Film Composers and Composing: AFI's Master Class The Art of Collaboration Spielberg/Williams

I agree, the Conan score is extraordinary.

I remember a long time ago reading a quote from George Lucas who said that out of all of the students that emerged from his class at USC in the mid-sixties, a lot of people felt Basil Pouledouris was the most gifted person there, and he did too. That's quite a compliment as an awful lot of talented people were at USC in those days.

Parts of the Conan score practically induce a trance...incredible.

 

Best known for his fantasy adventures, particularly Conan, although The Jungle Book, The Touch and Flesh+Blood are all wonderful as well, but he was at home in a number of genres. His Lonesome Dove was lovely Americana, a folksy western voice he expanded, though never with quite the glory of the original, in stuff like Quigley Down Under, For Love of the Game, and The Legend of Butch & Sundance. Throughout the 80s and 90s, he was neck-and-neck with Jerry Goldsmith providing fine action scores for forgettable movies. He wrote particularly well for movies dealing with sailing or the sea -- Big Wednesday, The Blue Lagoon, A Whale for the Killing, Free Willy, Wind and Kimberly. Epic drama? Les misérables. Intimate drama? It's My Party. Adventure? White Fang, Farewell to the King. The man was wonderful in any genre, truly a great musical voice and a wonderful man. I miss him.

 

The "Lonesome Dove" score is wonderful, I agree.

 

A Composer's Notebook with Bill Conti

 

So You Want to be A Film Composer?

 

Film Scores From Outer Space

 

So I almost got to see Ennio Morricone in concert on the 25th...the guy's eighty years old, and he's my favorite film composer of all time. More than Williams or Zimmer or Goldsmith or Herrman or Shore. And I LOVE film scores. After the writing, it's the most important part of a film for me. Not cinematography, or sound mixing, or acting, or ever editing. It's the score and the writing.

That being said, Morricone is godlike in my eyes. I will be very forlorn the day/week/month he dies...he's simply amazing. Eighty years old and still coming out with three or four scores a year in his native Italy. Amazing.

The show is already sold out at the Hollywood Bowl, or I would have gone. Tickets have only been on sale for two weeks...crazy stuff. But it's good to see he's appreciated here in L.A.

 

No Star Wars? Its only one of the most iconic sci-fi themes ever.

 

Film composers (and one director) dicuss Ennio Morricone

 

The Mission might just be my favorite film score. It's at the very least in a dead heat for first with Hermann's Vertigo.

Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly are both also brilliant. Years of pastiches and rip offs still haven't tarnished the brilliance of the originals.

 

Interesting stuff to hear from Morricone's peers. His ouput is simply amazing, not to mention his diversity. Horror, westerns, romance he has done everything & with such a distinct sound. Look up his credits on IMDB and see how many films he has done. What is particularly impressive is his output from the 60s. Dozens of spaghetti westerns and some the best of their kind. A number of times his scores were better than the films themselves. Its a shame he never won an Oscar in the competition part. His lifetime achievement award was well deserved.

 

TCM has a documentary on Johnny Mercer on tonight, along with some of the movies he worked on.

 

The score to E.T. has always been one of my favorites so I found this video fascinating.

John Williams talks about scoring E.T.

The last 15 minutes of E.T.'s score is some of John William's greatest work in my opinion, and there's an interesting story in the video of how difficult it was to get it right.

 

That is very interesting.

 

Yes, and it's also one of the most interesting glimpses of how Spielberg and Williams work together that I've ever seen. Really good behind the scenes stuff.

 

Article on composer Carter Burwell

 

Interesting article with Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo on the scoring of films

 

So You Want to Be a Film Composer?

 

Bernard Herrmann at 100

Very interesting article.

 

8-9PM | TCM
AFI's Master Class [MDASH] The Art of Collaboration

"Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams discuss their favorite movie-music moments."

 

John Williams rec'd Oscar noms for both "Tintin" and "War Horse"

 

Williams now has more Oscar nominations than any other living person. He now has 47 with the Tintin and War Horse nominations.

Only Walt Disney had more, with a lifetime total of 59 Oscar nominations.

 

Are we placing bets already that he'll score another one for Lincoln? If he can be nominated for Sleepers and Memoirs of a Geisha, he can be nominated for anything.

Also, I find it slightly ludicrous that he didn't get nominated for his second set of Star Wars scores. Even if the films were coldly received, those scores are pretty much uniformly top-notch and could match it with anything else that either won or was nominated in those years.