Wednesday, August 27, 2003
www.Film scores, animation & more
So much screen news
Where to start?
From Chuckie & the Futurama file - something that'd look great next to the DVD & video collection; a 1:1 scale Bender robot is up for auction on Ebay.
From the Beeb - Classic FM (in the UK) has conducted a poll to determine listeners favourite film scores. It looks like I have a lot of watching & listening to do to catch up as there were a lot of films on the list that I haven't seen yet. I wasn't surprised to see John Williams had made it into the list a bunch of times (seven in the top 50, three in top 10), but wouldn't have picked Howard Shore's scores for Lord of the Rings to come in at number one. The Classic FM page didn't specify whether voters had distinguished between Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers scores which share some themes (for want of a better word) but mostly sound different (the latter having a more militaristic feel to my mind - to accompany the big battle scenes obviously). I'd be interested to see the demographic breakdown of those who voted as the top 50 is dominated by fairly recent films. Does this mean that older scores never caught the public & became earworms or does it mean that the voting population have short memories or are the latest scores just better?
Now here're some questions for discussion in the commentary box: Do all John Williams scores sound alike or have I been listening to them too much (perhaps my brain has blended them all together in my memory)? If my assertion is right, does that mean he's borrowing from his own works? Do many composers do that? I'm not anti-Williams scores, in fact I have a bunch of them (Star Wars boxed set & Eps 1 & 2, Jurassic Park [wouldn't have put that in the top 10 myself], Minority Report, Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade and the two Harry Potter scores), but I can't help noticing certain pieces that seem to keep coming up in his scores. Damn I wish I knew some music terminology so I could properly describe this. Perhaps Williams has become a brand-name in film scoring; people know and like his work, so producers & directors get him for their projects because they know what they'll get & they know how people will respond to the music in the film. This is just my opinion of course; I'm keen to hear if anyone else has thoughts on the matter.
Must find out if ABC Classic FM or Artsound FM have any movie music shows like the UK one too.
From the awesome random acts of kindness file - T-bone made me a member of the AFI today. This means I'll be able to see more Aussie film goodness and be able vote in the annual AFI awards. This is cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.
UPDATE - Sunday 31 Aug 2003
There is one more thing I meant to mention about the Classic FM Top 50 film scores; the inclusion of Fantasia at number 31. I don't agree that Fantasia should be part of this list because the music wasn't written for the films. Fantasia was animation created around the music.
Discussion in progress here as well as in the commentary box.
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