Sounds of Cinema on the BBC & Proms 2013

This coming Thursday is the start of a three-part series as part of a 'season' on film music. Sound of Cinema, BBC4 at 9pm which is followed by The Ipcress File.

Other films shown will be: King Kong, Citizen Kane, Mean Streets and Blade Runner.

First episode:

Quote :

Neil tells his alternative history of cinema, putting the soundtrack centre stage. The series features some of the biggest directors of past and present, including Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, alongside film scores of cult and blockbuster movies like Star Wars, Inception, Hitchcock’s Psycho, and Gladiator.

Then on Friday a showing of the film music prom that alas includes the 'premiere' of an Into Darkness suite and a bunch of other stuff including Arnold et al.

Proms 2013 Friday 13, 1930-2130, BBC4



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01fs3cy/features/sound-of-cinema-bbc-four

Bunch more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01fs3cy/features/whats-on

Enjoyable opening to this series. Barely 2mins in, if that and the first John Barry mention. The Hermann section was good with some brilliant shots of Orson Welles. A shame that at present I've not really listened to Hermann's works.

Sadly...Hans Zimmer glides in and out of this damn thing. On this note there is a "sound of cinema" radio programme on the Beeb hosted by Herr David Arnold.

I caught up with it on iplayer and found it very enjoyable, looking forward to episode 2 and hopefully some mention of Jerry Goldsmith ^^.

Might have to watch it on the Beeb website iPlayer ... have tried three times now to watch it on the digibox version, and it bloody well just stops playing of its own accord after the Beeb 4 idents each time  .

lachesis wrote:

I caught up with it on iplayer and found it very enjoyable, looking forward to episode 2 and hopefully some mention of Jerry Goldsmith ^^.

Hoping for some Alex North. A great who often gets forgotten on these kind of programs. Part II is about the influence of pop music, so if that includes jazz, STREETCAR might get a mention.

Sucker for punishment that I am I thought I'd give the David Arnold radio Sound of Cinema thing a blast. Bloody cringeworthy in the opening, the 'dialogue' between him and Matt Berry...almost sounds like Arnold is talking to/as a child. I don't know if I'll push on further into this...but somehow must.

Oh, I'm watching the Neil Brand series.

That is vastly better. Brand at least does not talk over segments in a dreary monologue whilst then going "My track from John is..."

Oh...the rage.

Enjoyable second part of the TV series. Sensed Bland's not a fan of Tarentino (but then who is?). More on Barry and good to see Schifrin, especially his talking about Scorpio. Never quite twigged the majority of the music in Dirty Harry is around Scorpio and it's electric, brilliant music too.

The second part of the radio series up, this one with Cillian Murphy. Maybe he'll be an improvement on old Arnold.

Just noticed this, Radio 3's Sunday Feature

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03bfjqv/Sunday_Feature_Sound_of_Cinema_Composing_for_Hollywood/

"Once upon a time Hollywood composers were classically schooled European maestros. Today many of the most successful ones are drawn from the world of pop and rock. In this documentary journalist Jonathan Coffey is in Los Angeles to meet some of the biggest names in the industry to assess the business of writing for the movies."

Have now caught both episodes so far of the Neil Brand series, excellent stuff. I like his style ... in-depth and knowledgeable, but accessibly so.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Have now caught both episodes so far of the Neil Brand series, excellent stuff. I like his style ... in-depth and knowledgeable, but accessibly so.  

Presenters like him, in my humblest opinion, are very few and far between.

And unlike Howard Goodall he doesn't patronise the audience. He addresses us like he would a fellow professional.

Indeed I enjoyed the second episode though I thought it spent too much time on Tarantino, but maybe its because I just don't like him or his work ^^.

Agree that Bland is the perfect man for this kind of stuff and even for familiar soundtracks manages to add thought and depth that works to increase your appreciation of them. Sometimes I find presenters and analysis such as this can end up driving a wedge between you and the detached 'artform' they ring-fence with pretension.

Not that we needed telling that the Bond theme is bloody brilliant, but Brand's explanation of WHY it is by analysing its component parts and how they thrillingly come together was great.

The fact that he can actually play the piano helps, too.

Final episode was quite good. I found it quite enjoyable the Vangelis portions, seeing Vangelis do his thing before Brand.

Sadly, I've soured the experience by listening to the Radio 3 Sunday Feature (part of the Sounds of Cinema season). The programme starts off with talking to James Horner, who bemoans the fact that music in films sounds the same nowadays and takes artistic pride in his stuff. This in spite of Perfect Storm and Enemy at the Gates (both 2000) being interchangable (Perfect STorm albeit lacking the Russian choral sounds) AND Perfect Storm having bits that might as well be Apollo 13 in all but name.
This though is in all in the first 4mins before we go onto the discussion of 'temp scoring', and a bunch of stuff following that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03bfjqv/Sunday_Feature_Sound_of_Cinema_Composing_for_Hollywood/

Hilly KCMG wrote:

Sadly, I've soured the experience by listening to the Radio 3 Sunday Feature (part of the Sounds of Cinema season). The programme starts off with talking to James Horner, who bemoans the fact that music in films sounds the same nowadays and takes artistic pride in his stuff. This in spite of Perfect Storm and Enemy at the Gates (both 2000) being interchangable (Perfect STorm albeit lacking the Russian choral sounds) AND Perfect Storm having bits that might as well be Apollo 13 in all but name.
This though is in all in the first 4mins before we go onto the discussion of 'temp scoring', and a bunch of stuff following that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03bfjqv/Sunday_Feature_Sound_of_Cinema_Composing_for_Hollywood/

Already posted here, old chap.

https://bondandbeyond.forumotion.com/t414p15-the-problem-with-modern-film-scores#93063

Largo's Shark wrote:

Hilly KCMG wrote:

Sadly, I've soured the experience by listening to the Radio 3 Sunday Feature (part of the Sounds of Cinema season). The programme starts off with talking to James Horner, who bemoans the fact that music in films sounds the same nowadays and takes artistic pride in his stuff. This in spite of Perfect Storm and Enemy at the Gates (both 2000) being interchangable (Perfect STorm albeit lacking the Russian choral sounds) AND Perfect Storm having bits that might as well be Apollo 13 in all but name.
This though is in all in the first 4mins before we go onto the discussion of 'temp scoring', and a bunch of stuff following that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03bfjqv/Sunday_Feature_Sound_of_Cinema_Composing_for_Hollywood/

Already posted here, old chap.

https://bondandbeyond.forumotion.com/t414p15-the-problem-with-modern-film-scores#93063

My apologies.

Only caught some of this last night, then the first hour of the excellent Blade Runner. iPlayer time, I think.

I've never seen Blade Runner so it'll be a sort of revelation.