To make a long story short, I gathered these specific individuals together because I wanted to re-create moments from the season past that had stuck in what was then my photographic memory. And my craw. The "re-creation" involved recording short bursts of conversation that had occurred both on-field and in the stands. The medium was a portable audiocassette recorder i.e. primitive boom-box.

Undoubdtedly most of them thought this baseball coach had been out in the sun too long but they went along with it. Mind you, some of the things I had them say were things they probably wished I hadn't heard them say, but overall things were positive.

When all was said and done you could say that that day I had, in effect, traded in my coach's uniform for the director's chair. And I have never done anything like it since. The upshot is that 21 years later I have a decaying cassette tape that is filled with a piece of my past and many others' as well. And I'm willing to bet you that most of they who laughed and shrugged that day have forgotten it all but today they would be utterly astounded to hear themselves as they were then. Today, for instance, one of the "kids" is now a certified public accountant and the proud father of triplet daughters.

Of all things, it was Herrmann's main theme for Taxi Driver that played in my mind up to and including the live taping session. It is this same music that underscores the dialogue on that dilapidated tape.

...to be continued...

quote:

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Originally posted by Thor:
Does anyone know what I mean? Are there any films or scores like this that have resurrected the Muse in you and inspired you to write, paint, compose something?

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When I'm working on a story, I'll listen to scores that are appropriate for the genre I'm writing. When I work on my spy-thriller, I listen to Bond. When working on my vampire story, I've listened to MUSIC FOR A DARKENED THEATER, SLEEPY HOLLOW, all of the John Carpenter scores I have, BATMAN, and some others.

One time (I mentioned it it another thread but can't remember which one it was), I wrote some action cenes in my second spy-thriller were based on some of the tracks from the FACE/OFF album. "Furniture" was what inspired this huge action scene involving a fight on top of a train, with action and cuts to other scenes are were very closely matched with the beats and tempo of the music. They weren't timed perfectly (you couldn't read the scene and have the music stay completely with it), but it was damn close.

And about five years ago, I was stuck on a short story I was writing for an English class. I put in my brother's CD-Rom game of MECHWARRIORS 2: MERCENARIES and played the score selections, and many of the tracks inpsired new ideas that (again) I wrote with the beats and cuts of those tracks in mind.

As for TWIN PEAKS, I don't remember the music at all, but I do know that that "Bob" character used to scare the living crap out of me (I was young when the show was one). I read he just passed away a couple years ago.
[This message has been edited by Spacehunter (edited 19 January 2001).]

It is a sinister sound. Goldsmith's employment of same as part of the underscore for the infamous John Landis-directed segment #1 of Twilight Zone: The Movie comes to mind.

"Does anyone know what I mean? Are there any films or scores like this that have resurrected the Muse in you and inspired you to write, paint, compose something?"

It would seem that in no way could the music of such a harsh, abrasive film as Taxi Driver help inspire the making of that rather brief, bucolic audio production above, and yet it did. And I believe the reason is directly related to the "Memory" and "Imagination" theses of your $1000.00 Question.

And that reason involves the powerful impressions made by film music that remain after the film image is shed and the music then takes on a whole new role, that of underscoring life events themselves. To illustrate, I cite Mr. Goldsmith again for another sound he created for an episode of the original Twilight Zone series, "The Big Tall Wish." It is a sound that reverberates at the end of what I shall call a brief chromatic scale--not for technical accuracy but for aesthetic connotation--and one that exudes bewilderment...or astonishment. I first heard this sound when I was maybe 7 or so and it remains for me the lifelong sound to underscore those moments of wholly unexpected and seemingly inexplicable events.

Another one of these lifelong sounds from TZ was composed by Mr. Herrmann for "Walking Distance". Various liner notes or books tend to call it a "sighing sound", but to me it's more of a pronounced "yearning", which certainly fit the picture, per se, and the main character. And to this day it remains the epitome of true wistfulness.

But what of Mr. H's Taxi Driver? And why for so many of those baseball days did I "hear" Mr. Barry's great main theme for Midnight Cowboy? Again, the music takes on a whole new life in real life. Remember that scene in Glory of Shaw (Matthew Broderick) peering from behind walls or trees or whatever at the men whom he was trying to lead and whose world was totally foreign to his own? Or what of Gatsby/Redford never attending his own parties, just standing up there on the balcony looking past them towards the light on the other side? This is the "surreal" feeling that the Midnight Cowboy music engendered in me many times. I suppose you could call it an aural Greek chorus or merely another example of music of "contemplation", but Cowboy, Driver and the others go beyond mere moments. They stick and stay forever.

So why Taxi Driver? For me, that sax carries with it ups, downs, moments of triumph, moments of getting kicked around, high, lows, the reds, the blues and everything else associated with kids and a few older kids riding together the rollercoaster of a long season in the sun... before the onset of melancholic late fall Saturday afternoons...and winter's snowy nights, of course http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/wink.gif">...

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[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 19 January 2001).]

But when I think of the Lynch/Badalamenti connection I think of the camera following the McLachlan character walking along and staring up yonder at the top of the trees in Blue Velvet. Most definitely a Hitchcock/Herrmann-ian feel. 'S very affective on a bicycle too, if you're into that sort of thing.

Your thoughts on TAXI DRIVER are intriguing. Personally, the "sentiment" drawn from this score (especially the sax theme) has always been one of the opposite of TWIN PEAKS for me: One of "scyscrapers in sunset and of urban loneliness" [see CD cover of Goldenthal's GOLDEN GATE]. Of course, this is more in line with what Herrmann wanted, but it is interesting to note that this sensation was created solely out of the music long before I watched the film. The sensation was resurrected within Goldenthal's HEAT score.

Unquestionably an inspiring piece of music, but its inherent multi-interpretative nature is evident as you link it to baseball and old friends. More the "memory" criterion, I would assume, than the "imagination".
[This message has been edited by Thor (edited 22 January 2001).]

Not according to your own criteria. The thing was created over 20 years ago when I was 23. There couldn't have been any memory associations at play. Interesting too in light of my much more pronounced film music awareness today (thanks mostly to FSM, esp. this 'board). It's also kind of eerie now that I think about it; I mean film music and an audio re-creation...only to "graduate" to essays and cyberplays. Must have had a sixth sense or something.

Rocco: I think FIRE is a very underrated film. While I could never really see the point in revealing the story (you know the difference between "story" and "plot", right?) - the exposition of the series, the film magically re-encapsulated the atmosphere of the TV version. It's been a long time since I've seen that film, though. As far as I remember, Badalamenti's score had very little new or different material than the TV series, right?

Fascinating.

So where do you get the inspiration to all those drawings?

It's called transcending the medium for which it was intended... http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/wink.gif">

Rocco, I don't remember that "dance" sequence in FIRE. I DO remember, however, the lenghty, jazzy "dance" music in the last few episodes of the series, as Dale Cooper is rummaging about in the forests, eventually entering some sort of UFO-like stagelight and into some sort of pseudo-psychological state in which he walks through large hallways covered by red drapes and peculiar individuals (such as the mafioso dwarf and the bareheaded giant ). The almost queesy jazz gig that runs during this sequence is absolutely breathtaking. I'm not sure if it's the same music that you are referring to. I must see the movie again.

There are several scores and/or movies that give me a true burst of creativity. As a programmer and student of computer sciences, my hobby is writing computer games, though I hardly find the time nowadays and also didn't finish most of the games I started before.

I've always been fascinated by astronomy, and therefore I often find music for space inspiring - that is, music that resembles the infinity of space. Unfortunately, I don't know many "space" pieces, but the opening of Richard Strauss Aus Italien has this feeling of void that puts me in a creative mood. I think Philip Glass' score for A Brief History of Time also has this sound, but it's been some years since I've seen the film, and there was no soundtrack album released (sigh).

As a film, Wrath of Khan is very inspiring for me, largely because of the score, but the score alone doesn't have this effect for some reason.

I'm a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I once read a comment that stated that LOTR isn't so much a story or novel, but rather a "feeling". I completely agree with that, and I'm certain this is the reason why so many people have read the novel so many times (I've read it 8 times, and am about to read it again before the film comes out). For me, this feeling is very similar to that "creative feeling", so I guess I'm more creative when I'm reading Tolkien. http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/wink.gif">

Likewise, I find Dragonheart (both film and score) inspiring. I mentioned above that I like to write computer games, and one of my greatest dreams is writing a role playing game for computers (I actually have lots of ideas, and I'm sure the game would be revolutionary for the current computer RPG market, but I can't do this alone, and I don't even know if it isn't too complex for today's computers). Anyway, when I first saw the Dragonheart, I thought it was nice, but not overwhelming. But it had a certain "feeling" to it, and I wanted more than ever to start writing an RPG game right now. Several years ago, when computers weren't as advanced as they are today and there were still many ASCII games around, I'd start to write the program right away, but today's requirements for computer games are so high, one of the main difficulties is to START.

Finally, I've always been fascinated by mountains (from the distance, I'm not too fond of hiking); this is probably closely related to my admiration for Tolkien. I once had a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of mountains, and only thinking of this puzzle gives me a bit of inspiration. I find mountains most inspiring when backed-up with one of Anton Bruckner's symphonies, because when I was a child, my family used to visit my grandparents in Carinthia (200 km from Vienna, in the Alps) in Winter and Summer. I "inherited" my love for Bruckner's music from my father, and he used to play one of his symphonies on the car's tape deck for longer drives. One of the most inspiring "images" in my mind is still sitting in the car going to Carinthia, with mountains on the horizon and Bruckner on the loudspeakers. http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/smile.gif">

...what, you're still reading???

NP: Dragonheart finished while I was typing this message.