With Disney now treating Pixar DVD releases like throwaways (only a few token special features instead of a full 2-disc treatment as they used to), I did a search of YouTube tonight, and was surprised to see “Scoring Ratatouille.”
I have no idea where this came from. Is it something that’s on the BluRay? I don’t remember ever having seen it before, yet it looks like it’s officially done by Disney, and seems to have been posted 3 months ago!
It’s not bad. Besides Michael talking about the score, there are lots of quick shots of the orchestra. While recording the music, I remember them filming us quite a bit, but sadly only lots of quick, short shots made it into this “Making of” documentary. Still, at least it’s something, and this should have been included on the DVD.
That’s the Sony scoring stage in Culver City, Tim Simonec is conducting (Michael’s main orchestrator and conductor). You can see (for just a second) the chef’s hat that was placed next to the podium as a joke (look at 2:20 on the video). Brad Lewis (who you see at the beginning) was producer on Ratatouille, and one day brought his trombone in to play with us for a short cue. At 00:21 you see the color-copied cover folder that held the music. We were allowed to keep this as a souvenir (“Music ‘Cooked Up’ by Michael Giacchino”). By the way, “A Orchestra” on it refers to different size groups for different days (“A Orchestra” usually means a day when the full orchestra is there. “B Orchestra” might be for a day when there’s only a small jazz combo, or a smaller-sized group for certain cues).
So… what was this made for anyway? The Blu-Ray? Or was it supposed to be on the normal DVD but Disney just changed their minds? Sigh…
Probably a lot of you have seen this already, but I found it just tonight by searching YouTube. If you haven’t seen it yet, enjoy.
Pixar/Disney marketing released these podcasts one by one until the release of Ratatouille in cinemas. A YouTube marketing campaign, if you will. I love that podcast. Michael explains the whole concept on the Ratatouille score really well. I also spotted the chef’s hat. Are you in this podcast?
As far as I know these podcasts (about 12 of them) are only available on YouTube, and are not on the Blu-Ray edition, and definitely not on the normal 1-disc edition. I hope that it (and the rest of the podcasts) are released in a future 2-disc edition, because it would be a shame for them, and all of the other footage you mentioned that they filmed, to go to waste. If not, then I’m saving all of them to my computer and burning them onto DVD myself.
Really… that’s interesting. And you said there was about 12 of them?
I guess I completely missed them back when they came out.
Are the other ones as good? Do you happen to have the URLs? I’d like to take a look at some more of them. As with you, I might grab them and save them myself just to keep, as it looks like they won’t come out on the DVDs (even though my flv converting program is pretty bad)…
You know, it’s such a waste not to put as much “behind the scenes” stuff as you can on a disc. Even back for “The Incredibles” disc when Disney released 2-disc sets, not everything made it to that DVD. There were some different behind-the-scenes extras put on an “Incredibles” disc mailed out to people in the Industry that weren’t included later on the DVD sold in the stores (I know because an acquaintance of mine received the disc and lent it to me. Unfortunately, it’s since been given away). And for “Mission Impossible 3”, they actually bolted cameras on the walls at Sony to film all the sessions. They told us they planned to make a feature on the BluRay DVD so that at any point while watching the movie (where there was music) you could press a button and instantly see the orchestra playing and recording it. Cool feature. Never made it to the DVD.
Are you in this podcast?
Uh… sorry, “No comment.”
By the way, is Pixar doing this with Wall-E as well?
They are all pretty good, although on the short side. There is even an animation test which is hilarious, if you haven’t seen it.
Yes, it would be a shame if they didn’t even include these on the 2 disc DVD. le sigh And it’s a shame that we have to resort to getting them from the Internet + the advertisements + trailers + animation tests, abd burning our own little “extras DVD”. But I would forgive Pixar if they made longer versions of the podcasts and put them on the 2-disc.
Oh, and it might interest you that on the Blu-Ray Ratatouille DVD, there is a short documentary made by Michael Giacchino’s son called “My Dad the Composer”, which is about the scoring of Ratatouille, I think.
Oh, re-heh-eally? Do you have this disc?
Not sure yet. But I would guess so. It’s another medium to access their audience. it’s for free, and it has worked pretty well for them from a marketing perspective for Ratatouille, so I don’t see why not. It’s the way of the future, man.
Thanks for the link, I’m going to check them all out!
on the Blu-Ray Ratatouille DVD, there is a short documentary made by Michael Giacchino’s son
Yeah, at least they followed through and put that on like they were supposed to (from the beginning, it was only ever meant for the BluRay).
Oh, re-heh-eally? Do you have this disc?
No, not anymore, sorry. If I remember, rather than long Making-Of features, there were just a bunch of smaller, shorter vignettes (one of them showing the orchestra had some great shots in it, never to be seen on the for-sale DVD). But at least the for-sale Incredibles DVD still had plenty of extras, unlike Cars or Ratatouille…
Anyway, thanks for the link. I’m going to check out the other ones as well now…
Do you have this disc?