composers

Question 1

What are the key details for Elmer Bernstein?

Answer 1

• 1922 - 2004
• Born in New York City
• Went to Julliard
• Elmer gets accused of being communist
• Forced to do B-Movies
• Eventually worked on Ten Commandments, Elmer got all sorts of new and better jobs
• Agnes de Mille / Cecil B. de Mille
• Managed to get him unblacklisted
• Her brother was a director, Cecil, who hired Elmer that got him noticed

Question 2

What are important details about the Man with the Golden Arm (1955)?

Answer 2

What are important details about the Man with the Golden Arm (1955)?

o Ensemble is a Jazz Big Band

o The score strongly Jazz influenced

o Jazz - urban - drug abuse

o Example of an attempt to cut a popular style as film score - effective for the most part, but awkward at times

Popular music has a very particular style and internal structure, it can work well if it doesn’t need to catch any action, fails if you attempt to break it up to catch actions

o Phrasing the drama - then extreme hitting the action

Question 3

What is the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) 1953?

Answer 3

Committee for finding communists in America, created a witch hunt in Hollywood that ruined many people’s careers

Question 4

What are the main details of Dimitri Tiomkin?

Answer 4

o 1894-1979
o Born in Russia
o Began work in Hollywood during the 1930s
o Important films include: Lost Horizon (1937); It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
o Becomes very popular for Westerns

Question 5

What are the main details of High Noon (1952) composed by Tiomkin?

Answer 5

Score based on a popular song composed by Tiomkin

‘Do not forsake me oh my darling’, writes it to sound like a folk song from Old West

Hit for singer Tex Ritter

This isn’t the first time this model is done (Pop song written to become main theme of film and hiring a big star to sing it)

This was the first time the song was pre-released and established the use of ‘Movie Songs’ which acts as advertisement

Received AA for best score and best song

Notable for the high level of integration of the song melody within the score

Question 6

What are the key details of Bernard Herrmann?

Answer 6

o 1911-1975
o Born in New York
o Studied at Julliard
o CBS radio in 1934
o Radio is television at this time
o He worked with Orson Wells for War of the Worlds
o Offered contract to Hollywood movies, but he refuses
o After 2 years, he finally gets offered to make movies with complete creative control and accepts
o Takes whole mercury theater and makes film with them
o Citizen Kane (1941), Created techniques for film noir
o The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
o Leaves Hitchcock company during the filming of Torn Curtain, because they wanna use popular music
o Bitter, he moves to Europe: Truffaut: Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
o Last movie is Taxi Driver (1975)
o Hated popular music in film scoring

Question 7

What was Bernard Herrmann approach to music?

Answer 7

o the sound of a score depends on instrumentation

o Standardized performance ensemble: can take your music anywhere and be able to find a band that can play it AKA those instruments are easily accessible. Writing for instruments that aren’t standard is difficult to get played live

o Film music doesn’t need to be played live, just once on day its recorded; no need to stick to writing for symphony orchestras

o Herrmann is the first one to do this

o Musicians only required for recording session - no need to focus on performance ensemble

Question 8

What are some details about Psycho (1960)?

Answer 8

Limited budget - shot in black and white

Herrmann uses only strings ‘black and white’ score

Uses the variety of sounds that can be produced by a string section

Cues tend to set a single mood and show little response to what happens minute by minute

Overall the mood is bleak and has little emotional warmth

Question 9

What happens to films in the 1960s?

Answer 9

o Early 60s an extension of the 1950s

o By mid 60s the Production Code is abandoned

o Films become more explicit in subjects, visuals and dialog

o Cultural revolution of the late 60s results in films with a strong sense of irony and cynicism

o Western Culture starts to doubt authority

Question 10

What are the details of Ennio Morricone?

Answer 10

o Born 1928 Rome, Italy

o Best known for association with Italian Director Sergio Leone and the spaghetti western

Called that because they were western movies but made by Italian film studios

Not filmed in Italy, but in fact filmed in Spain usually

o Over 400 film credits with a wide range of styles from popular music to avant-garde

o The electric guitar is becoming an important part of popular culture

Question 11

What are the details of John Barry?

Answer 11

o 1933 - 2011
o Classical pianist / trumpet

o Turned to pop music in his 20s

o By early 1960s is a well-known British pop musician

o Won 5 academy awards including: Born Free (1967), Out of Africa (1986), and Dances with Wolves (1991)

Question 12

What was John Barry’s musical style?

Answer 12

defined by clear, tonal melodies (pop influence)
Called Block Orchestration

• Finding interesting combinations of instruments
• Each section of orchestra does one part, playing big block chords and melodies
• Big and grand sounding

o Grand use of strings and brass

Question 13

What are the details of the movie Dr. No (1962) composed by John Barry?

Answer 13

James Bond

Monty Norman, hired as composer for the film and got credited as making the music despite not writing any of it due to his contract

Composed the music for 11 James Bond films, Monty got the credits

Also co-wrote many of the opening songs

Lawsuit, Monty Norman sued by John Barry for rights to the Bond film music

• Monty made an excess of 2 million dollars in royalties
• But Monty wrote a musical in 1950s that actually had that theme so Monty did technically own the music
• John Barry might have gotten that piece of music from one of the producers to add into the score

Question 14

What is Modernism?

Answer 14

rejection of the past in favour of the new

Question 15

In addition to the increasing impact of popular music, what other musical styles are becoming commonplace for film scoring?

Answer 15

Atonality and avant-garde styles are becoming more prominent as the traditional orchestral score is diminished in importance

Question 16

What are the details of 2001: A space Odyssey?

Answer 16

o Score compiled from classical music

o Seen as a new approach to the relationship between music and film (Would this approach work in other more conventional films?)

o Combination of tonal music from late 19th century (Johann Strauss II) and atonal music from the 20th-century (Gyorgy Ligeti)

o Kubrick directs this movie, loves to use compiled scores

o Alexander North was given to Kubrick as composer for this film

o Kubrick erased all of Alexander North’s work and forced them to use his compiled score which cost the studio lots of money

o Jerry Goldsmith (North’s student) learned about a cassette tape of North’s original score and made copies of it then rewrote and recorded the new score with the assistance of orchestrators

Question 17

What are the details of Jerry Goldsmith?

Answer 17

o 1929 - 2004

o Born in Los Angeles

o Came out of television

o First composer we studied to have studied film scoring in school

Question 18

What are some key details about Patton (1970)?

Answer 18

Sparse score (less than 40 minutes) for a 3 hour film

Music focuses on the character of Patton

Use of electronic processing on orchestral instruments

If he could not see how music would enhance a scene, he would not add any

Goldsmith writes a Chorale (a simple hymn theme) for Patton to represent his religiousness

Patton believed he had been reincarnated numerous times always as a great military leader, Goldsmith uses a single trumpet playing 3 notes and then uses technology of the recording studio to create an echo down a vast corridor. Goldsmith could have had the player replay the notes the same time but quieter, but by doing it with electronics you get the sense that the trumpet is playing just as loud but moving away from you

Question 19

What are the key details of Planet of the Apes (1968): composer Jerry Goldsmith?

Answer 19

o Social and political critique

o Blend of orchestral instruments with elements such as animal horns and mixing bowls

o They stayed away from tonality for music to create a sense of coldness, but it still has a very real sense of structure

Question 20

What are tone rows?

Answer 20

What are tone rows?

1923 - development of “tone rows”

Treat all 12 notes with equal importance

Moving away from major / minor tonality

You can play the 12 notes in an octave in anyway you want, but you can’t play a note again until you finished playing every note once

Retrograde variation is when you write your 12 notes backwards, that way its still different but still structurally related to the first

Can also invert the themes

Question 21

What happened in the 1970s?

Answer 21

o Since the end of the 1940s, film music has been moving away from the conventions of Steiner and Korngold

o Increasing influence of American composers

o Increasing importance of popular music and modernism (atonality)

o Conglomeration continues

o Film cost increase: ‘72 - ‘77, 178%: ‘77 - ‘79 200%

o 1970s: 160 films per year

o 1937: 538 films are produced

o Within a conglomerate, the idea is that each company runs separately so its not like the Major studios, even though it really is

o Genre/formula films - sequels become very popular

o Pop scores

o “old school” orchestras seen as irrelevant

o Cheaper

o Scores are largely popular music torn up and stuck in the movies

o Promotion

Question 22

What are the details of John Williams?

Answer 22

o Born in 1932 to musical parents

o Trained as a concert pianist at Julliard

o Studied film music at UCLA

o Orchestrator for Tiompkin

o Television (late 1950s)

o Late 1960’s, film work

o Comedies and disaster films

o Gets a lot of attention for his work on the Poseidon Adventure

o 1974: Sugarland Express

Director Steven Spielberg, who got along with Williams so well that he ended up writing most of Spielberg’s movies scores

Question 23

What are the details of Jaws 1975?

Answer 23

New approach to film promotion and release. Originally, it would open up in a few cities at a time, month or month+half for a city then open up the movie to a smaller city. Instead, the movie got crazy promotion and was released to 400 screens called Wide Release

Made its money back in 13 days

Began a shift in the attitude towards orchestral music in film

Helped reestablish the orchestra as an important force in film music

Shark got an extended theme later on in style of fugue

When they shoot the shark first time, we get pirate music like from Korngold’s Seahawk

Becomes the best-known film composer of all time with the success of Star Wars (1977)

Question 24

What is the style of Williams?

Answer 24

19th century orchestral tradition

But aware of the newer modernist/atonal techniques

Little popular/jazz influence - no popular songs

Starts with a basic orchestra and then adds what is necessary

Use of themes - developed throughout the film

The music tells the audience what the shark is doing without showing it to us

Question 25

What is Post-Modernism?

Answer 25

modernism abandons the focus on rules, there is no right way to write anything

o Most important consideration is emotion

Question 26

What was Williams’ Contributions to film scoring as a practice?

Answer 26

o He brought back orchestra’s and Korngold, and also influenced by post-modernism pushed that anything can be used anywhere for music as long as it serves the emotion

Question 27

What was John Williams the first composer to do?

Answer 27

• John Williams’ is the first film composer to become famous

o 1980-93 he is the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra (most popular orchestra, because they had a tv show not cause they were necessarily the best)

o His film work is reworked into orchestral works

o They played music that would attract the public rather than trying to play high-brow pieces

o John Williams’ music was very popular

o Suddenly everyone is playing John Williams and he becomes as well-known as he is

o Self-contained concert pieces

o Music takes on a life outside the film world

o Because he uses mainly traditional orchestra it is easy to play his pieces of music in actual orchestras

Question 28

What are the details of James Horner?

Answer 28

o 1953-2015

o American born

o Felt that film composing was not a serious artistic outlet

o Began composing for film while at UCLA in 1978 for the American Film Institute (AFI) completing his graduate work and teaching courses in music

o Breakthrough score was for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

o Greatest success came in 1997: Titanic for which he won two academy awards (Best original score; Best original song “My Heart Will Go On”)

Question 29

What are James Horner’s characteristics?

Answer 29

Strong melodic composer, often works with the conventional orchestra

Also capable of incorporating electronic and avant-garde sounds in his work

Very strong at synchronizing music to visual elements such as scene and camera changes (not mickey mousing). Changes in camera angles, catching cuts, scene transitions, etc

Despite not having a strong background in Popular music, is also adept at writing in popular styles - “My Heart Will Go On” with Celine Dion

Question 30

What are the details of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)?

Answer 30

Kirk’s theme is gentler, and never quite reaches the ending note and when it does there’s a change in tonics so that its not the most important thing

Kirk has a house filled with antiques and he’s shown as falling further and further behind the times

He has reading glasses which most people don’t need cause theres a cure to bad vision but he’s allergic to it, literally allergic to the future

When Reliant approaches, we get Khan’s theme because audience knows its him even though Kirk doesn’t

When Reliant, a federation ship, demands Kirk’s surrender he is stunned, and the music holds an extended note to show this then plays his theme in minor

Eventually Kirk regains the upper hand and his theme returns when he puts on his reading glasses showing he’s embracing his age and that he’s going to try to be smart instead of the brash, fisticuff guy he was before

Question 31

What happened to pop music in the 1980s?

Answer 31

o Advent of MIDI (Musical instrument digital interface) in 1983, and increasingly powerful synthesizers and computers have allowed musicians without formal training to compose and produce film scores

o Two of the most influential of this new generation: Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmerman

o MIDI still sits at the core of almost all modern music

o MIDI allows people who don’t know how to write/read music to compose film scores and play all the instruments

Question 32

What are the details of Danny Elfman?

Answer 32

o (1953 -)

o American Born

o Breakthrough score was Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985) directed by Tim Burton

o Criticized for not being able to ‘read music’ (apparently he can…)

o Influences include Bernard Herrman and The Day the Earth Stood Still

Question 33

What are Danny Elfman’s characteristics?

Answer 33

Frantic/carnivalesque (child-like in a nightmarish way)

Frequent use of ¾ time (waltz rhythm) and 2/4 (polka rhythm)

Frequent use of Celeste and wordless choir to evoke sense of childlike wonder/afterlife

Hitting the action - to the point of Mickey Mousing. Only composer at the time to really do this

Question 34

What are some details about Edward Scissorhands (1992)?

Answer 34

As lady goes to visit the scary house at end of the street we hear basoons and deep clarinets and wordless choirs

Then music changes as she crosses threshold hear almost a disjointed waltz

Then when she gets to door there’s a church bell tolling to remind death etc

Another transition when she walks through the gate into the beautiful garden

As Edward is cutting the woman’s hair we get like a tango when she suggests the idea then it turns into this like demonic violin, then a beautiful little harp almost sound when cutting the mom’s hair

Question 35

What are the details of Hans Zimmer?

Answer 35

o (1957 -)

o German born/ self-taught keyboardist

o Late 1970s / early 1980s - pop music keyboardist

o 1980, working on jingles brought him to the attention of British film composer, Stanley Myles

o Breakthrough film was Rain Man (1988)

o Early films such as Rain Man, and Driving Miss Daisy (1989), made extensive use of synthesizers. He did all of the instruments himself using synths

o Most recent works are best described as spacious and powerful: a fusing of electronics and orchestra. Often has an emphasis on timbre and rhythm, rather than melody

o Most notable collaborations are with director Christopher Nolan

o He writes most of the music before the film is filmed

o Nolan often filmed scenes while listening to that music and then edit the film and music together

Question 36

What is minimalism?

Answer 36

simple idea- repetition - complexity of layers - slow changes over time

Question 37

What are the two competing systems that made widescreen films possible?

Answer 37

Cinerama and CinemaScope

Question 38

What was the problem with Cinerama?

Answer 38

Was way too costly and impractical

Question 39

Where does part of the fascination with the film High Noon come from?

Answer 39

It is set in Real time as opposed to Reel Time

Question 40

What essential element to film scoring did Herrmann introduce in Psycho?

Answer 40

Lack of contrast in a given cue. Once a cue begins, it is repetitive and does not change moods

Question 41

What happened to scoring in 1971?

Answer 41

Hollywood hit an all-time economic low and the traditional symphonic score seemed both too expensive and too old-fashioned for America Cinema