1990's scores

I had an interesting point one time -- probably only brough it up once more afterward, but it was essentially as follows:

The audience doesn't give a shit about the score. There are pockets where more score fans are, and therefore a fuck is given, but in general not. Let us take, for example, ANY Harry Potter film.

They call in test audiences and they audiences rate the film. They don't really care for the score. Maybe one guy suggests a new one. Some studio heads nod in the background. The composer looks on in apathy (see the "Emporer's New Groove" and Shaiman video on Youtube...).


However, the score is not replaced.

Do you think the audience would not pay ten dollars to see Harry Potter anyway, even if they hated the score? They'll come in droves.

Or Star Wars, or Star Trek. They'll complain more in those two instances (the score community, that is).


Or to continue on the general ideas:
Let us take lesser films. Let's say it's "Just Bieber Dies and Goes To Hell: The Movie". Let's say they [the test audiences] hate the score. But let's us also say it has a decent opening weekend. They went and saw it anyway. And not because Beiber died a most horrible, painful, and prolonged death, followed by upbeat celebration, al la Ewoks dancing and celebrating.

Let's say it's "Saw 69: More Violent Crap". Charlie Clouser has passed away. Tyler Bates taker over. Nobody gives a fuck. The end.


Or "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Finally, An Excuse For a Grown Man to Watch My Little Pony in the Theater ALONE: The Motion Picture". The children won't care, and the lonely virgin males, not with any child, won't either.


In fact, a film has to be pretty much unforgivingly egregiously scored before they do star turning away.

It has to be "Lord of the Rings" chuck full of groovy disco and wah-wah guitars.
Star Wars full of "She-Ra" scorings.
Star Trek full of yoddeling accordian. The only time Horner would be right in lambasting the score before him.
Indiana Jones covered in "Delta Force".

But of course, I only addressed one side of the coin of that musical hypothesis.


The other side, loosely expressed, is not that people just dont' care about the music, but the musical culture, quality of music, has declined to a point where the general moving-going people don't care.
Wherea 50 years ago your mother and/or father might have had Stravinsky and other classic work, as well as professional musicals, jazz, or what not, stored away in an LP cubby, today's parents have a mother with Britany Speaks and (random poptart artist of the month) on CD or iPod, while the father plays video games, or listens to rap. I see it again & again and each year it increases.

If the general populace had the refined taste and even rudamentary understandings, they would demand quality scores and rightfully have tossed many of today's "name" composers, to the rescoring wolves. After, of course, lambasting the studio for the film they made.

80 years ago directors and studios sought out, again, people like Stravinsky, or very talented musicians who, for a large part, had proven themselves early on in the concert hall or trenches of serials and news shorts. Today, I can't tell you how much more often I see directors turning to some songwriter or a band, because they "really like" his or her music. Then it was Igor Stravinsky; today it is Smash.


If even half the audience cared ... better stop there before I get an e-mail from a very angry composer. ;-)

My own view is that the larger part of the paying audience doesn't give a damn about the score anymore than they do about the photography, the editing, the line readings, the use of extras, the consistency of design, the continuity of movement, the design of the dialogue mixing... they only care about these things insofar as they hold them back from a story they're interested in, and even then, for the most part they're not to be listened to too literally in their comments on film craft anymore than a doctor should listen to a patient's own diagnosis.

And ironically, the audience that does care about these things... photography, continuity and, dare I say it, music, often gets so caught up in forms that worked for them in the past (the 'craft' of film music), that they're not the most useful people to listen to either. They tend to reinforce a traditional dramatic genre response to scoring ('film noirs / sci fi / fantasy should sound like --- ') or favour a clutch of listenable themes (because we're album fans, not score nuts) or be biased towards a musical genre as the basis for all scoring. That's all very good for connecting your film's music up to all the other film music out there (a speciality of film score afficianados is knowing what all that other stuff is), but I daresay that's fairly useless advice for most filmmakers. Most novel approaches to genre scoring over the years -- Goldsmith's Alien for example, or Greenwood's There will be blood, or Zimmer's Thin Red Line -- could easily have rubbed film music lovers up the wrong way because they are nothing like how such films were handled at the time. So it would have done those filmmakers well to ignore the audience that cared about music as well.

So, in other words, whether they care or not, it's best to go with your gut, tempered with good advice from those around you and a careful reading of what is really the cause of an audience's distress. The real thing to respond to is a 'story problem' (the film doesn't feel right), not a 'form problem' (music in film shouldn't be like that). Unfortunately, that does allow for the situation we presently have, where much hath gone to shit. But I'd argue decision makers have not always been reading carefully the cause of an audience's distress, or questioned their own loaded dice.

That's interesting, Alan (the 'too loud' thing).

A quote from William Mccrum in a thread over at FSM is interesting on this point:


http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts … ;archive=0

SO MANY talented composers out there, and they chose Jack White.


I remember my interview with David Shire -- he wants to work, just the phone doesn't ring. David Fincher, aside from "Zodiac", just isn't calling.

Or people that talk throughout the entire film. Even after you ask them politely.

Hold on, they do that in concerts these days too. I saw the Australian Chamber Orchestra this past weekend featuring the famous soprano Dawn Upshaw.

The entire performance was narrated by this dreadful old couple behind me. They were given a couple of glares, and even when they caught the hint decided to carry on in a more subdued fashion.

Lack of consideration in society today (at least in most of America). There was a time when certain customs and manners were followed at public events. Especially in the concert hall!
It was probably just ignorance. No excuse though! Considerate people do not talk straight through performances that many have paid a high fee to attend.

Infuriating. No other word to express it.

Sorry. Had to jump on that slight tangent there regarding the quality of the theater experience with fellow audience members these days.

That's what God invented chloroform and a rag for.


We could have a whole thread dedicated to cornholios that make our life less enjoyable.

It would have been more familiar if you knew your Beavis & Butthead, Alan.

Yes. Next time.

One of my classmates shared a pick-up line joke with me the other day.
"Hi there. Would you smell this rag? I think it smells like chloroform."

Hahaha... that's awful.