Film Composer Blog - John Piscitello

TV Guide, One-Time Maker of Creepy 1970s TV Commercials, Is Sold

2008-12-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

TV Guide's show-listing cable channels sold for $300 million today. The news reminds me of my youth, those old 1970s TV Guide TV commercials, back when your TV had 3 channels and your commercials had cold, sterile, outer-spacey synths in them....

The commercial music (is it really music? maybe it's better described as a "soundmark") is frightening today, but as a kid I liked it OK. It was definitive, if nothing else. And urgent, like it really made me want to go to the store and buy it.

Not all the YouTube commenters agree:

"Love it??? It used to scare the hell out of me when I was little! So did all those supposedly 'hip' sounding synth soundtracks in commercials back then. They all sound really sinister, for some reason, not at all like the friendly sounding synth songs you'd find on records!"

The Original Tron Bike Scene! (So good, it didn't need music..

2008-12-16T16:07:00.000-08:00

There's a Tron remake in the works. I didn't understand the original's plot one bit, but I remember loving the lightbikes.

The scene is remarkable. Despite having primitive CGI, it's perfectly exciting. I suppose directors could tell you why the scene is such good movie making. As far as I can tell there's plenty of speed and tension, the rules of the scene are internally consistent, and the action is clear.

Against visual mayhem of the latest blockbusters, the scene is an unblinking stare. It pierces, something like how punk broke through after too many years of classic rock and disco.

The scene's sound editing really makes it work. Notice the low-frequency wind-against-the-microphone sound when there is a closeup of a bike wheel. Or the whooshing heard during the hairpin turns in the maze. And each bike has its own engine sound.

It seems the original Tron writer/director is a producer on the reboot. That bodes well for fans of the classic...I hope they keep those evil arch-gate thingys and the killer frisbees!

Broadcast Film Critics Choice Award Nominations

2008-12-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be cool if Clint Eastwood won? (I've heard composers say he must have had help, it's just plain too good for an actor / director to have done!)

And isn't it interesting that Danny Elfman scored a film like Milk?

Best Composer
Alexandre Desplat, �The Curious Case of Benjamin Button�
Clint Eastwood, �Changeling�
Danny Elfman, �Milk�
James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer, �The Dark Knight�
A.R. Rahman, �Slumdog Millionaire�"

More awards...

Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are back in...Dark Knight score re-eligible for nomination

2008-12-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

Good for everyone: the academy, the composers, and the audiences.

Sounds like Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard had to do some real work to change some minds. Key quote:

"My basic argument was--composers are honest human beings," (Zimmer) told me. "If we're telling you that we, and we alone, wrote the score, why don't you believe us? We were very candid. We said, 'Why would we lie? And if you don't believe us, go ask Chris Nolan, the film's director. He saw who did the work.' "

Even at the top level, composers can't get by only on their music. You can't escape needing good people skills and the ability to deal with conflict.

Now...who will get nominated?

Here's the end credits music. Even without the context of the film, I think the music is very much in touch with the times.

Did Coldplay Rip Off Joe Satriani?

2008-12-08T13:33:00.001-08:00

Film composers are often asked to write music that sounds similar to temp tracks teh director has chosen. It's a big issue - how close is too close?

This IMHO would be an example of too close. I would place a bet on Joe Satriani picking up a big ol' settlement check in his future:

Not-Nominated-for-an-Oscar Batman Score Used for Toy Story Recut

2008-11-20T11:38:00.000-08:00

Why so serious??

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Film Music of the Day

2008-11-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

I'm in opera training. Not to sing it, just to enjoy listening to it.

I've been researching traditional Japanese music, and of course you end up coming across the use of folk melodies in Puccini Madama Butterfly. And then you come across "Un bel di vedremo".

This I believe is from this 1995 French film production, which is on DVD.

Watch the whole thing form the start, and the big payoff comes at 3:37:

How to tell when you've really made it as a film compser

2008-11-17T10:17:00.001-08:00

When you get a dedication like this:

Why does the Academy disqualify collaborative scores?

2008-11-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

Like "Batman Begins" and "There Will Be Blood", the score for "The Dark Knight" has been disqualified for having too many collaborators. From Variety:

Sources inside the committee said that the big issue was the fact that five names were listed as composers on the music cue sheet, the official studio document that specifies every piece of music (along with its duration and copyright owner) in the film.

The unanswered question is why does it matter if the Best Original Music Score has 1 composer or 10? The best score is the best score, leave it to the members to decide.

This does matter. Students of film composing look to the past, and a nominee from 30 or 40 years past is far more likely to be studied than an unnominated modest box-office success like There Will Be Blood. We lose something from future composers if we exclude successful scores from the competition.

The "The Dark Knight" most memorable music may be what plays behind Heath Ledger's monologues. Strings gather into a cluster that then slowly glissandos upward, sort of a super-slo-mo version of those famous strings screeching in the "Psycho" shower scene. Just drawn out much longer, so it's way scarier.

So delicious...why disqualify it over a couple of names on a cue sheet?

"Academy members, change thy rules!" sayeth the fan!

The music cue starts about 2:30 into this clip:

In Memoriam: Michael Crichton

2008-11-06T10:26:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of Michael Crichton for a unique reason - I was one of about 10 students who took a writing seminar he taught at MIT in Spring, 1988. I think the class was named "The Art of Revision".

His assignments were brief - write directions, describe your bedroom. He graded by recording himself reading your assignment aloud with real-time commentary, which he handed back on cassette (this was the pre-iPod era).

What I learned can be summed up as:

Don't repeat yourself. Say things once. Don't repeat yourself.

He taught to use only one adjective at a time (write "an inspiring film" not "a touching and inspiring film"). Also, adverbs tend to be really worthless.

Invaluable!

I asked him what he was writing at the time (this was before Jurassic Park was published). He said a book on his travel experiences. I nodded and said "how interesting", and in my mind thought "how uninteresting".

Years later I spotted the book "Travels" in an airport. It's more of an autobiography composed of episodic essays. He had incredible experiences.

Reading it changed my life. It's the book I cite when people ask me what book had the biggest impact on me.

Awesome guy.

McCain's Theme Song: Dallas!

2008-09-10T22:35:00.000-07:00

Did anyone else notice the music in the McCain biographical video sounded suspiciously like the theme song from "Dallas"? Is this a subliminal cue that McCain will drill here, drill now??

Here's the McCain video:

And here's Dallas:

Take out the rhythm section and they're close cousins!

I promised to review the McCain bio video's music, here is a late review:

The music had an orchestral score done with electronic samples instead of real musicians. Using a "fauxchestra" can work, but it's very, very difficult, and a lot of music simply can't be pulled off convincingly (I've tried! It's hard!). The video's music wasn't nearly up to broadcast quality.

While the Republicans had a good convention, I thought they were shaking hands with danger, if you will, with the budget music production. Between that and the brief green screen behind McCain, I was wondering if the production values were going to go off the rails completely.

The war stories - especially the sequence with the fire on the navy ship - were dramatic. The music in this section featured a sampled male choir. Good composing, but that choir was verrry fake. Distracting. Should've gotten a real choir.

But... McCain's had a bounce in the polls, it seems that "good enough" music was plenty good enough!

Still, if I had to vote solely on the quality of the music in the candidates' biographical videos, I'd have to give it to Obama. ;-)

How was the Music on Obama's Big Night?

2008-08-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

Obama's scripted biographical video before his speech last night caught 38 million viewers.

These bio videos have a tall order to fill. You need to communicate universal experiences voters can relate to, but also show candidate as unique and extraordinary. And you have to put forward the rationale for the political campaign. So the music has to be universal, unique, and political all at the same time.

So how did the Obama campaign do?

The video has a brief introduction, then gets started with Obama's childhood photos. This opening section was strong. We hear a small orchestra of woodwinds and strings. A solo clarinet plays over images of Obama; an oboe takes over when we see his Mom. When Barack talks of his memories of his father, it's a melancholy piano. All very conventional, but also very well done.

Even though Obama grew up in Hawaii or Indonesia, and ukeleles and Gamelan instruments aren't really a fit for a US President.

Then Barack meets Michelle. We shift smoothly to acoustic guitar for the romantic story. Conventional, but so far so good.

Things misfire when Obama starts his rise in the state senate. A four-on-the-floor kick drum suggests the daily routine of work with a bushy-tailed optimism. It's a little thin and repetitive, and doesn't fit thematically with the opening material. It's always better, if you have the budget, to license something from a band that worked for a year on their album - this section fell flat.

The opening themes return as Obama reminisces about astronauts, but then things go off the rails. We see Obama on a plane while a the narrator intones creepily about "promise". A new-age synth pad takes over for the orchestra. The kind of thing you expect to hear rising from the snow when you see the Northern Lights for the first time. The moment overreaches - we're gone over the top and self-serious. Is this speaking to the party faithful or working class swing voters?

The video finishes with light acoustic rock, a safe choice, but the producers want to communicate "Hope", so we get the Soulful Celtic Fiddle. The sound couldn't be more wrong for Obama, it's like a mashup of Enya plus Hootie and the Blowfish. Leave the celtic touches out and you've got something safe and pleasing.

Finally, the video ends without musical crescendo or cadence - things fade suddenly. There is a vacuum - the viewer wonders "eh? that's it?" but the moment is saved by U2 and the stadium crowd as the candidate strides out.

So let's give the music an "A" for hitting the right Childhood Memories notes, but a "C" for overwrought Hope instruments. Given the dead ending, call it a "B".

Next week - McCain's bio...

Orchestration on the Cheap, Muppet-Style

2008-08-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

OK, so maybe it is possible to get by on fewer musicians....

Holy Cow The World's Largest Digging Machine is Huge

2008-08-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a little music to go with it...

Broadway Musicals, Minus the Musicians

2008-08-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

A detailed look at Broadway orchestrators (they earn $25 a measure!) focuses on cost-cutting trends, where shows try to get by with fewer and fewer musicians:

Downsizing is the norm these days, mostly because of space and economics. �We�re being asked to write for smaller and smaller bands all the time,� Mr. Starobin said. �Everybody�s oohing and aahing about �South Pacific,� but nobody�s saying: �Hey! Let�s use big orchestras again.� Producers don�t want to put money into the music; they�d rather spend $3 million on the scenery.�

Somehow I don't think all those people raving about Mamma Mia were talking about the scenery.

Still, if a New York musician costs $100,000 a year, cutting from 25 to 15 musicians is $1 million a year.

Top shows bring in nearly $1.5 million a week, with overall attendance at 87%. You have to wonder if cheesing out on the musicians is like charging for water on the plane - sure it's annoying, but people will still fill the seats.

Still, I haven't truly enjoyed a Broadway musical in years. It's distracting how the sound is produced so much like a rock concert that it becomes artificial. The orchestra is hidden, the singers are body-miked, and all the sound comes from speakers to the side, instead of actors on the stage.

There are no visual or audio cues to tell you that what you're seeing is real, and at intermission couples in the drink line ask each other "is it lip-synced"?

Producers may suppose it's not much of an issue. But sometimes it is.

With a bigger (and visible) orchestra, and turning down the amps so the singer's voice is in the direction of the stage (and not the speaker behind you), the audience connects much better to the performance. We hear so much compressed digital music these days that live analog performance is becoming more valuable. Yet many musicals sound like a U2 playing in an arena.

It's a musical, not a rock concert. The audience is not there to commune with each other while basking in the band's glory. They are there to get swept up in the story and the music. Broadway producers would be smart to invest in the live music - get the musicians where we can see them, and build the emotional connection to the audience.

Temp Music vs. Finished Music

2008-08-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

I came across a short doc 34x25x26 in the YouTube screening room about female mannequins and how this company creates a beauty idea. It's got over a million hits (it's creepy watching men in a factory create female mannequin bodies). The filmmaker Jessie Epstein also posted a version using the temp music by Loscil (which is very experimental electronic-ambient music).

There is a lot of similarity in tone, and they both work, but I think one of them works a lot better than the other:

The temp version:

The final version:

Film Composers: Tarantino doesn't like your music, and neither did Kubrick!

2008-08-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

Kubrick:

Exclude a pop music score from what I am about to say. However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Brahms. Why use music which is less good when there is such a multitude of great orchestral music available from the past and from our own time?

Tarantino:

Music is so important. The idea of paying a guy and showing him your movie at the end. Who the f*** is this guy [who's] going to s**t on my movie?

The problem is, film music is nearly always done in a rush, from the top of the industry to the bottom. It's hard to deliver 60-90 minutes of great music in 6 weeks. Even Debussy had unfinished operas that he worked on for years. Bands typically spend a year recording and mixing a 50-minute album.

Start earlier, maybe pay extra for extra time, be willing to be different, and you can get better music.

Even with all that, it's still hard to beat a moment like this:

Great Moments in Composer Firings, Vol. I: 2001 A Space Odyssey

2008-08-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

When you pick music for your scene, taking a moment to ask "what is the point of view?" can make the difference.

Stanley Kubrick commissioned Alex North to create a score for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Midway through Kubrick cut North loose and decided to use temp tracks selected from classical music.

And Richard Strauss' Thus Sprach Zarathusra fanfare became really, really famous.

Comparing the two versions of the scene shows how point of view of the music can make (or destroy) a scene.

Strauss' fanfare was called "Sunrise" and was just the opening of a suite inspired by Nietzsche's writings. The music is shooting for the eternal and and omnipotent, and those pounding tympanis lend the scene more than a dash of violence (music starts about 0:20):

North's music, wonderful as it is, now sounds dated and a little bit naive. It's bouncy and enthusiastic, and occasional strings and woodwind colors lend a shrieking human quality. The human element diminishes the scene - something far bigger than us is at work here:

One could ague that Strauss' music is simply better (Kubrick himself said so). The fundamental problem is the point of view. North's music looks up at the scene as if audience is feeling awestruck.

Strauss' fanfare, not written for the film, looks down on the moment, as if omnipotent forces, as inevitable as the sunrise, are in control.

The Drum Solo You've Heard thousands of Times

2008-08-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

YouTube - Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop

This is a classic, a detailed and engaging history of the "Amen Beak", which is a short drum solo from a 1969 B-side that got first sampled and placed in an NWA track in since 1990. Since then you have most likely heard it thousands of times in hundreds of different songs.

Start about 1 minute into the video - the break is first heard at 1:18. Then he'll explain how it got used and reused over and over in tracks after that, with additional samples:

It's like the "Wilhelm Scream" of pop music!

Music Goofs in Soundtracks - Lost, Season 4 Finale Part I

2008-05-19T10:55:00.000-07:00

Blooper pages rarely mention music goofs. But they're a constant danger, because producers sometimes have to live with imperfections to stay on budget.

Last month I visited a recording session for a network show, and 20 minutes in, I noticed persistent audio distortion in the monitors. As a visitor, I had the sense to stay out of the way of folks working. Soon enough, the sound editor noticed the problem, and the group discovered the distortion was going to tape.

One very stressful hour later, the problem was solved (by replacing the wireless headphones in the percussion section). Everything was re-recorded and sounded great, but the session went overtime.

They very nearly could have decided to let the distortion stay. It wasn't that bad, and the audience wouldn't really notice.

So how often do real-world glitches happen?

Consider part I of the Lost season 4 series finale - I think I can hear a wrong note in the trombones...can you?

Click on the Lost season 4 finale episode and cue the playback to exactly 41:00 (you will have to wait for a pre-roll ad). The cue starts when Ben says "I always have a plan". It's majestic and sweeping (great stuff as usual from Michael Giacchino). Listen to the trombones playing whole notes. The video shows the different groups converging on the Orchid station. Right at 42:02, there is a shot from behind Ben (his hands are up). This is where you will hear 2 trombones disagreeing on a note:

I thought for a moment this was intentional, like the situation was going to go all dissonant and creepy, but it quickly recovers to a half-cadence, so my theory is it's a blip.

So...can you hear it? Or does it sound fine to you? Does it even matter? And have you ever noticed any other musical glitches?

"Oops I Did it Again" Written as a Fugue for Piano

2007-12-17T15:50:00.000-08:00

This video actually contains a detailed analysis of writing a fugue, but I find it gets a little academic and hard to follow...but the fugue itself (starts about 2/3rds of the way through) is actually kind of nice, I'd like to hear it performed on a large organ, though:

Jumping the Shark, Scoring the Jump

2007-12-07T15:44:00.000-08:00

If you attend a talk by an experienced Hollywood composer sometime, you might hear an opinion that film scoring is currently in a "cool" period.

In film after film, the basic rule seems to be that composers avoid displaying any trace of enthusiasm in their music. A certain detachment from the material is essential.

Take a 70s TV scene, such as Fonzie jumping the shark, and you hear the difference right away (notice, by the way, the cute homage to John William's famous 2-note motive from "Jaws", in the lower brass):

Audiences today have been so overexposed to media that they're hyper-sensitized to storytelling conventions. So if you make the mistake of saying too much in the music, you're insulting them, so they just think you're corny.

That's not a bad thing by any means...I myself feel distracted by hyperactivity in old film scores, even ones where the music is clearly a masterpiece.

(Ironically, the music from Jaws, also from the 70s, doesn't sound the least bit dated at all...)

Is it Sesame Street or Transformers?

2007-12-06T22:23:00.000-08:00

"The Geometry of Circles" is an old Phillip Glass-scored Sesame Street cartoon that folks seem to have loved as kids. It spooks the heck out of me (as minimalist music always seems to) . If I'd seen it at the age of 3 I would have had nightmares.

Still, it's brilliant, check out the first 30 seconds, especially the 2-note repetitions, to get the idea:

Watching Transformers, the Decepticons music reminded me of it. Getting past the movie's booming percussion, dark tones and gigantic reverb, it shares the same minimalist techniques - repetitive rhythms and stark arpeggios. And in particular, a 2-note motive.

I sort of wondered - maybe this choice was the composer's way of keeping the story kid-like? Transformers are toys, after all, and I related to it like one of my childhood fantasies. Why not use minimalism to suggest the absolute clarity of good guys vs. bad guys?

Can you hear the similarity? Listen to the vocals starting about 1:30 into this remix:

So is this theory right? Here's what the composer Steve Jablonsky has to say about it:

The Decepticon theme was an experiment. I had no idea if it would work, but as soon as I heard the choir sing the first few bars, I was happy. It's not really a theme that you can whistle. It's more of an evil chant. I wanted it to feel somewhat ancient, and I had a lot of fun with it.

OK, Sesame Street isn't much of a source of ancient evil chants. So there goes that theory.

Still, I'd say he hit the mark.

"Enchanted" song composer Alan Menken on BlogTalkRadio Dec 4th, 1pm

2007-12-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

On the podcast he'll talk about the songs for "Enchanted" and other Disney movies he's done.

Great Moments in Film Scoring, Part III: You've Never Heard a Jingle Like This Before

2007-11-14T14:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it pays to avoid being too trendy.

The year is 1983.

You're the ad agency creative director on a commercial for the new Corvette.

You tell the composer:

- Take one part Queen's theme from Flash Gordon.

- Add one part Survivor's theme from Rocky III.

- Add synthesizers to highlight the "high tech" features of the car.

Voila!

(Pardon the iFilm embed, this has been booted from YouTube, I promise its worth it...)

Via Amazon's car blog: