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Saw this film yesterday and enjoyed it immensely. I thought Doyle's score was very good. He's adapting to this new style (for him at least) of scoring very fast while maintaining his own voice. It seems he's back in a big way. I do hope he's going back to his old style for 'Brave'. Pixar always brings out the best in people.
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After another listen or two to the score, my feeling is that Doyle is just rolling with the times and writing in the current style of film music that producers are looking for. Probably a very wise move on his part if he wants to continue getting assignments. If he doesn't, he might find himself in John Barry's shoes who continued writing in his well established style, but it was a style that didn't always work that well in contemporary movies or wasn't what the producers wanted. He was practically unemployed for well over a decade with the few scores he did write being rejected.
Much of this score could have easily been written by any number of MV/RC alumnus asked to write in the same style. It's just too bad for some of us film music fans that some of our favorite composers with recognizable styles of their own have had to drop much of that and follow a common blue print which robs us of their uniqueness. I probably won't listen to this score very often because I've heard much of it before many times already and it's in a style I don't personally really care for anyway, but hey, I'll always have Doyle's previous scores to fall back on for a listen that I do like...and he continues to make a living for himself!
To what does "MV/RC" refer?
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Posted: |
Aug 16, 2011 - 5:41 PM
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By: |
mastadge
(Member)
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To what does "MV/RC" refer?
It refers to the style of music popularized by Remote Control Productions (which used to be Media Ventures), the music production company run by Hans Zimmer, through which he employs young composers and helps them get their feet in the door in Hollywood, often first by helping them start getting "additional music by" credits and then co-composer credits -- helps them build their brand, basically. For better or worse, however, RC Productions became associated with the "sound" or style used by Zimmer and others in several blockbusters -- think the early Michael Bay films, Gladiator, The Peacemaker and so forth -- in the 90s . . . the soundscape that has evolved into the current crop of scores for stuff like Transformers and Clash of the Titans. RC has gotten into something of a rut, perhaps, because that style has become very popular, so when RC is hired for a score that's the style that's asked for, so there's a perception, possibly correct in some cases and possibly not*, that RC is basically a Zimmer-lite factory, and that the various composers there are talentless Zimmer-drones doing hackwork score assembly.
A further thing that's happening is that producers or directors or whomever are temp-tracking their films with RC music, or asking other composers to deliver music in the RC style, which leads to composers like Doyle and Chris Young and James Newton Howard delivering scores that might sound more like RC music than those composers' fans are comfortable with.
*I still choose to believe not, considering the directions that various early "graduates" of the "Zimmer factory" such as Gregson-Williams, Powell and Badelt have gone since they've gone their own way -- I have the optimistic belief that most of these composers are more talented than the assignments they're given would give us reason to belief, and that as they start building professional relationships they'll be allowed to spread their wings a bit.
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It means Media Ventures/Remote Control--Hans Zimmer's company. I just saw the film and loved it, but I would agree with some that the score's a little disappointing--like Thor (which I liked just fine) it's very influenced by The Dark Knight and I'm just tired of hearing that sound. There was some more interesting music written for the scenes inside the ape "compound" run by Brian Cox--I'll have to hear the score away from the film. I do think Doyle could have sneaked a reference to Jerry's music in there (the film after all is rife with references to the other movies) but it's really only there in terms of drums being used and a hint of angular string writing. This is the current sound and I guess we better get used to it.
In terms of composers being able to go back after they've streamlined their sound, remember that for Goldsmith, Total Recall was written AFTER scores like Leviathan and Rent-A-Cop that are VERY streamlined, and Goldsmith definitely returned to the thick sound of some of his earlier work in his last few scores like Hollow Man and The Mummy, even if his overall style had evolved quite a bit by then.
Thank you for your reply!
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It means Media Ventures/Remote Control--Hans Zimmer's company. I just saw the film and loved it, but I would agree with some that the score's a little disappointing--like Thor (which I liked just fine) it's very influenced by The Dark Knight and I'm just tired of hearing that sound. There was some more interesting music written for the scenes inside the ape "compound" run by Brian Cox--I'll have to hear the score away from the film. I do think Doyle could have sneaked a reference to Jerry's music in there (the film after all is rife with references to the other movies) but it's really only there in terms of drums being used and a hint of angular string writing. This is the current sound and I guess we better get used to it.
In terms of composers being able to go back after they've streamlined their sound, remember that for Goldsmith, Total Recall was written AFTER scores like Leviathan and Rent-A-Cop that are VERY streamlined, and Goldsmith definitely returned to the thick sound of some of his earlier work in his last few scores like Hollow Man and The Mummy, even if his overall style had evolved quite a bit by then.
Thank you for your reply!
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To what does "MV/RC" refer?
It refers to the style of music popularized by Remote Control Productions (which used to be Media Ventures), the music production company run by Hans Zimmer, through which he employs young composers and helps them get their feet in the door in Hollywood, often first by helping them start getting "additional music by" credits and then co-composer credits -- helps them build their brand, basically. For better or worse, however, RC Productions became associated with the "sound" or style used by Zimmer and others in several blockbusters -- think the early Michael Bay films, Gladiator, The Peacemaker and so forth -- in the 90s . . . the soundscape that has evolved into the current crop of scores for stuff like Transformers and Clash of the Titans. RC has gotten into something of a rut, perhaps, because that style has become very popular, so when RC is hired for a score that's the style that's asked for, so there's a perception, possibly correct in some cases and possibly not*, that RC is basically a Zimmer-lite factory, and that the various composers there are talentless Zimmer-drones doing hackwork score assembly.
A further thing that's happening is that producers or directors or whomever are temp-tracking their films with RC music, or asking other composers to deliver music in the RC style, which leads to composers like Doyle and Chris Young and James Newton Howard delivering scores that might sound more like RC music than those composers' fans are comfortable with.
*I still choose to believe not, considering the directions that various early "graduates" of the "Zimmer factory" such as Gregson-Williams, Powell and Badelt have gone since they've gone their own way -- I have the optimistic belief that most of these composers are more talented than the assignments they're given would give us reason to belief, and that as they start building professional relationships they'll be allowed to spread their wings a bit.
I appreciate your taking the time to explain this to me.
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A quick shot I grabbed of us in the control room.
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Haha
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