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Posted: |
May 3, 2015 - 1:02 PM
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By: |
Morricone
(Member)
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God knows how many years ago I went to the Hollywood Bowl and then conductor John Mauceri announced he was doing an experiment where he was trying to sync his live orchestra to a clip from a movie. It was rough but he did it and it was exciting! He showed the exact function of the music was for the film and didn’t just play it. Over the years the technology was refined and dialogue was added which for me started to become a tiny bit distracting. THEN sound effects was added. Jerry Goldsmith at most of his concerts would joke about not being bothered by whispering and wine bottles clinking, because he has had to deal with competing with machine guns and explosions. At this point I started preferring the talking and wineglasses to sound effects eroding the power of the music. Oh well, that was still fine because it was one single clip. The they did the first "entire film played with orchestra". It was different, maybe new but somehow less exciting. We sat there with long periods of no music. And the image with all kinds of extraneous lights around was less than optimum.
This year it was announced that both THE BIG PICTURE and the Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl would be dropped. In substitution there would be live to film playing with the films BACK TO THE FUTURE and ET (where at least one night would be conducted by William himself) and now I am pretty bummed. My opinion of why Williams is not conducting all 3 nights is that this score he sweated long and hard over years ago to get to perfection, he is now asked to somehow recreate this moment. And he is now put back in a supporting role (albeit an all important one) which when creating a work of art is an all time high but when recreating it, is much less so. It is like asking an actor to recreate his Oscar winning performance in a reading. Man will it not be the same.
I know full film concerts are becoming all the rage with THE GODFATHER, LORD OF THE RINGS, TITANIC, STAR TREK, etc. and at a certain level I’m okay with it. It brings attention to the music. (Although being at one so-called sing-along where no sang along was weird). However for the most part I WAY prefer the film music concert where, for a change, the composer/music is the star and the film is the background. My 2 cents.
BTW Silent films and montages are a whole other animal and I am totally for those.
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Posted: |
May 3, 2015 - 2:08 PM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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I agree with you totally, and I'm glad you bring it up.
To me, these film concerts are nothing more than a fancy form of moviegoing. Our cognitive resources are constructed in a way that gives visuality presedence, so the audience members will most likely focus 95% on the screen and the narrative. This takes away something from the experience of the music as MUSIC, IMO.
I've been to plenty of these concerts, and I'm sure I'll go to plenty more since it seems to be all the rage. In fact, if I ever get my Norwegian film music festival off the ground, it will be sure to include at least one such concert. But for me, a concert will always be a concert -- i.e. music played with no visuals (if you MUST, then have some film artwork on a screen behind the orchestra).
For example, the greatest concert in the legendary Krakow festival last year was not the GLADIATOR concert (even though it pulled in 17.000 audience members); the best thing was the ASCAP concert featuring selections from the visiting composers. Plenty of lights and special effects, like the huge Batman logo that swirled around the room during Goldenthal's fantastic "Grand Gothic Suite", but nothing that detracted from the music itself.
Maybe we have to accept these "concerts" as a gateway for "regular Joes" into the wonder of film music, and then we can hope for a return to the more classical concert down the line.
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Maybe we have to accept these "concerts" as a gateway for "regular Joes" into the wonder of film music, and then we can hope for a return to the more classical concert down the line.
Key point. If it gets 10% of the people in the audience - or 1%, or just 1 PERSON - to focus on film music, then these concerts are worthwhile. And of course if they make a good bit of money for the orchestra, that's a good thing.
It's not something I'm interested in for the very reasons you all say, and it is a shame if it does go some way to reducing straight concerts of movie music.
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I've got absolutely no interest in any of these things either. I like film music because of the music, not because of the film, and the great thing about film music concerts is hearing the music "breathe" in a live environment. Seeing an orchestra playing to click track really doesn't hold any appeal for me. However, it obviously does for others, so I'm happy for them.
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Folks, the times being what they are, we all will have to make our musical compromises, whether for:
(1) the orchestras (who are financially struggling),
(2) the film-music-purists (who prefer film-music-only concerts), and
(3) the general public (who support the music-to-film concerts as an entertainment-with-film-music event).
Like Morricone and Thor, I have been to any and all types of these events. If I had my druthers, I would like a pure
film-music-only concert. This is because I have seen the film(s) and/or already have the soundtracks. I'm looking for the
combined visual-and-aural-thrill of a "live" performance of music I know and love, with the occasional pleasure of a
"world premiere" of something never done before in concert - like David Newman conducting Goldsmith's THE RED PONY
or PAPILLON with the American Youth Symphony.
BUT...The general public likes and supports the live-to-film events. The substantial revenue generated for the orchestra by such events are something that's all the rage now. I don't discourage them if it helps sustain our orchestras and preserves the orchestral performance of the art of film music. Hint, hint, hint: I would absolutely love a music-to-film event with Miklos Rozsa's THE THIEF OF BAGDAD. Great film and great film music.
John Williams seems to put together an amalgamated form of this every so often: film-music-exerpts-to-film-montage.
It's various abbreviated themes set to a rapid-fire montage of film clips - not precisely "music-to-film" but with definite "hits" in the suite that requires split-second timing. These are also quite popular with the general audience, but frustratingly all-too-brief for film music devotees.
I suspect that we'll be living with "all of the above" for a while.
Ron Burbella
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Posted: |
May 4, 2015 - 2:23 AM
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By: |
Spymaster
(Member)
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I've got absolutely no interest in any of these things either. I like film music because of the music, not because of the film, and the great thing about film music concerts is hearing the music "breathe" in a live environment. Seeing an orchestra playing to click track really doesn't hold any appeal for me. However, it obviously does for others, so I'm happy for them.
I just came back from Titanic, in London, and will be going to Back To The Future. I look at them as - kind of - the closest thing I'm going to get to a recording session. If you focus on the music - and its easy to - then it makes for a wonderful film music experience. It's like an opera I suppose... you can listen to an opera on CD just fine, but if you went to watch the same opera, with action on the stage, would it diminish the music?
My only wish is that they mix the film sound just a little bit lower. I realise that might frustrate some of the audience, but it would emphasise the score just that little bit more...
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Posted: |
May 4, 2015 - 5:38 AM
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By: |
Mike West
(Member)
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I agree with your thoughts here, fellows.
There is an important effect of those concerts to film, though, which should be noted.
Those events preserve those scores in a way, and bring them to attention of a much wider
audience which would probably never visit a music-alone concert, and keep those scores
as classics in our awareness.
And all those concerts feature a basically full-orchestral score.
I think this can be fruitful in how film scores are appreciated in general, even if the average Joe
does not shift his attention fully, he sees the orchestra, gets an idea of how fantastic a live
orchestra sounds, how much detail is in there, and labour of love, and I believe a lot of people
get how important real live music is, and its marriage to a film.
Usually in the mix the music is louder, so it has more impact.
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