Bill - Coming Soon say Thomas Newman is composer!
JV - Okay then, that’s good enough for me. I guess my prediction came true. 
JV - Aha! There ya’ go! I’m not surprised…
Yeah, Andrew Stanton at Comic-Con, said Thomas Newman was scoring it.
Ah, nice to know! It will be a great score. I can’t wait to hear it in the movies.
Thomas Newman is the composer for Wall-E. There’s already been some scoring done for it. Animated films often start their scoring much earlier than live-action films.
Really now? I would usually think that the scoring for an animated project would start at the same time as a live action one. That is cool to know.
Welcome to Pixar Planet miafka!
For a typical live-action movie, music is often recorded at the very end, when the picture is finished and the final edit has (hopefully) been decided upon. Normally it works fine, but it can occasionally make things interesting if events happen (such as a composer being changed and all the old music being thrown out within weeks of the film’s release date). Two examples of this would be King Kong (James Newton Howard taking over for Howard Shore) and the original Pirates of the Carribbean (Klaus Badelt taking over for Alan Silvestri – where the music was still being recorded the weekend before the film’s premiere). For animation – especially because traditionally Disney films have had songs, music recording generally starts earlier (songs aren’t just background music, but are an important part of the story, moving the plot along – and thus are done early on). For instance, “Part of your World” from “Little Mermaid” or “Reflection” from Mulan would be done much earlier on than the rest of the score. If there are no songs or music-plot devices then the score can be recorded later on, but especially where you have a company that only releases one film at a time (Pixar) instead of “oh, it’s just one of our 12 summer films” and takes a lot of care in their films, the music recording starts early. Ratatouille was this way (there were a few days early on, then the bulk was recorded in April) and Wall-E is following this pattern. One day has been done already, and a couple more days are coming up. It gives everyone time to see how everything is working together instead of being in a rush at the last second. Remember, making a film is a creative process, and things are constantly being changed to make the film better. Often even after all the music is recorded on a film, there will still be an additional “fix day” to make last second changes. An example I could use would be for Ratatouille. Originally the end of Ratatouille didn’t end with the song, but rather ended with just music (the snappy, swung second theme as the story ends). But there was a decision made to end with this new song, so a couple weeks after all the music had been recorded, a fix day was called for the orchestra to come in and re-record a new ending (ie, the song) and fix a few minor things, and it really made the ending sweet. It shows you the care that Pixar takes on their films. Wall-E is being composed by Thomas Newman, who as many have pointed out, did a great job on Nemo. Only 10 more months…
miafka - Welcome to Pixar Planet! I hope you enjoy your stay here.
Haha! That made me laugh. 
That’s interesting. I’m glad that they made the decision to end the film in that manner rather than the previous one.
– Mitch
Thanks.
Ratatouille 24 times? Wow. Though I can certainly understand why. 
miafka - You’re welcome.
Heheh. Yep. Twenty-four times. Not to get off-topic or anything, but feel free to read this if you want:
To get back on-topic, I would absolutely love it if John Williams had been chosen to compose the score for WALL-E. Don’t get me wrong; I think that Thomas Newman is an excellent choice, as I loved his work on Finding Nemo, but I would like to see a change…
– Mitch
Just me personally, but while I like John Williams, and he’s adept at composing in just about any style, I can recognize a Williams score as a Williams score. Thomas Newman hasn’t traditionally been known for “cartoon music” yet he did a great job on Nemo. I’m glad he’s doing it.
(Another space movie with a Willaims score? Hey, that wouldn’t be a change! 
)
miafka - Alright, so I’ll admit that I’m a little biased when it comes to John Williams. I love his stuff and, well, he’s one of the first persons I think of when I hear the word “composer”. Ya’ can’t blame me, but I do get your point. Eheh.
– Mitch
John Williams in da man. I love his scores for ET, Star Wars, and the Land Before Time. But I’m glad that Thomas Newman did the Wall.E music. He seems like the perfect fit - Finding Nemo with its vast ocean and Wall.E with its vast realms of space, seem very similar in that way at least. I hope Thomas Newman can inject humour into the Wall.E story, though with his music.
rachel - Exactly. Mr. Newman’s musical style is a perfect counterpart for WALL-E; it all fits together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
I still wouldn’t mind seeing Mr. Williams do something for just one Pixar film, though, no matter how redundant it may seem. (snigger)
– Mitch
Hi everyone. Not too much to post about really, but wanted to let you know that the scoring process for Wall-E is continuing, and seems to be going nicely. I’ve written a few posts here before, but haven’t really said what I do. I’m a studio musician in Los Angeles that has played on a number of Pixar films, including Wall-E. I also happen to personally like the Pixar films myself as much as my kids, so I enjoy reading the posts here. To be clear, I am NOT an employee of Pixar, just a musician who has played in the orchestra for many of their films. I hope nobody minds me posting this (if so, please let me know). I’m not going to post things such as spoilers (it’s not my place, and is bad form), but will answer generic questions on scoring if I can. I don’t think it’d be out of bounds however, to say that the scoring for Wall-E has begun. There was one day in July, and two days this week (yesterday and today), with more days in the coming months. Pixar likes to score at Sony (the old MGM lot) in Culver City – which is a historic scoring stage, and the stage that Williams uses. Sadly, two of the five large scoring stages in LA are closing down: Paramount closed their stage earlier this year, and Todd-AO (where James Horner scores) is slated to close in the coming months. This leaves only Fox, Warner Bros, and Sony for large stages. The Sony stage looks something akin to the inside of a meat locker (old wooden walls, ancient music stands with cigarette burns on the wood from the days musicians smoked in the room)… but has pretty much been left as is because the sound is so good. As a joke, a few things hang from the rafters, including a bunch of Hawaiian shirts leftover from previous Pixar productions. When recording, the movie is projected on a screen as we record the music (as well as during playbacks), and it’s interesting to see scenes in their various states of completion (for Ratatouille, many of the unfinished scenes had the characters only in their underwear – a stage before the clothes were added). What I’ve seen so far for Wall-E looks really good, and I was surprised at how many of the scenes (maybe about half?) were already close to fully rendered this early. We did a lot of random scenes, ranging from the opening to scenes near the end of the movie, and it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun (I hope Pixar will release a better trailer soon, to let people see more of what’s coming up). Sorry, I’m not going to post spoilers. You’ll have to wait until Summer 2008. 
)
Animated films will often start their scoring process earlier than live-action films (where scoring is one of the last things done). Normally in a live-action film, each music cue is given a “number” (such as “2M3” or “4M6”) instead of a title (“4M6” would mean the cue is the 6th piece of music in reel 4, “2M3” would mean the 3rd piece of music in reel 2, etc). However because Wall-E’s scoring is being started so early before any kind of final edit is done (as Tommy said, “before we know what goes where”), there really can’t be any numbers assigned yet – so instead, titles (such as “Going to work”) were given to the cues. Music sounds great so far, and Tommy’s a blast to play for. Hmm… as I said, there’s not really much to report, except to say Wall-E’s production seems to be coming along nicely.
Welcome, miafka! You are indeed truly welcome here.
I enjoyed your wright-up - music composition of a film sounds really neat.
Again, thanks for joining and welcome!
Hi, miafka! I don’t think I have welcomed you here yet, so “welcome to Pixar Planet!”.
Thanks so much for letting us know how the orchestration for Wall.E is progressing. As someone who loves Pixar’s soundtracks/scores, it’s a real treat to actually correspond with someone who is playing in the orchestra. I hope you don’t mind me asking you a few questions…
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How would you describe Wall.E’s music?
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If you could compare Wall.E’s music to any other Pixar film, which film would that be and why?
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It’s interesting that there is a title called “Going to Work”. Have you noticed any recurring main themes played throughout the score? (As with The Incredibles and Ratatouille).
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What other Pixar films have you worked on and, what instrument to you play?
miafka - Thank you thank you THAAANK YOU for discussing your position in all of this. I’m working to become a film composer, and I found your information to be very insightful. It’s late in the night, so I’ll have to think up questions tomorrow, heheheee…
Thanks for the welcomes everyone. I’m probably the worst person to ask to describe the music, since it’s my job and I tend to hear it differently than someone who is just listening to it. It’s also hard because so far, I didn’t hear any real recurring themes (we did a lot of random cues), so that would also make it difficult for me to compare it to other films. Remember also, that the music in a film changes quite a bit during the scoring process – especially on films when the scoring starts early. Changes and adjustments are made, and this is still early on in the process. Also, I think it’s a bad idea to try to compare one score to another score since they’re for different movies (it’s interesting when you get to hear different composers’ ideas for the same movie… occasionally you get this when one composer replaces another on a project, or in film composition school, when all the students have to write a score to the same set of scenes). In the end, a score works when it matches and helps move along the actions on the screen – and the cues I’ve heard so far do a very good job at that. As far as the titles of the cues go, I remember one cue with a title of what would be the PERFECT name for a Disneyland ride – but sorry, I’m not going to post it, because it’d be a spoiler. As I said before, there’s not really a lot I can post on at this point because I won’t post anything that will even hint at giving story details away. But just wanted to let you all know that the production and scoring seems to be going nicely. By the way, Tommy Newman conducts the orchestra himself (a lot of times composers will have an orchestrator conduct, while they stay in the booth with the director). But Tommy’s out there in the room conducting us. The next sessions aren’t until the first part of 2008, so now he has time to do some more writing.
One thing I was wondering is if anyone knows if there is much dialogue in the film, or if it’s mostly just robot sound effects (since we only see picture when recording and don’t hear dialogue, I’m as much in the dark about this as any of you). I only ask because if there’s not much dialogue, that will usually mean a lot more minutes of music in a movie (otherwise you’d just have a lot of dead air).