[Closed] Now Playing XLVII

I find the music for Hidden Kingdoms is a bit too "cinematic" for a documentary series. I prefer something more restrained and supportive.

It's been a long time since documentaries have just been about point-and-shoot to record nature, becoming instead a mix of natural footage with that shot in the studio or under other controlled conditions. And music for documentaries is becoming increasingly aimed at exaggerating the emotions and peril of the animals being filmed and/or the viewer.

Definitely agree with you there. The intertwining of "real life" and "staged" footage to illustrate actual behaviour is a painstaking job and those working for the BBC are some of the best.

I remember back in the mid-eighties I used to work in the laboratory of a professor who was a world expert in temperature-dependent sex determination in alligators. In June we'd all get roped into to helping clean and number a shipment of alligator eggs from Louisiana that this prof would use for his studies: some would be placed in incubators of two different temperatures.

So, when the BBC wanted to film the emergence of newly-born alligators from their nest (they had footage of the nests in Louisiana) for one of David Attenborough's documentaries , a nest was re-created in the labs and the BBC came and shot some close footage of young alligators emerging from the bench-top nests. And then it was edited together for the final documentary.

It's on my list!

-Erik-

Music for documentaries is a very interesting area. I realised that my comment about fuelling the viewer's emotions wasn't as clear cut as I thought.

All music for documentaries affects the emotional responses of the viewer. But I think that I was hinting at a concern I have about how subtly the music affects the viewer's experiences. Grand sweeping themes to showcase the inherent beauty of nature is fine. I question the use of scores such as Foster's that seem to veer too much into the melodrama of the day-to-day survival of the animals. It just seems a bit forced to me.

I disagree. I think the music, and music of this sort, compliments the drama unfolding on the screen. I love the sweeping, epic sounding scores to Blue Planet and Africa.

-Erik-

Alan, do you know of any sources that list music used in the series COAST?

In the film there is a whole other theme that is played once or twice on album and it's also quite good. I'm thinking of the Falcon theme. Winter Soldier is definitely not the worst score this year and frankly, Taking a Stand does feature in my top 10 RCP tracks ever written. Also after the film.

What a score! Wiedmann has convinced me that he can do anything exceptionally well. This is easily a top ten 2014 score for me. Multiple long-lined themes, beauty, grandeur, tragedy, epic sweep, and even a couple pull-out-all-the-stops action moments - there's something for everyone here. And it's a nearly perfectly produced album. This is just fantastic.

And it gives further evidence to my theory that films about the American Civil War always have good music.

Yes! Which I love.

Great score! I read some of Bradley's novels. I far far prefer Bernard Cornwall's fantastic take on the Arthurian legend in his trilogy of books.

Not familliar with that one. Concerning Arthurian narratives
- The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart
- The Dark is Rising (Sequence) by Susan Cooper (This is of course not a retelling but is based on Athurian aspects.)

are sitting on my book shelf, waiting to be read.

Hist! It's Cornwell, right?

Tim, I've been trying to track down some information on the music for Coast but I can't come up with too much.

There are some archived pages on the BBC website that lists in detail the music used in Series 3 but other than that, I can't locate much. Looking at the information I can find, it's clear that the music comes from numerous sources.

Below is a direct link to the music used in the first episode of Series 3, "Shetland To Orkney":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/coast/faq/series3_ … usic.shtml

In order to see the music used for the remaining episodes in Series 3, click in each link at the top of the page in the rightmost column. In the new page that opens, scroll right to the bottom of the page and you'll see a link within the sentence, "Would you like to know what music was used in this programme?" Click on this and it will take you to the list of music. It looks like it's the same process for the rest of the episodes in this series.

I've tried numerous ways to try and find similar information on the other series but I've come up with nothing at the moment.

Hope this helps.

NP: La Rançon de La Gloire - Michel Legrand

I'm thoroughly enjoying this beautiful score from the veteran composer. A comedy whose fictional story is based around the stealing of the body of Charlie Chaplin. But Legrand tends to play have the music playing pretty straight, with minimal comedic episodes.

I notice that the film does contain some music from 1-2 of Chaplin's music. I'd be grateful to anyone (and who takes a listen to this score (it's on Spotify)) who can tell me if Legrand incorporates any of Chaplin's music in his own score.

One person's "unpleasant" stuff is another person's "cool" stuff.

I wouldn't say "Taking A Stand" is one of my top 10 RCP tracks just because there are so darn many of them, but it's the kind of theme and musical structure that continues to grow on you the more you listen to it, being as it is much more complex and layered than originally meets the ears. I've been listening to the whole score on and off since it came up in this thread and discovering newly entertaining things.