aotc/art-of-the-cut-beetlejuice-beetlejuice/
Prychidny: The bike ride has this nice song that’s playing and then during the whole action sequence, the music just keeps going. I guess my thought was to just not try to make it seem like such a big action moment. That was just something that instinctually felt right. Tim never questioned it, but it was something that some people questioned.
The other example is in the Soul Train sequence. After Lydia rescues Astrid off of the train, then they’re pursued by cops and the guards, the Soul Train music just keeps playing. I guess the natural impulse is maybe, “Well we should switch to action music here.”
That didn’t seem right to me. It seemed like it should just be continuing the song that’s playing and edit the song, ’cause it’s not like the song ignores the action on screen. The song is edited to fit to the scene changing and becoming an action sequence, but it’s still just the song. There isn’t score support there.
Hullfisch: I love the fact that the Soul train music kept going. Did you ever consider switching to score?
Prychidny: I never tried it because Tim didn’t have a problem with it. I’m sure if I brought it up to Tim, he wouldn’t have wanted to do that. I never tried it ’cause it just felt like the obvious thing to do, and because I just love how that music kicks in, in the Soul Train sequence when the guards and everyone are coming onto them and it kicks into this higher gear fast-paced moment and it just feels fresh to me. It just feels fresh.
I didn’t even want to try cutting to action music. I felt like I would’ve become so bored by it, so I didn’t even want to try.
Also, I put this on FSM, but I snapped a picture of the music credits in the end roll, and here they are:
Music Editors BILL ABBOTT • CECILE TOURNESAC
Assistant Music Editor DENISE OKIMOTO
Score Produced by DANNY ELFMAN
Additional Music Arrangements by CHRIS BACONScore Recorded by
PETER COBBIN • KIRSTY WHALLEY • NOAH SNYDER • ANDREW DUDMANScore Mixed by PETER COBBIN • KIRSTY WHALLEY
Orchestrations by
STEVE BARTEK • DAVE SLONAKER • ED TRYBEK
JONATHAN BEARD • HENRI WILKINSON • JULIAN KERSHAWOrchestra Conducted by RICK WENTWORTH • PETE ANTHONY
Orchestra Leaders THOMAS BOWES • BRUCE DUKOV
Featured Soprano
GRACE DAVIDSONChoir VOCALS UNLIMITED • CAPITAL VOICES
Choirmasters TOM PEARCE • ANNIE SKATES
Music Preparation by
DAVE HAGE • JOSEF ZIMMERMAN • MATTHEW SLATERGREGORY JAMROK • ABRAHAM LIBBOS • MARC MANN
Score Programmer DAVID GLEN RUSSELL
Technical Score Engineer MATTHEW THOMAS
Score Coordinator MELISA McGREGOR
Pro Tools Operators MATT JONES • KEITH UKRISNA
Score Recorded at ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS, LONDON • FOXSTUDIOS, LOS ANGELES
BANDRIKA STUDIOS, LOS ANGELESScore Mixed at SUCH SWEET THUNDER STUDIOS, LONDON
I’ve been interacting with Ryan and ddddeeee about this on FSM, but I thought I’d come back here and post too.
I saw the movie (I liked it!), and I thought there was a LOT of score in the movie. I didn’t know about the “35 starts” thing until I saw the post above, but I can believe it. And I DO believe that most of that made it into the movie. I don’t hear a lot of signs of score tampering here… not like in Hellboy II, for example, where you could hear that some cues were faded out, or that there was that big statement of Danny’s Hellboy theme that was pasted into the movie at a few awkward spots (and it wasn’t even on the original album!).
I think there’s plenty here to make a score album out of, and if the film continues to pull in big money, I believe that WB will do one.
I’m convinced that the BeeGees song when Dolores staples herself back together was planned. The music kind of works around it. I think the modern pop songs when Astrid rides her bike through town and meets Jeremy were totally deliberate too and were NOT replacing score cues. The movie needs you to see that as a Young Adult love story moment, and putting ANY score in those sequences would have highlighted that there’s something else going on there. Clearly the Soul Train music and the big MacArthur Park moments were all planned as well. I don’t think any of those songs replaced score that Danny had written.
I agree with those above who said that the score was reminiscent of Dark Shadows. It sounded like a modern Elfman score. There were 3 or 4 cues that used themes from the first score (when we first see Beetlejuice at his desk job, and when we first see the model, etc), which are great. But much of it was original, and I really do think Elfman did most of it. He’s been generous about crediting co-composers before, and I don’t know why he would do so this time.
Anyway, I liked the movie and I like the score. I might have benefited here from not seeing it until the second week, and hearing everyone complain about both for the last seven days!
Thanks! I was mostly curious about where the score was recording. It’s interesting (to me) that he did it all in NYC. I remember the tweet from a few months ago that indicated that he was recording there, but I sort of assumed that it was a few soloists, not the whole thing!
Can anyone tell me where THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN was recorded? And what the album credits are? I bought the 24 bit version from 7Digital, and it doesn’t contain any of that info. I assume there was a small string section that was recorded at some point? Those can’t be all synths.
Huh, interesting. They were just recording GOOSEBUMPS at Sony in the first week of May (the 4th-8th, to be specific). It seems a little quick for him to be recording a score for a different movie already, but of course it is possible. Another guess I would have is that he’s recording choir for GOOSEBUMPS in London right now, but an argument against that theory is that their final day at Sony was a choir day and I’m not sure why they’d do it in both places.
I’m working on the Sony Lot presently, and also saw that they are indeed on the scoring stage now. The schedule says that they will be there all week, through Friday May 8th.
The name of this movie has been changed to EPIC… comes out May 2013.
OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL is due out in March 2013… hope he’s able to stay on both!
Woah, some of those synths are crazy!
The clips are a lot darker and more sinister than I would have guessed them to be, based on the trailer.
No, I still do think it was scheduling conflicts.
It sounds like the HUNGER GAMES sessions happened a little late… around the time that Elfman would have had to have been deep into getting everything ready for the DARK SHADOWS sessions. My guess is that as the schedules grew tighter for both movies (and who knows how MIB3 figured in), Elfman realized that he just couldn’t do all three and had to make a change. It makes sense that HUNGER would be the one that he’d bail on… he’s not going to risk damaging his relationships with either Tim Burton or Sony Pictures (which paid him a King’s Ransom, I’m sure, for returning to score MIB3, much as they did for MIB2). HUNGER GAMES was already expected to do well, which of course it has, and potentially might have kept Danny aboard for the sequels, but often times keeping up established relationships are more important than these things.
Then again, maybe scheduling had nothing to do with it, and he simply wasn’t coming up with material that Ross liked. He did leave the picture only a few months before it was released, and JNH said in an interview that he only had about 4 weeks to write the 80 some minutes that he recorded. As usual, only those involved know for sure…
Yes, but composers can only do what the director/producers will let them get away with.
Randy Newman scored Gary Ross’s two previous films… on the first, PLEASANTVILLE, Ross insisted that Newman model one cue after a segment of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (which Newman did, while trying to avoid copying it wholesale). On the second, SEABISCUIT, Ross insisted that Newman basically copy cues from his cousin Thomas’s THE HORSE WHISPERER, which Newman ultimately refused to do, and left the project. William Ross (no relation) came in and did the HORSE WHISPERER sound-alikes after Newman left.
I’m not bringing this up to prove any point other than that Ross has a history of being very heavy handed with composers (which is totally his right: he’s the director!). As such, he probably got exactly the score he wanted out of JNH.
I’m not sure, but I think I remember hearing cues that were a lot like “Men at Work” and “Doomed” in the mix of the first movie… meaning unreleased cues that weren’t on the CD.
I’m 1000% convinced that whatever they do will be either a reworking of an existing piece for the show or a flat out reuse from the show.
Hey Ryan,
I’m sorry to be so late to chime in…
I think the main event on this site is the forum, and I’d be excited if that can continue in some form. I think the WordPress idea is a good one…
Maybe the Elfman forum can become its own entity somewhere, and many of the MFADP feature articles that have amassed over the years can be archived either here or at Cinemusic.net?
In any case, thanks for the effort over the years… this site has been a huge part of my online life, but I understand that as we all get older, buy homes, possibly lease our fourth VW in a row, have children, etc., finding time to obsess over this subject like we used to has gotten harder and harder.
There’s a pre-show “turn-off-your-phone-and-no-pictures” song that he does indeed sing. That’s the only part where you hear his voice, however (as least as far as I could tell).
According to this website(http://soundtrack-movie.com/real-steel/), this is the tracklist:
1. Fastlane – Bad Meets Evil (Edited)
2. Here’s A Little Something For Ya – Beastie Boys (Edited)
3. Miss The Misery – Foo Fighters
4. The Enforcer – 50 Cent (Unreleased)
5. Make Some Noise – The Crystal Method Featuring Yelawolf
6. Till I Collapse – Eminem (Edited)
7. One Man Army – Prodigy & Tom Morello
8. Give It A Go – Timbaland Featuring Veronica
9. The Midas Touch – Tom Morello
10. Why Try – Limp Bizkit (Edited)
11. Torture – Rival Sons
12. All My Days – Alexi Murdoch
13. Kenton – Danny ElfmanOnly one score track, unfortunately.
In 1993, Burton and Elfman had been working together for eight years. Neither Burton or Elfman have really gone into detail over what happened… I think the credit thing is assumption, more than anything.
And they split up well before ED WOOD was ready to be scored. Burton wanted Henry Mancini once it was clear that things wouldn’t be worked out with Elfman, and it was Mancini who suggested that he hire Shore instead.
I finally saw the movie tonight, and I’ll retract my “crap” rating on the score. I thought Jackman actually did a pretty good job once I heard it in the picture, and I was pleased that he brought back some of Kamen music from X-MEN 1 when the scene from the beginning of that same movie was replayed at the head of this one. Classy.
His theme for Magneto seems to share some similarities with John Ottman’s Magneto theme from X2, but it would take a person more musically inclined than me to say how, exactly!
I thought Ottman’s X2: X-MEN UNITED score was really good at the time, but later… the more aware I became of the other scores he blatantly ripped off (Mancini’s LIFEFORCE in particular), the more I realized I was mistaken. I can’t even listen to it now.
The best score the series has had is John Powell’s X-MEN III: THE LAST STAND by a mile. No question about it. I like Michael Kamen’s score for the first movie, but like the film itself, it kind of felt a little awkward and the scale of it wasn’t quite what it should have been.
Harry Gregson-Williams’ WOLVERINE was crap, and apart from the first track of FIRST CLASS, I would say that Henry Jackman’s effort is too.
Also, I suspect they only hired Kamen for part 2 because of the K-Men = X-Men thing. I think there similar reasoning behind hiring Henry Jackman (because of the shared last name with Hugh Jackman) for this new one.
Yeah. honestly I’d have no interest in something like that. A lot of Elfman’s filmmusic for me kind of is what it is because of the specific recording. Elfman re-rerecordings never sit right with me, and so a concert in which Elfman (who does not like to conduct, and claims he’s not that good at it anyway) leads an orchestra in renditions that aren’t quite as good is something that I just wouldn’t want to attend.
I just went to the Goldsmith concert at UCLA last week, however, and had the totally opposite reaction… it was amazing to hear his music performed by the really talented kids who are part of the American Youth Symphony. It was a really unique experience to hear selections from scores like UNDER FIRE, POLTERGEIST, and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE live and unencumbered by the limitations of the technology that was used to record them originally. That said, Goldsmith’s music works well in that kind of setting in ways that I don’t think much of Elfman’s music would.
Well, there doesn’t really need to be a reason other than the people who made the movie liked the piece… They were willing to spend the money to get it, so they did. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either since Zimmer has a whole army of McComposers working for him who could have easily done a quick knock-off, but hey it happens. I have a feeling that situations like this would happen a lot more often if it were more economically feasible to do so.
According to Dan Goldwasser, they got some incredible sounding 3 track masters from WB for this release. It’s the exact opposite of LLL’s BATMAN earlier this year, for which the elements were in pretty rough shape, and had to come from a variety of sources.
As for the expanded content, the OST was about 65 minutes while score in the film is closer to 90. Plus there are a lot of Alts. I’m so down for this!
