Proffessional Practice Assignment

John Williams

John Williams is a very successful film/TV score composer. He has scored many of the most successful films of all time including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ET, Harry Potter 1, 2 and 3. He had music in his family as his father was head of The Raymond Scott Quartet (who’s music became famous through the Warner bros cartoons). He had the ambitions to be a concert pianist as a youngster and composed his first piece of music at the age of 19. Having grown up in New York, he moved to Los Angeles to go to college. He attended both UCLA and Los Angeles City College to study Orchestration and was tutored under Robert Van Eps who was Musical Associate for MGM at the time. Not bad for an aspiring concert pianist! He was also tutored privately by composer Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco. After a brief stint in the navy he was then taught by Rosina Lhevinne, who brought out the performer in him. Whilst he was in education he played in jazz clubs to pay the bills, this would have been a great experience for him and kept him completely within the music industry. Looking at this great education that Williams had it was no wonder he was so successful.

So now it was out into Hollywood to see if he could find any work and he did, almost immediately, as a piano player in Hollywood studios. He played piano on soundtracks such as “Some Like It Hot”, “South Pacific”, “The Apartment” and “To Kill A Mockingbird”. By the age of 24 he was the staff arranger at Columbia and later 20th Century Fox. During this time he orchestrated for composers such as Alfred and Lionel Newman, Bernard Herrman, Franz Waxman and Henry Mancini. This would have given him a wealth of knowledge working with these VERY reputable composers. This had such an impact on Williams that he decided he would become a composer himself. He had his foot very firmly in the door by this point and he was encouraged by Alfred Newman especially to pursue the composing path.

His connections that he had forged led to composing scores for TV shows, including Lost In space, a pilot for Gilligans Island, and Land of the Giants. Williams found himself being typecast for comedies after a run of comedy scores, after his work on William Wylers “How to steal a million”, his career started to snowball. He won his first Emmy for his score for “Heidi” and his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler on the roof. His career seems to have been made based on who he knows and has forged good relationships with movie makers.

The 70’s saw a change in the movies Williams was composing for. He started to focus more on disaster movies. His work on the film “The Reivers” is what attracted Stephen Spielberg’s attention while Spielberg was sowing the seeds of his career. Williams composed the score for Spielberg on his first film “The Sugarland Express”. This formed an unbeatable formula that would create millions at the box office for years to come. His career really took off thanks to this partnership. John Williams and Stephen Spielberg collaborated on every film Spielberg made although except two - “The Colour Purple” and “Duel”. By this time John Williams was very much established in the industry.

What set Williams aside from other composers at the time was his use of leitmotifs in his music, which became synonymous with the various characters. Take for example The Original Star Wars trilogy: There are 3 themes, one for the Rebel Alliance fighting against evil, Darth Vader and Han Solo and Princess Leia’s love theme. The theme for Darth Vader made the film more successful in bringing the character out. If Darth Vader’s theme came on before you see him, it builds suspense, as well as creating fear around the character. Unfortunately there is not a clip of this available so you can see how it all fits together but here is the audio:

http://blip.fm/invite/laura2910

Click on "The First Audio Clip"


In the opposite way, on hearing the theme for the rebels it brings out a feeling of pride and strength. I think that it brings out what the characters are feeling without the need for dialogue. John Williams’s strength was making the emotional connection between the music and the characters and how they are feeling. In a market already full of composers creating these bonds between characters and the emotional feel of a movie, John Williams added something by binding the themes and the characters so strongly. His music makes the film for me, the music is very much part of the plot and commands your emotions. All of his scores are so memorable.

If you look back on the films that he has scored have such unforgettable themes. ET, Home Alone, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, this is how he penetrated an already satiated market. He creates magic over a range of emotions from fear, romance; he also has such great comedic timing, my personal favourite is in Home Alone, when the McAllister family have slept in and they are dashing about trying to get to the airport on time. The music is perfectly paced to fit this scenario, and for me makes it funnier! Unfortunately there is also not a clip of this available so you can see how it all fits together but here is the audio:

http://blip.fm/invite/laura2910

Clck on "The Second Audio Clip"

Williams’s music is so popular that it has been commercialised on CD marketed as a separate medium. Due to its popularity the soundtrack has been re-mastered and re-released since the original in 1977. His music continues to make money today after 30 years. In the beginning Williams used his connections in the industry and the backing of several well known composers at the time, he gained the opportunities he needed to prove what he could do. When it comes to promotion for his work now, it tends to speak for itself, anyone in need of a composer of classical music they can easily watch films he has scored. His work is such a great advertisement for future work. He has won several academy awards (nominated for hundreds!) and allsorts of other awards.

Market Development: Promotion of William’s product is involved in the promotion of the movie. His music is shown on trailers, which are available to the public through TV, Cinema and the Internet. The movie is the best promotion for the soundtrack, when you see a great movie and you are really you can go out and buy the soundtrack. More promotion is featured more heavily on the soundtrack if it is to be remastered. Lots of factors can be involved with the popularity of a soundtrack, if you didn’t like the film for another reason, it might put people buying the I separately. Although it has to be said that most of the projects Williams has worked on have been successful or major blockbusters so especially in his more recent years.

Williams has such a back catalogue of classics under his belt that his publisher has released a John Williams compilation celebrating 40 years of composing. The attention has now shifted from the films to focusing on the writer himself. The music has taken on a life of its own within the industry, separating itself from the movie. There is a website dedicated to Star Wars Music alone. In this way the product is diversifying itself in that it is moving into another market.

John Williams’ music in its nature has that timeless feel. Over his 40 year career as a composer he has stuck to roughly the same format, changing the style as the individual projects dictate. He has had no need to change his approach because it is such a winning formula. It has never been a challenge for John Williams to find work, it has always come very easily to him. “Memoirs of a Geisha” was the first film Williams asked to do. One presumes to give himself a challenge. He even broke the series of Harry Potter movies to write the score as the two films conflicted his schedule.

Another way Williams has been lucky is his very special relationship with Steven Spielberg. When Spielberg would be challenging himself and spreading his expertise into other genre, he would require the same of Williams rather than finding another composer. For example, the difference between Home Alone and Memoirs of a Geisha vary amazingly in their styles and understandably the music requires the same. In Memoirs of a Geisha, Williams used a number of Japanese instruments in the orchestral recording. Williams has had to make his own personal challenges as he has never really been faced with any in his career.

Something that has changed over his career is the technology. Musical technology has grown considerably over the span of Williams’s career and it’s interesting that he could use technology in the second Star Wars Trilogy that had not been created yet when the first trilogy was in production. He included electronic synthesisers to create new sounds that were not possible on the earlier films. The content in films has become more technology themed and action packed so they require more synthesised sounds to accompany them.

These changes have been brought about by the industry. I think that it is a natural human instinct to grow and develop and for people who work in the field want to push themselves further and develop new products and bring out the “WOW” factor in the audience. As a consumer I want to go to the cinema and be blown away by what can be done by these creative and technical minds. As an audience this is what we crave. Money, passion and recognition are great motivational factors in bringing about these new products. These new technologies that are created by electronic specialist made them available so that Williams can use them. I think the technology being there meant that he used it.

When Williams first began his career all movies and television shows required scoring, but now Movie producers are using pop songs to fill their soundtrack rather than employing composers to provide the music. These changes that have affected Williams’s career have all been driven by the consumer. This has not created a lack of work for Williams though as there are still plenty of orchestration required.

Having researched John Williams career and the life he has had, it seems that he has had almost flawless career! He is such a talented composer and conductor that he has never had to really push for anything, his talent has carried him through. He has remained level headed however:

“I have received 5 Oscars and people say don’t you get tired of such a thing? And I think it’s a basic human thing that none of us ever gets tired of being appreciated. We never feel that we have done our best work yet, we always I think hope to do the next one better. So I think when you get a pat on the back or someone doffs their head to you or offers an award, it’s certainly gratifying, it never becomes a blaze thing, at least in my personality, it makes me think ahh maybe next time I can do an even better one, you know?” - John Williams

He is on his own personal quest for greatness, and he has been extremely fortunate to have this freedom. I am so grateful to John Williams for not only for his talent for composing but his scores have inspired me to follow his footsteps as he has many others.


Reflection

Over the past year I have learnt a lot about the creative digital world. I came to York and started College because I needed to change my life. I was in a career that I did not enjoy and was completely bored and unchallenged by, and I was miserable because of it. I really wanted to fill my head with information and to be inspired by things because I had been so long without it. College lifestyle was difficult to get my head around at the start; I had to work hard to keep up, especially since I had been out of the education system for 7 years.

I had no prior knowledge whatsoever but I wanted to jump in head first and show myself what I could do with it. I had a lot of uncertainty about whether I could do well because I had not done very well in my Higher exams. I had worked really hard but the information did not go in. Confidence was the main factor that held me back when this course began. I felt out of my depth, but as the year went on, I gained more and more skills and knowledge and my confidence grew.

On a creative digital communication course I have covered a wide range of medium and software. The point of this course is that you can choose the area you want to pursue, whether it is film, web design, computing, graphics, or music. My personal path is music but I now have a basic knowledge in all these areas. My ideal job is music composition for film/TV, so I need to know a bit about video technology and how it is used, as well as music.

It was a whole new world at the start because I was starting almost from scratch. Music has been difficult to fit into all my creative projects on this area of the course but this has meant that I have spread my wings and experimented with video, blogging, the internet, design and technology. I had to be creative yet not use music directly.

This presented a challenge! The process of beginning a new project would be to panic thinking how am I going to do this, then after a time the ideas would come and I had to fit it around what I could feasibly learn about in the given timeframe. As an example I have learned to use a desktop recorder for one of my module assignments. The most valuable lesson in doing this is to cope with the fact that it might not work the way you want it too and you may have to use something else to get it done in time.

Here I have posted my “Millionaires Project” online in a blog. It gives you more creative freedom than just writing an essay. You can add music, pictures, links to videos, and more.

I think differently now than how I used to. At college we are constantly asked if we think something works. “What would you change about it? Why do you think that?” and I find myself asking myself these question as a matter of course in my daily life. I now seek out technology and new ideas and concepts. I am now aware of a whole area of life that I knew was there but didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t really understand how big the internet is and what you could do with it, every day I was finding all these things that existed. Twitter, Spotify, You Tube, the amount of discussion that goes on over the web I had no idea.

Anyone can say exactly what they think on the web, we can post anything that we want. So many facilities are available over the web not to mention shopping discounts if you buy online! My rekindled love for technology was brought out when I bought an iPod touch. The things this little device can do are amazing! It is a complete entertainment system that you can carry around with you. I have also learnt to think about where these technologies can be developed in the future, changes that I may one day be responsible for.

On the music front I have learned a lot of technical skills, and the basics of how to use Cubase. This is a huge program and it will take more time to understand it entirely. I know how to record sound and mix and master it. I could setup the sound system for a live gig of 400 people audience, and I can score music from MIDI tracks and sheet music, and have a basic grasp of copyright and publishing practices. I can also edit tracks and match them to video. All these things I had very little knowledge before. This knowledge will continue to grow as I progress into the 2nd year of my course.

I can use program now that I couldn’t before:
• Proshow Gold
• Windows movie maker
• Autodesk 3Ds Max
• Camstudio
• Adobe Dreamweaver
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Flash
• iMovie
• Photo Story 3 for windows
• Cubase
• Audacity
• Sound forge

I have used these programs on various projects or I have used them in class workshops. I have different familiarities with all of them. I have not had as much experience using the Adobe programs because they are not particularly linked to anything I would like to use in the future. It was part of making the course what I wanted it to be. The music video and image editors I will use in the future at University and in my spare time (if I have any) to gain greater knowledge and to make great music and film. I have learnt more about how to research and reference information as I have had to do this for every assignment.

At the start of the year I did a slide show as part of the Visual Literacy module and it shows my skills have improved as I made a soundtrack to a moving image completely from scratch.

I first used Cubase for score writing project. We were asked to copy a score into Cubase and basically had to learn by using the program. Now I can mix and master a piece of music from the recording stage to mixing and adding effects then burning it onto a disk.

Being in college has helped me meet like-minded people and has given me contacts that will be useful in the future just as John Williams built his career on his education and his contacts in the industry. I have learned that luck has a lot to do with being successful in my case study of John Williams. There are allot of very talented people out there that never get there music used professional. Thank goodness we have you tube so at least our music can be heard!

This is the difference between now and when Williams was beginning his career. The ability to market online is an amazing tool that I will be able to utilize when I begin my musical career. My background in this field will continue to give me an edge over competition as the promotional aspect to music had become digitalised. Hopefully it will get my music heard by the right people to get me into John Williams’s enviable position.

Here is what its all about - The Music - I give you the works of John Williams

References
25.04.09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhxqLXWwunQ&feature=related
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002354/awards
http://www.mfiles.co.uk/composers/John-Williams.htm
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002354/bio
http://www.8notes.com/biographies/john_williams.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Williams#Early_life_and_family
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002354/#composer
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000740/

12.05.2009
http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice.html
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide

19.05.09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5atseGwKis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPySkteoi0Q&feature=PlayList&p=21799D5C82918506&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdYflV5-a2c&feature=PlayList&p=21799D5C82918506&index=3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPacQ6_V6ZM&feature=PlayList&p=21799D5C82918506&index=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDq1gETo18w&feature=PlayList&p=21799D5C82918506&index=4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoYFEO2ZU6k&feature=PlayList&p=21799D5C82918506&index=5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX03FoIXTp0&feature=PlayList&p=C2163992764C89AD&index=13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx7NiJHIlGs&feature=PlayList&p=C2163992764C89AD&index=16

22.05.09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noGnO_glDek&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlwqlHkF870&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjMNNpIksaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ZTTsiJupo