MUH112 Film Music Response
Rachel Daugherty
I think the separation between composers of Hollywood and concert hall composers is very interesting. After learning so much about the music that comes from Hollywood, it seems to me that some of the disrespect that the concert hall composers have for Hollywood composers is born somewhat out of ignorance. I do not see how someone could fully understand what composers like Alfred Newman do and how hard they work and not completely respect them for it. We talked in class about how Bernard Hermann and Miklos Rozsa were the only two film composers who were respected outside of Hollywood, yet it seems that all the great classical composers of the past are extremely respected and looked up to by all film composers. I think composers should have mutual respect for each other. Obviously, very few composers are successful in both Hollywood and the concert hall, but I think both jobs are equally challenging.
We watched a clip from The Forbidden Planet that demonstrated the use of the very first completely electronic film score. What was interesting about the score, however, was that it did not sound like a typical musical underscore at all. It was more like an underscore of sound effects. I do not think people walked away from that movie humming a tune they picked out. They probably walked away humming the song from High Noon though. I liked the song playing in the beginning during the credits, but I thought it was a little awkward when the song came back several times during the movie in small fragments. It did not seem to fit with the rest of the score very well.
I was really surprised to read in the book that 3-D motion pictures have been around since the 1920’s. For some reason, I have always thought it was a relatively new idea. The book said that the novelty of 3-D wore off pretty quickly and the genre pretty much died, yet we still have 3-D movies come out from time to time even now. I guess it is one of those things that has to be done in moderation. If it only happens every once in a while, it will always be a novelty. Overdo it, and it turns into something not so special.
Something I read about in the book, we talked about in class, and we watched in a movie is the use of jazz scores in films. Jazz was viewed in such a different way in the 1950’s. In the book they talk about it being used to depict the “seedy” side of life, and today jazz is associated with elite society. Funny how much things change in fifty years.

MUH112 Film Music Response
Rachel Daugherty
I really enjoyed the class lecture on Erich Wolfgang Korngold. I had never even heard of him as a classical composer, much less a film score composer. I thought it was pretty amazing that he is considered one of the two or three true child prodigies along side Mendelssohn and Mozart. Of course, according to Dean Hoffman, one of only two. Being successful in both music worlds is a pretty big accomplishment. I really enjoyed listening to his compositions from his teenage years. His music is very beautiful and passionate. It was also really neat hearing how The Adventures of Robin Hood “saved his life” and how his family just barely escaped on the very last train out of Germany. For me, knowing that kind of background on a person makes their music more interesting.
The “Mickey Mousing” effect that we saw and heard in the movies was interesting. I had never really noticed it that much when I watched movies, but when you think about it, it becomes really obvious. Especially in that short, silent clip we watched of the grumpy looking man who tore down the poster. It is very effective in silent films, but it can sometimes be almost silly when it’s done too much. I know that “Mickey Mousing” is still done today, but I do not think it’s done in the magnitude it was done in the earlier days. Also, considering how important music was in the silent era, and then again in the later part of the 1930s, I think it is interesting that there was actually a time when movies had little or no musical underscoring. Apparently during this time most films had only a main title and end credit music.
I thought it was really funny that “Over the Rainbow” almost did not make the cut in The Wizard of Oz. It’s a little absurd to think someone thought it sounded “like a child’s piano exercise,” considering its huge success and ongoing popularity. Believe it or not, I have never seen The Wizard of Oz, but of course I know “Over the Rainbow.” Everyone knows it. It kind of makes you question the judgment of these so called executives in Hollywood. What do they really know? They almost blew that one. Another interesting thing I read in the book was how they started selling concessions at the theatres to increase profits. It was also kind of funny that they had “dish nights.” They do that sort of thing now at sport events, not the movies. Whatever the case, I am glad they persevered and avoided going bankrupt, or else we might not have the big film industry we do today.

MUH112 Film Music Response
Rachel Daugherty
I thought the class discussion we had about the story boards was very interesting. I had never heard of this before and I definitely had no idea they hired cartoonist to make comic books before production started. That seems like a lot of work and money and I am still not sure if I understand how it helps. It looks like they could just make some sketches on their own to get some ideas of what they need for the movie instead of paying all that money for a cartoonist to make a comic book. I am still not sure how making a comic book helps them hire actors for the movie either. It looks like they would get that from reading the script and discerning the characters personalities and characteristics.
One thing I found really interesting in the reading was how the composers hired for the film score get paid in full weather their score is used or not. I guess this is good for the composer, because you get paid regardless, although it still would not be good to get your score rejected because it might make it harder to get other jobs. It is obviously really expensive for the film studios, however. I wonder how bad the score actually has to be for them to make the decision to pay double for music. And it seems like with all the interaction that most of the composers interviewed in the book seem have with the film producers, nothing would ever get far enough along to be rejected without the producer giving feedback and the composer changing the music to please the producer. Maybe some composers just like to work totally on their own. I also thought it was weird that considering how important producers think the music is, they use “what’s left” of the budget to pay for the music, sometimes limiting what can be done. I guess in these films with no money left for music they have to use the music the composer wrote whether they like it or not since they can not afford to pay someone else to write a whole new one.
When we watched The Jazz Singer I thought it was really weird how they had a little bit of dialogue in there, then the rest was silent. I was wondering why, if they could but dialogue in, did they not do it in the whole film. At first I thought maybe because it would take so long, but then they do all sorts of stuff that is complicated and takes a long time so that did not make sense. Then we talked about in class how they had to stop the background music to play the record with the dialogue and I decided the reason they did not do dialogue the whole movie is because they must not have figured out how to do the dialogue and the music at the same time. So they had to do one or the other. If they only did a little dialogue, the gaps in music would not be so bad, but a lot of dialogue would have made the movie really choppy with the music stopping and starting.
Another thing I noticed when we watched all the movies, and something I have noticed before, is that it seems like the actors movements are really fast and I always wondered why that was. Then I read in the book that they only ran sixteen frames per second back then, and now we run twenty-four frames per second, so it makes the movements faster.