Reply to Robin Hood and WHAT HAPPENED TO SOME OLD TOPICS

[thrillhouse]

Hmmm.. I wanted to reply to this, but I also wanted to ask Sir Stewart and Kevin what happened to some of the old topics? some of the topics seemed to have disappeared.. I'm assuming that's because no one has posted to them in a while, but it'd be nice to know where they went. Especially this one great discussion of film music. I forgot what the original topic was, but it centered on film scores..(and by the way, the "hit parade" page isn't updating at all any more) and that takes me to my response of Serge's Robin Hood message.<P>I totally agree with you that the score to Robin Hood is uterally fantastic, but if you love that one, how can you say "film scores are useless on their own?" granted a lot of them are... but there is a plethora of good scores that stand alone just fine. I will even go so far as to say I would equate film scores and classical music. Like classical music, I think film scores produce a wide variety of emotions. In that topic that seemed to have "disappeared" I named numerous soundtracks that just rock my world and are just as enjoyable as Robin Hood. I know Beethoven.com has the "FILM AT 11 AM" where they play an excerpt from a film... (since I live on the west coast, I can never listen to it because 11 am miami time is 8 am my time) But when the "hit parade" was working, I saw they played many many great film scores... most of them I own in my collection. I dunno. film music is something I follow closely and would like to share some thoughts with some people. thanks.<P>QUOTE]Originally posted by serge urtizberea:<BR><B>I don't particularly care for most of the film scores out there (save for a very few gifted composers', I find film scores are useless on their own) but ever since I first saw Kevin Costner's non-British version of Robin Hood, I'd been obsessed with the score. Michael Kamen was apparently in a HUGE rush to get it off in time, and had to occupy numerous orchestrators to "score" the music. Does anyone have any other interesting info on the soundtrack? Does anyone else ENJOY the soundtrack? The "overture" is simply gorgeous, and the love theme is quite appealing. Ever so nice. </B>[/QUOTE]<P>

[jackm]

Thrillhouse,<P>I haven't heard the soundtrack to Robin Hood but I have to agree with Serge about film scores. While not entirely useless they are, for the most part, nice background and rarely sophisticated enough to stand on their own. That's not an accident. The composer's job is to enhance the scene and not detract from it. The music has to be just beautiful enough to add the proper mood and not stand out.<P>Of course there are a few exceptions but quite often when I listen to music from a film I might be interested in one or two tracks but some (most?) of them are close to boring. However, the film wouldn't have been as enjoyable without them.<P>OK, I'll get off my soapbox now.<P>BTW, as a fellow west coaster, I would like "Film at 11" to be "Film at 1:30 or so". Since beethoven.com bills itself as the world's radio station they can be a little less Florida centric.<P>Opps, another soapbox.<P>Jack

[ReedMan]

I laugh when I listen to some of Aaron Copland's music for film CD (RCA label). It is obvious that he did not follow the film studio's unwritten rules (no minor keys, no discord). He scoring managed to please certain producers and they even called him back for more, until he could no longer take the constraints (besides his classical stuff was starting to generate income).<P>Andrew Previn's autobiography has a chapter devoted to scoring for films. In the older days, the studios paid well for this work but they also wanted results that did not challenge the ear. <P>I hope that the studios have relaxed and permitted greater freedom for today's composers.

[thrillhouse]

First of all.. doesn't it suck being a westcoast Beethoven.com fan? The "Film at 11 AM" piece is "Film at nobody is awake" for us. Also, when the musiclog was working, it only went up to 6 pm east coast time, which of course is 3 pm west coast time and some of us still at work want to know what we're listening to. Yo Beethoven.com.. you should really do something about that time difference. If you want to open up an office on the west coast, I'd be happy to run that office for you. I'm very serious here. I would quit my job right now and do whatever is needed to get a west coast office running. Just let me know. <P>Second of all... I was vague with my film score comments. You are right Jackm, for the most part, film scores aren't worth listening to on their own. And there are very few soundtracks where the majority of the tracks are worth listening to. I was really referring to certain themes/tracks of movie scores. I used to collect film scores on CD and would just play the 5 or 6 good tracks of a 15 track soundtrack. But once napster came out, I've just been downloading the main themes of these great scores and leaving the filler stuff behind. My main point is, don't be looking to buy film score by full soundtrack. Look for the "MONEY" themes and get those.. because those are tooo awesome to miss. If any of you have trouble getting them (napster going down), just let me know, and I'll give you some from my personal collection. And there ARE many soundtracks where I listen to every track. many times I play the movie back in my head and it give me joy like no other. I know none of what I just said made sense.. I have trouble conveying my thoughts, but I cherish my film "theme" collection and would like to share it.<BR>sorry for the verbosity.

[Kevin]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by thrillhouse:<BR><B>Hmmm.. I wanted to reply to this, but I also wanted to ask Sir Stewart and Kevin what happened to some of the old topics? some of the topics seemed to have disappeared.. I'm assuming that's because no one has posted to them in a while, but it'd be nice to know where they went.<BR></B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>A few posts were deleted due to the reason you thought - that they had not been responded to in some time. We are reviewing how long we are able to keep posts, due to storage limitations. <P>Our wish, obviously, is to keep posts as long as they are useful, but without causing problems to our ability to offer an efficient bulletin board service to our listeners. <P>I'm sorry these posts were removed before you had a chance to respond to them. Keep an eye on the bulletin board for our standards for keeping posts on the system. We will be posting these standards very soon.

[ReedMan]

It sounds like you need an archive system - one that places files older than a specified date onto secondary storage (disk or tape) and automatically pulls a file into primary storage when a request is made. Or just buy more disk space and compress regularly. <P>If you treat this as a bulletin board, then that implies a finite lifespan for any one file. Setting that expectation in a FAQ would help. <P>I think that the depth of content illustrated thus far requires a notes conference mentality - 1-2 years lifespan in replies, keeping the original topics.