Joe Benit's Lounge Discussions

Tim Beck
Favorite Film Score

What is your favorite film score? As a film composer, there are several I could call truly inspiring and legendary. However, my all-time favorite film score is American Beauty by Thomas Newman - Everything from Newman's simplistic style to his unique orchestration and overall feel. I get chills simp...

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Victor Stapelberg

For stuff that some may call outdated or even never heard of as they weren t born I appreciate scores with long history like The 3rd Man or Les Parapluis de Cherbourg. They have proven to be unforgettable.

Andre Hunt

Michel Legrand, no?

Gabriele Zuccarini

I love the soundtrack to Sorceror. There's something beautiful about prog rock in the jungle rainfall.

Craig Addy

Two leap to mind. Peter Gabriel's "Passion" and Ennio Morricone's "The Mission". I do love "American Beauty" too.

Victor Stapelberg

Yes nice ones! The more I search the more come up that I like.

Johannes Kern
Is live orchestral music still appreciated by directors/producers/audience?

Hey everybody, do you still care or are samples enough for your ears? I'm a composer and love the orchestra. You will never get that humanity, emotion and most of all - the wonderful colours of an good instrumented orchestra (imho) by just using electronic samples. I know there is a matter of cost i...

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Paul Sumares

I sense that the agreement is: when appropriate for the film, it is best to offer the director and producers the opportunity to have live players. We should present the options: various layerings of l...

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Benjamin James

Well I just heard the soundtrack To The Book Thief, by John Williams, and that made me excited to go and see the movie. Music makes a movie; b i g g e r

Nicholas Chase

My Friend Mark Isham (BATMAN composer, and so many more features..) still uses a live orchestra. There is no comparison with sampling, depending on how the soundtrack is reproduced in a theater or at...

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Matt Milne

I will gladly provide any file format to any director, whatever they find easiest to work with and handle. And i make sure there is no difference in quality, it's my music and their film.

Joe Benit

Simple answer: Just look at the top, say 10 or 20 films, are they using real orchestras? I'm guessing, and I feel it's a safe bet, 80% of those films are using real orchestras; maybe in another country, but real.

Matt Milne

Temp music is a joy to work with, and a great way for a producer or director to direct the composer, directly. i know a film is going to be great if the temp score is Williams, horner, goldsmith or Zi...

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Joe Benit

Yes, he repeats himself. Much like Beethoven - with all those annoying major and minor chords - themes and melodies - how boring.

Scott W. Hallgren

Enough said - whether you like Zimmer or not: http://www.soundtracksandtrailermusic.com/2013/07/hans-zimmer/

Elliot Sokolov

All good composers repeat themselves, but also add something new and different to their work for a new project. The greatest classical and film composers often "steal" from their own previous work. Th...

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Richard "RB" Botto

Great discussion. And a nice share there, Scott.

Kirk Williams
Recomposed Trailers

Hello Stage32 Family! I have just created my own composition for the trailer for the movie "The Paperman". Please let me know what you think: http://youtu.be/y6fTpGgNmwU I appreciate all of your time and thank you!

Bruce Robb

Actually, took a moment to think about it, and I guess it's not a lot different if I cut a proposed video together and use some well known music. So count me corrected.

Dale Sumner

Still a good point though, but that's not suggesting that Kirk has done something wrong here - far from it. As a composer you need to demonstrate your skills, and sometimes a good way to do it is like...

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Kirk Williams

Thank you to everyone for the feedback. With the trailers that I re-scored my goal was just to have an exercise with writing to picture... finding the tempo and creating a fluid work that matches the...

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Joe Benit

when the rhythm starts; your horns/orch and rhy section are not quite together. Otherwise well done.

Kirk Williams

Thanks for the feedback

Liam Taylor
Feedback please?

Hey all, just completed this short score for an apocalyptic animation. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1JVJP8lziM&feature=youtu.be...

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Joseph Weisnewski

Overall it's a nice job. I agree with some of the other comments re: compression and making string sounds idiomatic. I have had great success with using an actual string player to perform each string...

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Joseph Shellim

Excellent. I like the stomping clacking - like something's going to happen.

James David Sullivan

"Stop the world, I want to..." ;-)

James David Sullivan

"What goes up must come down spinning wheel got to go round Talking about your troubles it's a crying sin Ride a painted pony Let the spinning wheel spin" - BS&T

Kirk Johnson

Cool stuff :) We're looking to add more composers to our group for a live action science fiction television series and audio series. You can check it out at www.intergalacticspacerangers.com - If you'...

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