# John Williams interviewfest



## choc0thrax (Jan 20, 2006)

http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/J.Williams_career.html

Comes in 6 parts. Those people at USC are lucky.


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## Aaron Sapp (Jan 20, 2006)

Man Choco, where do you find all this stuff?! 

Thanks for posting the link. 8)


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## Scott Cairns (Jan 20, 2006)

Is there supposed to picture with these interviews? Man frickin QT... Ive been messing around with it for 45 minutes, updates, etc.

BTW, thanks Choco, I dont know where you find all this stuff either.


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## choc0thrax (Jan 20, 2006)

Yes there is video. I know the feeling, i've been in a sort of codec hell lately. I uninstalled some codec things then nothing worked I couldn't watch any video's and my dvd player would not play movies anymore. Got new codecs which made some things work but then some things now wouldn't work. I've got most things working now but my dvd player is now a lost cause.


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## nadeama (Jan 20, 2006)

I've watched that lecture a few days ago, and it's really very interesting. I wish I could have been there in person.

The most interesting aspect for me is how Williams, even though he does genuinely seem to love writing for movies, says that the enormous amount of visual stimuli coming to us all the time is probably damaging to the art of music. If you listen to the whole thing, in the last video, after the initial applause, he gives one last piece of advice to the students: "don't spend all your time in film". He also says he thinks there haven't been a great many good film scores in the last 10 or 20 years (I guess he can afford to be critical). 

And when asked if there was something, some project that he wishes he could have done in his career, he doesn't say he wishes he had scored this or that film, or worked with one particular director or another, but rather says that he wishes he'd had more time to perform music, had he been a better pianist (says he, though I personally find him to be a very accomplished pianist). Those comments I thought were very revealing of his personality.

Finally, I thought he seemed like an extraordinarily nice man, and a well-grounded person. His comments on what his legacy will be are refreshingly humble (because they actually seemed quite sincere).

Anyway, I'll watch the whole thing again when I have a bit of time.


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## nadeama (Jan 20, 2006)

Oh yeah, and can you believe the first 3 Star Wars films were all recorded without any click tracks? Just punches and streamers!


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## PolarBear (Jan 21, 2006)

Re: Codec problems - I so far had good experience with the ffdshow codec pack, that has all the major codecs involved that are needed today - dunno about the QT ones tho... those still might need a recent update from the apple website, PC or Mac doesn't matter.

Martin, there is a small X right next to "edit" on the top line of every of your posts. Click that and you will be asked the delete me question. Double posts are maybe a result of using the back button in your browser when having previewed, or clicking the submit button accidentally twice.

PolarBear


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## dcoscina (Jan 21, 2006)

Aaron Sapp said:


> Man Choco, where do you find all this stuff?!
> 
> Thanks for posting the link. 8)



Lukas Kendall initially posted the links on Film Score Monthly forum. Glad that choco included the links here for you fellas. It was great for someone to record this seminar as Williams hasn't done too many speaking engagements.

From all accounts, he is as humble as he appears to be in this video. I met him up in Pittsburgh a couple years back and he joked at how he really came up to play golf and that the "music thing" was just a sideline for him. 

I particularly enjoyed the part where he reveals that he still only uses pencil and paper (and piano) to compose his scores. And I think a good many of us cut our teeth on film scoring without SMPTE or click tracks or whatever. I wrote a couple scores for short films up in Toronto in the '90s and just did the math to calculate hit points. And eveything sync'd up very well (it was a silent pic so the music had to be very expressive). I even had a few string players in on the session. 

I think it's important to watch a film to a point, then to walk away from it and focus on the music also. Is it any wonder that we have so many vacuous scores coming out of Hollywood because Composer A, B or C is staring at a monitor writing reflexively to whatever happens on screen without playing to the sub-text of the scene or overall film? Nope. That's why lots of people like John Barry's style or Howard Shore- often their music plays through the scene even though it's catching specific moments. And of course, Williams is a master at writing melodic, cogent material that works well in the film and outside of it (it's no wonder why his soundtracks sell well). 

But the technology, has been a double edged sword. While it allows composers to be faster at writing a film score, it's meant shrinking time lines and fully mocked up scores to appease directors, producers, test audiences, etc. 

Anyhow, it's always great to hear a big time composer talk to candidly about his/her craft. We need more of these.


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## Evan Gamble (Jan 25, 2006)

at the end of the 2nd part when it pans to the audience this kid behind the guy talking about E.T. is falling asleep. :shock:

Someone should kill that kid.


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## Christian Marcussen (Jan 25, 2006)

Evan Gamble said:


> at the end of the 2nd part when it pans to the audience this kid behind the guy talking about E.T. is falling asleep. :shock:
> 
> Someone should kill that kid.


 indeed - what a disgrace


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## Scott Cairns (Jun 21, 2006)

Here are the direct links to the QT movs if you want to d/load them;

http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J.Williams_background.mov (http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J ... ground.mov)
http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J.WIlliams_Part_2.mov (http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J ... Part_2.mov)
http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J.WIlliams_Part_3.mov (http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J ... Part_3.mov)
http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J.WIlliams_Part_4.mov (http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J ... Part_4.mov)
http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J.WIlliams_Part_5.mov (http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J ... Part_5.mov)
http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J.WIlliams_Part_6.mov (http://homepage.mac.com/smptv/.Movies/J ... Part_6.mov)


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## Aaron Sapp (Jun 22, 2006)

Thanks Scott.


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## Scott Cairns (Jun 22, 2006)

You're welcome Aaron.


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## kid-surf (Jun 22, 2006)

Sounds interesting.........

I'll add that, I like a lot of the scores coming out now a days. I aspire to be as crap a composer as John Powell etc. Frankly, huge orchestral scores don't work for every film. It's about the ->FILM<- not *us* (our puffiness about what the best music to "listen" to is totally unrelated to film.... be thankful we even have this outlet, otherwise not many people would bother to listen to your/our work........... let's be honest)


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Jun 22, 2006)

Hey Nadeama,

I fixed the double posts. Will have a look at the lecture myself later.

Choco, thanks for the links.


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## JacquesMathias (Jun 22, 2006)

Thanks a lot Choco!  I love Williams! 

Cheers.


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## choc0thrax (Jun 22, 2006)

kid-surf @ Thu Jun 22 said:


> Sounds interesting.........
> 
> I'll add that, I like a lot of the scores coming out now a days. I aspire to be as crap a composer as John Powell etc. Frankly, huge orchestral scores don't work for every film. It's about the ->FILM<- not *us* (our puffiness about what the best music to "listen" to is totally unrelated to film.... be thankful we even have this outlet, otherwise not many people would bother to listen to your/our work........... let's be honest)



Hmm? You're better than Powell? Got anything kicking around online that pwns X3?


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## kid-surf (Jun 22, 2006)

BTW --- thanks for posting this stuff............

Got anything on John Powell?


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## choc0thrax (Jun 22, 2006)

That sarcasm requires the winking smiley. There's a lot of nuts on the internet and you never know if they are joking or not.


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## kid-surf (Jun 22, 2006)

I'll try to remember my winky....


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