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| Music spotting with Howard Shore |
Midday. We're shifting from K Stage to F Stage right now, and I took the chance to spot music with Howard Shore. He's in New York, and busy writing the score for Film 2.
"Spotting" involves talking through edited scenes with Howard, and figuring out everything he needs to do a first pass at the music composition - where music should start and stop, what mood it should have, themes to use, moments to punctuate. That type of thing. To stay on schedule, Howard needs 10 mins of cut footage every week. This week we only have 3 & a half mins for him. Fortunately, he's very good natured about it. It's happened once or twice before!
Next week, when I'm back in the cutting room full time, Howard will be getting a deluge!
The score for Film 2 is going to be terrific. Last year, we were a little frustrated because we had to revisit so many of the LotR themes - The Shire, Rivendell, Galadriel, Gollum, and the Ring - we did this because I'm wanting these 3 Hobbit movies to have great unity with the Rings films in design, wardrobe, story and music, so it meant "An Unexpected Journey" had to acknowledge what had gone before.
But this time around, apart from a couple of Ring moments, it's all new: Beorn, Mirkwood, The Woodland Realm, Laketown, Bard and Smaug all give Howard the chance to write brand new themes, and he's knocking it out of the park!
We've now finished yesterday's work, and can start on today's scenes!
