Week 3 Film Music

In the reading it really just talked alot about the different movies that had good music or were popular for that time. What I did learn was when movie theaters started using wide screen and how directors would try to film on 77 or 65mm film instead of the standard 35mm film. I didn't know about the controversy about the theme in first James Bond film. That was hilarious to me, because I love the James Bond movies. I loved how the 1963 movie of Cleopatra was the most expensive film of that time and almost bankrupted the studio. My dad loves western movies and I liked learning that his favorite film, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, is called a spaghetti western. Then what happened to Bernard Herrmann when he was asked to write the score for The Exorcist. He told the director to take out the whole beginning and that his music will save the movie. The director thought no way am I going to use him.
I loved the movies we watched this week except for High Noon. It took me by complete surprise when I heard that the opening song was very popular back then, because that song was horrible. The last time I watched To Kill a Mockingbird was in high school and I never noticed the music in it because I was to focused on whether it was like the book or not. This time I noticed the music though. I loved the movie American Graffiti but only because of the music in it. The movie itself is okay, but I think the music in that movie is what makes it a good movie.
I didn't know anything about a Panatonic note scale and when Dr. Berry mentioned that it is used to represent Chinese people and things like that I immediately thought of the movie Memoirs of a Geisha. I don't know why but it just made me think that he should show a clip of that for an example. The advice for what makes a melody great, I didn't anything about that and now I do just in case I wanted to write a melody. The electronic score for Forbidden Planet was neat but made the movie seem more intense than it really was.