Just saw Avatar..Horner does it again

[bryla]

Someone once accused Chris Beck of ripping off Goldenthal because he used horn trills in an action cue.

I gotta admit that I'm ripping every great composer off - and I know most of you guys do to - I hate to say it, but I use strings. There, I said it! No it was not my idea, I just liked the sound and wanted to use it - is that too much to ask for? Even when I'm not using strings, I can asure you I'm using some instruments that were not my idea to begin with.

Well, I'm spending my holidays building newly invented - by me of course - instruments for my new orchestra, the bryla-nizer!

 

[ChrisAxia]

Someone once accused Chris Beck of ripping off Goldenthal because he used horn trills in an action cue.

I gotta admit that I'm ripping every great composer off - and I know most of you guys do to - I hate to say it, but I use strings. There, I said it! No it was not my idea, I just liked the sound and wanted to use it - is that too much to ask for? Even when I'm not using strings, I can asure you I'm using some instruments that were not my idea to begin with.

Well, I'm spending my holidays building newly invented - by me of course - instruments for my new orchestra, the bryla-nizer!

Very funny Thomas! I look forward to hearing the bryla-nizer. Guess I'd better get working on the Nicol-izer!!

Happy Christmas to all,

~Chris

 

[billval3]

And you guys will of course record samples so we can copy your sound, right? :wink:

 

[Brian Ralston]

i am not exaggerating if i say i was sad during the movie because there was so much places where the music could ve gave you goosebumps or simply made you cry and it just didint !!!!!

FYI...Horner's score was edited and hacked up a significant amount from what he scored originally. He would write something for a scene and Cameron would have Jim Henrikson (music editor) chop it up and use it in another scene somewhere else after the recording. This happened fairly regularly. So...a lot of the spotting of the music was changed after the fact and this is most likely what you are noticing where you felt the music was just not quite perfect for the scene. Horner was working off of a work print from August and that was the film he scored. (Even though he was writing and recording some music dating back to 18 months ago. They had 1 1/2 years in Post). But Cameron kept editing through November and the rest was up to the music editor. This is just how Cameron works and was the same on Aliens (which is what led to the initial Horner/Cameron break-up back then)...and it was the same on Titanic.

 

[Nick Batzdorf]

I'm with Jose. Horner is a total wanker hack charlatan who got where he is by being an idiot.

 

[snowleopard]

Well, I don't think he's an idiot, at all.

Here's what I think happens: A lot of filmmakers love his ability to write for grand orchestra in a dynamic, post-romantic style, and not only request that sound when meeting with him, have already temp tracked their film with his previous scores, and fallen in love with it. These same filmmakers don't have the same discerning ear that composers, or most studious fans have.

Then, it gets time to scoring, and deadlines approach and Horner focuses little on originality, and everything on using his formula to match perfectly to the picture, to exquisite detail. He hits the deadline, appeases the filmmaker, 99% of the people don't notice any self-plagiarism, and most of those that might, don't much care.

So, I think it's an issue with being passive, or lazy with his compositions. To me, I wouldn't mind so much if he just said so. Or when prompted, say that he's doing what the filmmakers like, he likes his music sound, and if you don't like it that's your opinion, too bad. But to act like it isn't so and everything is completely original is nonsense.

Strangely, his ability to write very precise orchestral arrangements is what he's most praised for, but also where I find his most repetitive work. It's when he reaches out into experimental, ethnic and electronic stuff he can create some diverse, and at least mostly original works (Flightplan, Iris, House of Sand and Fog, The Forgotten, Beyond Borders, The Missing, etc.), works that are sometimes criticized for lacking the detail and depth (counterpoint, etc.) of his orchestral works.

 

[José Herring]

Nick and I are being tongue and cheek making fun of some of the ridiculous points brought up in this thread.

I agree with you completely Snowkitty.

José

 

[germancomponist]

Horner is a good composer with great chops who seems to choose 80-90% unoriginality for whatever purpose, business or schedule. Even Jerry Goldsmith busted him on it.

I feel no need to either attack or praise him because of how he likes to work. What he does seems to fit what's happening on screen and like I said earlier, he works and continues to work because he delivers what's expected in the timeline given.

That said, we either like what he does or we don't - which is neither constructive or destructive, it just is. People are entitled to opinions and because people express them doesn't necessarily make this a bashing thread.

+1

 

[germancomponist]

I have bought (as a download) the CD today and am now listening.

WOW, I am very impressed.

 

[lux]

well it looks like i have kind of a bad taste because i always liked so many titles by horner, the perfect storm, a beautiful mind, aliens, Star Trek II and III, legend of the fall, just to name a few

i find incredible that such a talented guy with a great sense of melody gets a pile of insults out of so many composers just because he's sometimes unoriginal.

thats just me

 

[germancomponist]

Lux, your avatar is cool too. is this you with new hair? :-D

Oops, I mean your new picture... .

 

[lux]

thats of course me

 

[snowleopard]

Ahhhh, got it José.

I should drop in more often.

 

[NYC Composer]

Just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to post this hilarious thread. Whilst reading it, I nearly busted a gut laughing. Btw, I heard Horner read it as well, and had to cry himself to sleep that night.

I especially liked the part about the music being written to a completely different cut and the director and a music editor cutting it up at will. Oh yes, music to picture is so important. How else will one underscore the action?? Of course, an original score isn't necessary for this task. Wait, come to think of it, neither are composers anymore, not while there's Pro Tools and music editors and music libraries. Hmmm. Do you suppose the public would have refused to see the movie if Horner's previous scores were cut up and used as the score for Avatar? Oh, you say they are? Well, just goes to show you! No one is going to see the film!!

 

[Brian Ralston]

Just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to post this hilarious thread. Whilst reading it, I nearly busted a gut laughing. Btw, I heard Horner read it as well, and had to cry himself to sleep that night.

I especially liked the part about the music being written to a completely different cut and the director and a music editor cutting it up at will. Oh yes, music to picture is so important. How else will one underscore the action??

Since this is only written text it is hard to detect your inflection and of course I see the sarcasm...but the music editing part of this thread I can assure you is very much how Horner and music editor Jim Henrikson put the score together over a period of about a year and a half. You can find the other thead I posted in Off-Topic that has a U of Arizona video about the music editing software used and brief interviews with Horner and Henrikson about their process.
:wink:

 

[snowleopard]

I'm waiting for SmartSound to come out with a "James Horner" library for Sonicfire Pro.

:wink:

 

[NYC Composer]

Just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to post this hilarious thread. Whilst reading it, I nearly busted a gut laughing. Btw, I heard Horner read it as well, and had to cry himself to sleep that night.

I especially liked the part about the music being written to a completely different cut and the director and a music editor cutting it up at will. Oh yes, music to picture is so important. How else will one underscore the action??

Since this is only written text it is hard to detect your inflection and of course I see the sarcasm...but the music editing part of this thread I can assure you is very much how Horner and music editor Jim Henrikson put the score together over a period of about a year and a half. You can find the other thead I posted in Off-Topic that has a U of Arizona video about the music editing software used and brief interviews with Horner and Henrikson about their process.
:wink:

Umm...Brian- I was pretty much responding to your earlier post in this thread. It certainly didn't look like Horner had a lot to do with 'hacking it up'- you said Cameron and the editor. Is the story different than that?

 

[john rodriguez]

--Just got back from seeing Avatar--

It sucked. What a boring ass movie. Stephen Lang is so cool and there could have been potential if they had given him a character that didn't suck. Michelle Rodriguez's characters decisions made no sense to me, they could've fixed that up a bit by giving her a tiny little back story but I guess in the 10 years that you're making a film you just don't have time to fix things. The visuals at times were beautiful but 80% of the time they were underwhelming or cartoonish. I laughed when that robot pulled out that big robot sized knife...yeah cool... I also didn't care what happened to any of the characters and kept waiting for it all to end. I don't see how 3D is the future, it makes my head hurt and cheapens the whole experience.

Hard to believe a film with no balls was created by the dude behind some of my favourite films like T2 and Aliens.

I went and saw it over christmas and I've never seen a wider range of reactions from a crowd since I saw In the Company of Men. Everyone seems to either love or hate it. At the screening I went to there was a guy telling me he was seeing it for the 6th time, there were people who also had tickets for the next show, a few groups walked out, there were laughs and sneers at every oneliner, cheering and snoring... very strange. Maybe that's what happens when a movie gets this much hype.

 

[midphase]

"The word I heard most was "Flawless"."

That's hard to digest. I'm with chocO on this one. I thought the story was ridiculously shallow, predictable, and above all plagiarized from many other films. I didn't mind the music except that as I walked out I couldn't get "My Heart Will Go On" out of my head. The 3D was interesting, and this is undoubtedly the way things are heading for the majority of studio films, but I didn't feel anymore absorbed into the film because of it.

It's true that a movie with this much hype hardly ever lives up to it...but quite honestly I thought both Titanic and T2 (which had huge hype) lived up to it quite well. When I think of Avatar, the word "safe" comes to mind, I was at least hoping for a more edgy ending like Titanic, but didn't get that.

I think this is the film that George Lucas thought he was making when he made Episode 1 (and 2 and 3), but Cameron pulled off the execution much better. This is a natural evolution that we have seen in movies, a unification of the technology in Star Wars, King Kong, Final Fantasy and many others. Evolutionary but decisively not revolutionary.

I really didn't mind (nor care) about the Horner score, sounded like something you'd hear on a Disney Lion's King ride for the most part, but it matched what was going on...and during the battle scenes I couldn't even hear it past the sfx anyway. Kudos to Horner for having such a successful career and making a cowload of $$$ I'm sure...good for him!

 

[Brian Ralston]

Umm...Brian- I was pretty much responding to your earlier post in this thread. It certainly didn't look like Horner had a lot to do with 'hacking it up'- you said Cameron and the editor. Is the story different than that?

As a music editor, you don't really music edit a composers music without his input in some fashion...but also remember that Henrikson and Horner have worked together literally forever. On the stage, Henrikson was in the booth with Simon Rhodes and at times seemed to be running the show at one point dictating what "wild takes" he would need as a music editor to get in and out of new film edits. Simon Rhodes would do the same thing in regards to the mix. They were all working together rather efficiently and beautifully. No time was wasted at all. With a 107 piece orchestra on the stage and Fox executives in the room...there was no room for waste. On the podium, Horner would hear in the cans what was needed, look at his score and then tell the orchestra..."Play measures 31-37, then repeat to 31-34...hold last note of 34 for 12 counts with a crescendo to fff." After the take Horner would ask Henrikson in the booth, "Do you have what you need?" If he did, they would go on. It was like Horner did not even know what was needed at some points to cover the ever changing visual edits. He scored the scene as it was given to him months earlier...not what it was then on the stage.

Henrikson also said that Cameron would take already recorded cues and re-edit or add material to scenes and music edit those cues to fit what he was doing. (Notice Cameron is an editor on the film as well). By shooting most of AVATAR in the "virtual world" on a motion capture stage (and all digital at that), they never really finished shooting. That continued well into post. Cameron would say "Hey, I need another shot of this over here." They would call an actor back for a half day and get it, then insert it into the scene even though the music was already recorded for that scene. So...a lot of the final score was a big music editing task apparently due to the picture never being locked until the final sound mix really. Henrikson knows Horner really well. But I am sure Horner gave the ok to everything before the final score went out, although I was not privy to info at that point. But I do know the music editing was extensive. More than what would be considered usual.