 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
I recently went to a live concert of Close Encounters with the score played live to film and I must say the final edit of the movie dials out some of his best music. - Barnstorming cue, the movie dials out an incredible brass passage - Visitors, some of the best harmonic lead up to Roy being led away by the ET's is also dialed out - Encounter with Rimbaldi's alien during the Kodaly hand signal sequence, the five note sequence isn't even heard when the alien gives the signal (though the music as we hear on the soundtrack is quite clearly there for this moment) The necessities of film editing at the very last minute have to take precedence but in these cases I feel like Spielberg, staunch advocate of the music that he is, especially when the music is a plot point, could have done something (more so given the director's edits we now have access to). Here's another one, not Spielberg related but galls me to no end. 1979 Dracula, climactic scene, Dracula's death, Johnny had waited the whole score to go brilliant major chord! And in the movie, it's just dialed out like who cares. What! It's the whole point of the composition. These poor edits make me sad. Am I the only one who noticed them?
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
Should say, at the (Chicago Symphony!) concerts I am talking about, they played all of Barry's Abduction (with chorus!) and all of the Arrival of Sky Harbor, neither of which you get to hear in the film, so I have zero to complain about.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
For some of the big vfx sequences in CE3K, Williams wrote music to rough versions of the edit or sometimes even to blank footage, using just descriptions or storyboards, so the film kept being massaged after scoring and that led to the music being conformed through editing, with several trims or in some cases even being completely dialed out. As far as I know, the live to picture presentation restores at least some of the cues as intended by the composer. I think this is one of the perks of these ventures, whenver it's done right.e
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
End Credits for concerts (and intermission placement) is entirely dictated by the running time of the film so as to avoid going into a block of overtime, which kicks in if an orchestra is on stage for 75 minutes following tuning and after 2-1/2 accrued hours. So any movie more than 135 minutes is affected. That's why the Superman credits are not played. Jaws, Raiders, E.T, and Jurassic Park are all short enough that there's time to do the credits. Close Encounters is right on the edge. John Williams did want to have more concertized endings where possible, thus the changes there for E.T. & Jurassic Park. Contractually the credits do need to be run on screen, but it can happen after the bows are taken. You didn't have wait for the concerts to find changed End Credits in Williams scores. He did that great ending for Attack of the Clones but it wasn't used in the movie, and the credits for Always and Hook ended up with tracked music. And then there was the End Credits for Far and Away getting bumped by Enya. There is no evidence, by the way, that any of the cues we hear in Close Encounters were done wild, despite that anecdote being out there forever. Williams scored sequences that were missing effects and there was film editing done after scoring, but there's nothing unusual about that. The track "The Approach," which was a fantastic discovery for the 40th anniversary edition soundtrack, seems to be the only cue done completely without picture.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
There is no evidence, by the way, that any of the cues we hear in Close Encounters were done wild, despite that anecdote being out there forever. Williams scored sequences that were missing effects and there was film editing done after scoring, but there's nothing unusual about that. The track "The Approach," which was a fantastic discovery for the 40th anniversary edition soundtrack, seems to be the only cue done completely without picture. Thanks for the clarification, Mike. I never intended that JW scored sequences wild à la Morricone, but that some vfx shots were indeed missing and that he had slugs with perhaps only descriptions of what the shot was going to look like.
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|