Week 2 Film Music

With the reading this week I loved learning how they made the movie The Bride of Frankenstein sound scary, with the string tremolos and woodwind trills and flutter-tonguing. Learning about a lot more composers was even more interesting to me. Now, that I watch a movie and look for the music credits, I can say I know who Tiomkin is, or Max Steiner. I didn't know that all those old movies I love came out in 1939, like Gone With The Wind and Wuthering Heights and The Wizard of Oz. I thought I knew what film noir was but then I read about it and I was close but learned more about it anyway. I also learned that at first King Kong wasn't going to have music in it but Max Steiner convinced Merian C. Cooper to let him write an original score for the movie.
In our discussions over the week I loved learning about mixing because I have always wondered how they fit in all the sound effects with the music and dialogue along with it. I read about mickey mousing in the book but it really didn't stick with me until we talked about it in class. That is a cool technique. It's almost like you don't really need the sound effects if you have the music going along with what they are doing. I didn't know that the "talkie" films were banned from the Oscars until the 1930's. That was and interesting tidbit. I had never heard of Eric Wolfgang Korngold until this class and I love his music now. The fact that he was only 10 years old when he did "The Snowman" amazes me. He definitely is a child prodigy.
I really liked the movie Top Hat but I think that was just because I like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers. After reading about the movie King Kong and how much music was in it, I actually noticed what they were talking about in the book. In my opinion, I really like the newest remake of that movie better because they showed the relationship that Kong wanted with Ann. They also didn't show Kong as the big bad monkey and I actually think the music they played while him and Ann were together made me think that. In The Adventures of Robin Hood I got to actually hear some of Korngold's work and he does a really good job. I really liked that movie, even though I couldn't help remembering funny scenes from Robin Hood: Men in Tights.