If the campaign fails, then I hope that Robin starts a new one soon. But then only with 'The Dresser' and 'The Hand'. That should roughly halve the costs. The concerts could then be realized in a later campaign.
I'd be more willing to contribute for the concert works, personally.
I'd be more willing to contribute for the concert works, personally.
I think I'm in a similar boat. As cool as it indeed would be to have Craig Huxley coming back decades later and re-performing the blaster beam for a new recording of The Hand... a new recording of that score is easily what least interests me about this campaign, and is also easily the most expensive element of this campaign.
If some wealthy benefactor comes in and rescues this in the next few weeks, I'll cheer! I'll be super excited to get The Hand along with The Dresser and the seven concert works! But if this doesn't happen, and the campaign has to be re-imagined... I really hope they take more of a lesson from Leigh Phillips's success with the Goldsmith at GE Theater campaign. There is no need to lump everything in at once. If you proceed with a more humble goal, and then add a stretch goal later or even a series of smaller campaigns... it may not be long before you reach 79 minutes of recorded music as Leigh did over the course of less than two years!
Say Perseverance sets aside The Hand for now and starts with The Dresser (the more critically acclaimed film at least, even if Oliver Stone became a big director after The Hand). I think that might be a wiser starting point than the concert works in terms of still reaching the audience of James Horner fans who are primarily *film music* fans.
That's probably what, only 10-15 minutes of music, and not a large ensemble? That could be a *very* modest goal (I would expect somewhere in between $10,000-$20,000, tops?) Then once that goal is (hopefully quickly) reached, add one of the concert works as the first stretch goal -- depending on the length of the work and size of the ensemble it could be considerably less of an add-on cost. $5,000-$10,000, tops? Then once that goal is reached, add on another, and another, and another. If it looks like momentum is building quickly, try adding on the longest concert work for the largest ensemble. If it looks like momentum is going slowly, go with the shortest concert work for the smallest ensemble in the hopes that it'll still manage to happen.
And heck, there are a number of shorter, small ensemble Horner TV movie scores and the like from the 80s, which quite likely are lost or otherwise unreleasable. If there doesn't seem to be enough enthusiasm for the concert works, could try adding on one of those as a stretch goal instead. Like this one:
Or maybe the Horner estate has the written music for whatever Horner wrote for Up from the Depths, which Roger Feigelson confirmed they wanted to pair with Lady in Red recently, but no recorded elements survived? Or maybe (if it's not too long/large orchestra) James Horner's unrecorded score to Alligator, which was fully written but not recorded due to a musicians strike, confirmed in the liner notes of Intrada's new Lady in Red album? https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=3&threadID=156374&archive=0
I know they just funded it outright, but Quartet's recent John Barry 2CD set containing five shorter complete scores, re-recorded, shows how popular and acclaimed that approach can be with fans of a composer. And I think that was a more affordable project because many of those scores had smaller ensembles (sometimes just a few intstruments!)
I'm just thinking out loud, but I wonder what other people think. If this campaign fails because it "bit off more than it could chew", I don't want this to be the death knell for any future new recordings of unreleased James Horner works. I think a smaller bite-sized approach to record things gradually over time could work a lot better for early Horner, just as it worked out great for early Goldsmith.
Exactly, and there's also A Few Days at Weasel Creek, A Piano for Mrs. Cimino, The Stone Boy, etc.! There are *so* many small scale Horner scores that could be tackled, even though they are very obscure titles.
I'm sure they went for THE HAND as the headliner here because it's somewhat remembered, being a HORROR film by OLIVER STONE. But unfortunately that doesn't seem to have translated into backers, with them having only just crossed $11,000 after 36 days (longer than the previous nine successful film music Kickstarter campaigns' entire runs) from only 169 backers.
I could be wrong, but I don't think many of those 169 backers would lose interest in this general endeavor, if The Hand were removed and replaced by more modest and affordable recording prospects. And I think a lot more backers on the fence would join if the goal seemed more reasonable, and in a roughly similar range to the Tadlow/Intrada/Nosferatu campaigns.
My thoughts - with recent discoveries of "lost" Horner scores, most people simply don't want re-recordings, they can wait while Intrada/LLL will find original tapes for Hand, Dresser etc. Maybe tapes are lost. But we were told the same about Battle Beyond the Stars, and voila - we got it from Intrada. And just month ago we got Lady in Red... Who ever thought that tapes survived and we ever get it?
My thoughts - with recent discoveries of "lost" Horner scores, most people simply don't want re-recordings, they can wait while Intrada/LLL will find original tapes for Hand, Dresser etc. Maybe tapes are lost. But we were told the same about Battle Beyond the Stars, and voila - we got it from Intrada. And just month ago we got Lady in Red... Who ever thought that tapes survived and we ever get it?
I don't think that's quite accurate. We were told that Horner didn't want Battle Beyond the Stars out (beyond what had already been out) because of his unhappiness with the performance. But Intrada was able to fix some egregious errors through digital editing, and obviously Horner is no longer around to stand in the way. (I don't intend that to be glib.) As for The Lady in Red, I don't think anybody had ever made any assumptions about its whereabouts.
I believe what's preventing a release of the original recording of The Hand is that it's owned by Warner Bros. (though I believe it was originally an Orion film).
Sure, some people insist on originals only, but I don't think that's the deciding factor here (and clearly it wasn't for any of the recent successful soundtrack Kickstarters). I agree with Yavar that it seems likely their ambitions exceeded their grasp here. They wanted an awful lot of money. If this were a regular release and priced at $20, they would have to sell 6,500 copies to make $130,000 (assuming there were no costs producing the CD, which of course is not true). How many specialty soundtracks sell in those numbers? And though Horner is of course a marquee name, he is the only marquee name on this – the films are barely known, and the classical pieces are essentially unheard. And to be frank, the creators of this were not immediately forthcoming about what would even be on this release, so it stumbled out of the gate, the time when initial excitement should be propelling a fundraiser. None of these things individually makes this project impossible, but taken together it’s, I believe, why – barring a last-minute savior – it seems unlikely to fund.
Just another instance of PERSEVERANCE biting off more than they could chew.
This HORNER re-recording project should be reallocated into multiple smaller projects that could meet a more reasonable funding goal. If at first you don’t succeed…
My thoughts - with recent discoveries of "lost" Horner scores, most people simply don't want re-recordings, they can wait while Intrada/LLL will find original tapes for Hand, Dresser etc. Maybe tapes are lost. But we were told the same about Battle Beyond the Stars, and voila - we got it from Intrada. And just month ago we got Lady in Red... Who ever thought that tapes survived and we ever get it?
I don't remember the subject ever coming up one way or another. I think The Lady in Red just wasn't a title that was on most people's radar when it came to early Horner, because it was partially adaptation, and more importantly wasn't horror or sci-fi!
I don't think people are necessarily uninterested in re-recordings, even if/when the original recording survives! After all, the original recording of On Dangerous Ground survived and was released complete by FSM years ago, but many people were still super excited for the new William Stromberg-conducted Intrada recording! I think there's less interest in a re-recording when the original performance and recording are both *great*. But that doesn't necessarily apply to all early Horner scores. Maybe The Hand original recording doesn't have issues (besides being controlled by Warner Bros. which is pretty much a dealbreaker at this point in time!) but something like Battle Beyond the Stars, even despite Intrada's great new release which was able to fix (some of the) performance issues... well, I personally suspect it's popular enough to sustain interest in a fresh new modern recording with improved performance.
In general though, I agree with the preference that new recording projects focus on scores that are either lost, totally inaccessible, or at least poorly performed/recorded/preserved. I think there are a decent number of early Horner scores that probably fit in one of those categories. And some, like his unused score for Alligator, were apparently never even recorded in the first place! So that in particular seems like a good candidate for this larger project.
my feeling is that the main road block is the goal being unrealisticly high.
We've all been chipping in on many crowd founding projects by now. And this one doesn't stand the comparison with previous re-recording projects.
I chipped in, but after a week or two. Because my first reaction when I saw the goal was "Wow! they'll never succeed".
- Our passion is a niche, we aren't as many as we would like to think we are.
- I honestly had never heard of these movies before this campaign. And I beleive I'm not the only one. The score for The Hand is very similar to Wolfen and a couple horror flicks he did at the time. I love this period in his body of work but I assume many more people prefer his 90s onward works.
- and lastely, the launch video isn't very appealing to start with.
I really wish this campaign could reach its goal. I even started to think of making my own ad video to post on social networks to help boost the interest, but my work is keeping me very busy and I hardly have time and energy to do it.
- and lastly, the launch video isn't very appealing to start with.
THIS I think was the main problem the campaign had, right out of the gate, combined with the high goal. If you're going to ask for a goal *more than twice as high* as the highest previous film music re-recording campaign, then you've got to be fairly thorough/detailed/transparent about the costs and reasons why the goal is that high, if you want as many potential backers as possible, to be comfortable backing.
Here are a couple comments people made at the beginning of this campaign:
Thor: As I said -- needs total transparency. I realize it's too early to have an overview of all the specific costs, but an estimate should be possible. I want to believe this is done out of sheer goodwill, to get some rare Horners out there, but I've heard so many stories about people starting crowdfunding campaigns with exaggerated goals to fund their own pockets (there, I said what everyone was thinking, but was too afraid to say out loud!), and all of that (probably unfounded) skepticism can be debunked with some estimates.
And maybe most significantly if representative of others, Peter Greenhill's comment: Cancelled my pledge pending a breakdown of costs.
It was good that we later got explanation from Robin on this board that the goal was to actually record 140 minutes of material (as opposed to less than half of that which we all assumed based on the lengths of The Hand and The Dresser). And he did update the campaign with it, which was also good. But for this to have the best chance of success, all those details needed to not only be a part of the original campaign text, but I would say part of the *launch video* (which should have been several minutes long) as well! Having a 30 second encouragement/support/blessing video from Sara Horner, as lovely as it was, is NOT what was needed at the top of a campaign asking for $129,000! That's asking too many people to take too much purely on faith. It should have been a video from Robin himself, maybe along the lines of the one he did a ways into the campaign but maybe even a bit more detailed. At most, Sara Horner should have been an insert in that video, with Robin introducing like, "and now a brief word from Sara Horner:" Those are my two cents, anyway.
I was still in from the get-go, but I can well understand why many other people felt unsure and uneasy, with so little detail provided.
Considering the original tapes for The Hand exist and a label not well appreciated on this board is producing a vinyl release of it with WB, I’m not sure why it needs to be re-recorded. The TV films that were crummy recordings from the get-go would have been better choices.
The student works are just that, student works. Spectral Shimmers was enjoyable for how ambitious it was for a young composer, but it is not a great composition. At one point a friend of mine had a tape with some of his 70s compositions (his thesis?) that was passed around as a early demo tape and it wasn’t exactly what one would expect for Horner. It’s very 1970s and academic in style and that isn’t what most people here would expect to hear when they think “James Horner.”
Considering the original tapes for The Hand exist and a label not well appreciated on this board is producing a vinyl release of it with WB, I’m not sure why it needs to be re-recorded. The TV films that were crummy recordings from the get-go would have been better choices.
The student works are just that, student works. Spectral Shimmers was enjoyable for how ambitious it was for a young composer, but it is not a great composition. At one point a friend of mine had a tape with some of his 70s compositions (his thesis?) that was passed around as a early demo tape and it wasn’t exactly what one would expect for Horner. It’s very 1970s and academic in style and that isn’t what most people here would expect to hear when they think “James Horner.”
Sorry, expand on what you are saying in the first paragraph. I wasn't able to find any info. I thought Perseverance was the label we didn't appreciate? Or the label the other labels don't appreciate, at least (because of Witches Of Eastwick, for one example).
At one point a friend of mine had a tape with some of his 70s compositions (his thesis?) that was passed around as a early demo tape and it wasn’t exactly what one would expect for Horner. It’s very 1970s and academic in style and that isn’t what most people here would expect to hear when they think “James Horner.”
So, THE HAND score is getting released on vinyl with WB blessing? That's just fucked up (if true). No doubt a CD pressing of 33 copies will follow and cause chaos and meltdown between the 36 of us who want it. Stop the world, I wanna get off.
What are you guys talking about? Where is this news bit about WB releasing THE HAND on vinyl?
Another label is working on a vinyl release and likely has zero awareness of this Kickstarter project, just as the label promoting this Kickstarter project likely has zero awareness a label is producing a vinyl release.
If both labels were working directly with WB, I don’t see how this would happen. Whoever gets THE HAND out first puts the other label in a tough spot, which is unfortunate.
And no, this vinyl release hasn’t been formally announced. If it had, there wouldn’t be a re-recording project.
Yeah this is news to me. I thought since 2020 Warner Bros. was closed for business to everyone except Varese Sarabande (and that's only because of their perpetuity rights deals negotiated back in the 90s). But I guess they're still working with Mondo??? Or who else would WB work with on a limited vinyl release for an obscure 80s horror score, when they refuse to continue working with La-La Land or Intrada?
NOTE: WB doesn't *need* to be involved with Perseverance because they are proposing a *new* recording, so they don't have to license tapes (and artwork) from the film studio but only have to worry about the music publisher.
If a commercial LP premiere of the original film recording for The Hand is coming out, that is indeed bad timing/news for this Kickstarter campaign which already needed all the help it could get (it's 8% funded now, after more than 36 days with under 24 days remaining... yes, since the goal is so high it is still in SINGLE DIGITS, not even 10% funded yet). But I'm going to hope if that's indeed coming, it will spur Perseverance to cancel this sluggish campaign, and start a new one with a MUCH lower goal and more substantial and detailed initial pitch/video.
Learn from the Wing Commander composer I linked about above -- he changed some things and tried again, and found success.
What are you guys talking about? Where is this news bit about WB releasing THE HAND on vinyl?
Another label is working on a vinyl release and likely has zero awareness of this Kickstarter project, just as the label promoting this Kickstarter project likely has zero awareness a label is producing a vinyl release.
If both labels were working directly with WB, I don’t see how this would happen. Whoever gets THE HAND out first puts the other label in a tough spot, which is unfortunate. I suspect the re-recording is proposed to circumvent WB entirely.
And no, this vinyl release hasn’t been formally announced. If it had, there wouldn’t be a re-recording project.
What are you guys talking about? Where is this news bit about WB releasing THE HAND on vinyl?
Another label is working on a vinyl release and likely has zero awareness of this Kickstarter project, just as the label promoting this Kickstarter project likely has zero awareness a label is producing a vinyl release.
If both labels were working directly with WB, I don’t see how this would happen. Whoever gets THE HAND out first puts the other label in a tough spot, which is unfortunate.
And no, this vinyl release hasn’t been formally announced. If it had, there wouldn’t be a re-recording project.
Do we know if WB is involved? It looks like a gray market release, at least at first look.
What are you guys talking about? Where is this news bit about WB releasing THE HAND on vinyl?
Another label is working on a vinyl release and likely has zero awareness of this Kickstarter project, just as the label promoting this Kickstarter project likely has zero awareness a label is producing a vinyl release.
If both labels were working directly with WB, I don’t see how this would happen. Whoever gets THE HAND out first puts the other label in a tough spot, which is unfortunate.
And no, this vinyl release hasn’t been formally announced. If it had, there wouldn’t be a re-recording project.
Perseverance is not working with Warner Bros. Why would they be?
