@Carter said:

if you want to hear the rejected score for Troy of Gabriel Yared , go on his officiel website http://www.gabrielyared.com/ , you can listen to all the rejected score , although it's in bad quality, it's a very good score i don't understand why the studios fired him...=edit : it's in the news section

Hi Carter

First of all, many thanks for posting the link. I have taken your advice and listened to all the tracks from Troy by Gabriel Yarad, and whilst I have not heard the 'new' soundtrack by James Horner it's obviously difficult to make a comparative judgement call. I find it very difficult, on listening, to disagree with you on why the studio decided to let this go and have it replaced. I have not seen the film and therefore cannot comment on it as an entertainment at this time. Although, on a late night review program last night, it took a bashing from a panel of three, that included Germaine Greer, whatever thats worth [8-)] . I like to make my own decisions on these things and like to feel that I have the knowledge and experience to do so.

The Approach of The Greeks Great writing imho

Fight scene Must have worked imo

Priams Fugue Great

Achilles & Briseis Excellent

Hector Hector Classical

Greek Funeral Pyre Excellent

End Credits Song Shades of Gladiator (but what the hell!)

These are a few that I've chosen and I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Gabriel Yarad is obviously an extremely accomplished writer and writes powerful scores that stand up in their own right in my view. Once again, thanks for posting the link. Most enjoyable! [:)]

Paul

As you i didn't listened to the whole album of Gabriel Yared, but i think it's a lot better than Horner, who composed this album in his usual way. Brass are powerful in Yared's score, he used also a powerful choir , i loved how he used the percussions in Hector and Achilles Fight, it's definitely a good score

@Carter said:

I loved how he used the percussions in Hector and Achilles Fight, it's definitely a good score

Hi Carter

Thanks for responding. Yes, I think the Fight Scene works very well indeed. You can 'hear' the clanging of swords, which of course, is the idea. I 'spoke' with Gabriel a few days ago by email and the feeling is, it's the best score he's written, and hope's that one day the music will be released. Gabriel Yared has a very good pedigree of course musically, with The English Patient and Cold Mountain etc, and my view is somewhat subjective. I think it's a damn shame this score got dropped. His work is almost 'old school' to my ears, almost epic 'biblical' style scoring and I can't see any problem with that.

My thoughts with the film Troy, for what it's worth, are that it's going to be a bit of a chinese takeaway. 10 minutes after you've seen it, you will have forgotten it. I will have to see it though now, which is a bit irratating. It's hardly going to be in the same class as Das Boot, I wouldn't think.

Best

Paul

@PaulR said:

You can 'hear' the clanging of swords, which of course, is the idea.

Sorry to bug here, but if it actually is a sword fight happening on the screen then it´s a very very bad idea to use sword clangs in music. They will interfere with the sound effect clangs and it will sound very very bad.

@PaulR said:

You can 'hear' the clanging of swords, which of course, is the idea.

Sorry to bug here, but if it actually is a sword fight happening on the screen then it´s a very very bad idea to use sword clangs in music. They will interfere with the sound effect clangs and it will sound very very bad.

Oh no Mathis. Sorry. Bad explanation on my part. It's more of a 'feeling' within the orchestration. 'Hear in the' as opposed to 'real'. More of a suggestion than a sound effect. No worries. [:)]

No, no, I listened to it myself some days ago. These clangs are really there and they will interfere with with the "real" clangs. My sound editor ears noticed them immediatly and if I would have worked on that project I would have sent him home to cancel them out. As good as they might work in a pure musical context.

@mathis said:

No, no, I listened to it myself some days ago. These clangs are really there and they will interfere with with the "real" clangs. My sound editor ears noticed them immediatly and if I would have worked on that project I would have sent him home to cancel them out. As good as they might work in a pure musical context.

Your'e a very stern taskmaster Mathis [:)]

Just coming back from "Troy". This film is quite nonsense, but what the hack.
The music is as good as what one can do in two weeks. He missed some great moments in my opinion.
But the whole soundtrack is a mess. I can´t remember any big picture with that amount of asynchonity. That comes from constant changing of the picture edit and inserting new versions of the vfx department. It´s hardly possible nowadays to deliver a fully synchronous soundtrack since really a lot of picture information is finished only after the mix. But in this case it was extremely bad. There are several quality standards really going down, not only in the music department. And it´s often out of the creators hands, it´s mostly really bad organisation. But people seem to not care anymore.
Furthermore the adr voice dubbing was so bad, not only soundwise but first of all because of bad directing. Very rarely the postsynced dialog fitted the picture. The whole audience recognized it. There were several laughters not intended by the film. Well the acting in general was on quite low level. Peter O´Toole with his great face was really a highpoint in this film.

So, how to miss as many possibilities as possible with 200 million dollars. This Troy legend is such a great subject, with this budget he should have been able to make a great film.
As a really off-topic thing I find it really curious that in our oh so much civilised society this martial massacres attracts such a great audience. I mean there are so much films produced in the recent years which deal with nothing else than war and killing. This still seems to be the bottom of our souls or what?

Good night,
- Mathis

"... but what the hack."

Exactly my point. Thank you, language barrier.

Very, Very, funny Bill.
DC

[:D]

Man, writing in a foreign language is a weird thing.. I´m often curious what you guys actually read as opposed to what I meant....

@mathis said:

So, how to miss as many possibilities as possible with 200 million dollars. This Troy legend is such a great subject, with this budget he should have been able to make a great film.

Good night,
- Mathis

Unfortunately with this size budget one gets approval committees, focus groups and test audiences, so anything original is likely to get filtered or removed completely. That is why I'm always so surprised when a big budget Hollywood movie is actually any good.

@mathis said:

Man, writing in a foreign language is a weird thing.. I´m often curious what you guys actually read as opposed to what I meant....

Quite so Mathis. It never ceases to astound me that so many people on this excellent forum, from non-native-speaking English countries, speak fantastic English. No only speak, but write it too! People from England assume that the rest of the world should all speak English, which means that the truth is, we're too lazy or too dumb or too arrogant to learn another language properly. I include myself. Indeed, a lot of people from England are unable to read, write and speak English as eloquently as our European neighbours. Incredible, to me, the level of quality English language you and all the other Europeans speak and understand. Fantastic!

200 million dollars aye? Could have built a hospital for that! The point about films like Troy and actors such as Peter O' Toole and Julie Christie, for example, is an old trick. Derek Jacobi in Gladiator, and so on. Familiar cinema stalwarts that appeal to the older audiences. Hollywood usually uses British actors as character references or the obligatory 'badie'. British actors don't mind, of course. It runs a parallel with what Fred Story mentioned about familiarity in music. It's safe. I wonder if Gabriel Yared's score would have 'lifted' the film in anyway. What do you think? I bet it would have, although, not saved it, from the sound of your description.

DG makes a very good point about test audiences, committees etc. I've watched committees in action from close up, over time. I wonder if Pressburger & Powell did that when they were about to release a film, or Ealing? Originality is not part of their collective consciousness. Hehe! Just a wild guess, but it's not Daniel, is it?

All the best(s)

PR

If I tried to write in German it would be a rich source of unintentional comedy.

@PaulR said:

Quite so Mathis. It never ceases to astound me that so many people on this excellent forum, from non-native-speaking English countries, speak fantastic English. No only speak, but write it too!

Thanks for the flowers, as we germans say... [[;)]]
Actually I feel I can better read/write english than I speak. That comes from, well, guess what, reading and writing ( [8-)] ). I learn a lot of my english actually on this kind of forums. There´s always my great dictionary running in the background and I use it a lot. I learn a lot of casual english in these chats.
But when I have to speak I´m not fast enough with looking up... most horrible for me is a phone call. there I don´t even have my hands for sign language.

I don´t think, Yared´s score would have made a great difference to the film I have to say. In some cues (the romantic ones) I would say it even was a better choice to not use his music. The film would have appeared like a melodrama from the fifties. But especially the song stuff and also the action stuff I think would have been much better.
But this is a kind of film one really can´t *save* with music. That would be a great miracle. Maybe that would mean one could change the world with music. What a dream!

@Another User said:

I learn a lot of my english actually on this kind of forums.

Mathis


It's 'these kind of forums' or

It's 'this kind of forum'

Don't push your luck. [:D]

Ok, I seem to need some detention...

"That would be a great miracle. Maybe that would mean one could change the world with music. What a dream!"

This is what every musician should try to do.

@mathis said:

But this is a kind of film one really can´t *save* with music.

Unfortunately I don't think that one can ever save a film with music. If the music is of a much better standard than the film all that happens is that the focus is pulled away from the pictures; this never works. Of course if one is asked to score a bad film, then the music still has to be as good as possible in order to maintain one's reputation [[;)]]

The example I remember that is closest to music saving a bad film is "Obsession" - a piece of clap-trap from the pretentious writer Paul Schrader (criminally responsible for the god-awful remake of "Cat People") and Brian de Palma who can do some good things but screwed up a bad idea here - Hey! Let's do "Vertigo" with father and daughter!

Huh?

But anyway Bernard Herrmann's music is so great that it almost makes the film watchable. Almost. But fortunately you can listen to it alone on the soundtrack album.