The cues I have heard all sound amazing. But I should probably stop listening to even bits of the score now, as I have a tendency to recognize motives which actually, if you can believe it, told me part of the ending of WALL•E, through only 30 second clips…
From what I have heard though, I really like the classic feel of the score, as well as for the song. I can’t wait until I can get my hands on the soundtrack and some sheet music from this movie.
Thanks for those behind-the-scenes links, miafka. They were pretty high quality, only the DVD features could top that and you’re right, they do play a lot of the score in the background there. What I’ve heard from it sounds similar to The Incredibles. I think Ratatouille was too Frenchy-Frenchy to be similar to Up. The Warner Bros. stage looks nicer than the Sony scoring stage. I really can’t wait to see the footage of the Up sessions. They did show the orchestra playing for a bit, but I couldn’t see much because the video size was small. Woah, I just realised something:Tim Simonec and Randy Newman, separated at birth?
That’s interesting about the explanation behind the fix day. It’s probably a good thing that they went and changed the music. Sometimes subtle works best.
You know, I’ve always thought that a gliss going from a low to a high note is meant to give the feeling of someone’s back going up or hairs standing up, and from a high to a low note, is meant to represent the feeling of your stomach dropping, like you’re going to be physically sick (I’ll use an example we both know: like when Colette spots the rats in the kitchen in Ratatouille). At least that’s what it makes me feel when I hear those effects used on strings.
The orchestrator really seems like one of the unsung heroes of the recording world, because they’re the ones that expand upon the music and assign parts for certain instruments. I suppose you’d be in luck if you worked on a project where that project’s orchestrator had a fondess for your specific instrument.
“Happy Birthday, Captain Michael”, he he. That was nice of the recording crew. =) Those Star Trek t-shirts look cool. Sorry, if you’ve already covered this, but how did Timothy Olyphant go with conducting the orchestra? I’ll keep an eye out for the Star Trek cue you mentioned and make sure to listen to it on the soundtrack, too.
Thanks for your updates and fascinating posts, miafka. I hope you get called up to work on the Toy Story 3 score. 
Well, with the film now out in North America, and having had a chance to see it a couple times, I can state absolutely that I think it was the right decision to re-do the cue where Carl’s house lifts up off the ground (as mentioned in the LA Times). The first version was grand and large, but in watching the movie, the lyrical version is indeed better. It’s too early in the film to “go big,” and the final, more subtle version also better matches the idea of someone floating his house away with balloons. You can hear only very tiny snippets of the original version in one of the later trailers for the movie (in the same scene, as the house is beginning its flight), but honestly, while the other way still would have worked, the final version matches the film much better.
TheIncredible: By now of course the film is out (in North America) as is the soundtrack (for download only). As I stated in the Up Soundtrack thread, I was quite disappointed to see no physical CD for this. There are mentions in the press (just today, in an LA Times article) that Michael will probably get nominated again for this score… yet no one can buy a CD of it – they can only download it.
C-3PO: Yes, it has a very classic feel. Michael really did a great job on this one. One thing to note: for the song (“Spirit of Adventure”), though it’s made to sound “old” in the mix, when you hear it in the movie (at the end of the closing credits), they also add the sound of [spoil]a needle/old scratchy record at the end[/spoil], which was a nice touch (and not heard on the soundtrack). Having seen the movie twice now, I couldn’t find any mention in the end credits as to the singer’s name, or who wrote the lyrics… but according to today’s LA Times article on Giacchino (link in the Up Soundtrack thread), Michael wrote the lyrics as well.
rachelcakes1985: The inside of Sony looks like a meat locker (it looks terrible) but they’ve left it as-is because the sound is so good. Both Fox and Warners had their stages re-done within the last 20 years, but I don’t know the last time anything was done to Sony. In the end though, it’s the sound that matters, and thankfully all three of these large stages have really good sound. By the way, the Sony stage (still sometimes referred to as “MGM”, as that’s what it was for years) is officially the “Streisand Scoring Stage.” Fox is the “Newman Scoring Stage” and Warner Bros is the “Eastwood Scoring Stage.” Tim Simonec and Randy Newman separated at birth? Well, they both can have a wicked sense of humor!
Well, now that the movie and soundtrack has come out, that’ll probably wrap up this thread (though of course if you have any questions, feel free to post them here). Between this Up Tempo thread and last year’s posts on what it was like to work on the “Wall-E” score,
pixarplanet.com/forums/viewt … ght=#65816
I hope I’ve given those interested some insight into what it’s been like to record the scores for these great projects. I work on films other than Pixar’s of course, but it’s always special to work on their films. I haven’t done them all (I don’t think anyone has), but was there for the original Toy Story (one of my first jobs!) and have seen the studio prosper while giving us all so much enjoyment. Now it’s time to sit back, relax, and see the movie. For those of you living where the movie hasn’t come out yet… just be patient. It’s worth the wait.
I don’t know whether this has been asked for, but are any of the background music from the trailers (especially that upbeat-sounding song in the teaser after the part where Carl yells 'So long, boys!" and raspberries) in the soundtrack? I really want those tracks! 
Oh, also I have one question. You said that the music in the trailer is from the soundtrack, but I never heard the entire thing after “This Summer” in the soundtrack. Was it written for the trailer, or is it just trailer music?
Well, that’s another Pixar project done. Thanks for much for keeping us updated, miafka. Your threads are one of the best at Pixar Planet, we should seriously have a Hall of Fame for threads here… Anyway, good luck with your future projects!
Not to answer for miafka, but I think the first part of one of the trailers is from Carmen (when Carl is coming down the stairs in the chair-lift). Someone said that it wasn’t, but I recalled they used another part of Carmen somewhere else in the film, or at least in one of the promotional videos. Sometimes in order to get around paying the licensing fees for using a piece of music, a very similar piece of music is composed and scored, so perhaps that’s what happened there with the Carmen-like music. Here’s a page from the soundtrack.net website, but it says that the music from the trailer(s) was original music composed by Michael Giacchino. I think it is pretty accurate because the list for the WALL-E trailer music is quite detailed and lists other various sources other than Thomas Newman. Whilst that may be true for some of the music, I think some of the other music was taken from a stock trailer music archive for Up. Such as the very beginning of the first Up teaser trailer when they go over all the previous Pixar films, I believe that was also used for another trailer for a different film, but I forget which. Or maybe it was all composed by Mikey G., who knows? I guess that doesn’t so much answer your question with 100% certainty, thedriveintheatre and Bryko614, but I would too like to know which is stock trailer music and which is original for Up.
Just one last question, then I’ll quit, I swear, but about the Star Trek screening. Did Ben Burtt attend that screening at all? Or Michael Giacchino or J.J. Abrams?
That would be Coraline. 
Yup, I use Soundtrack.net to look for a song if I don’t recognise it from the trailer. They’re pretty reliable, but since they rely on user contributions, they can be quite slow in updating. I came here hoping someone who has purchased the soundtrack can confirm whether this “Original Trailer Music” track is on the film soundtrack or available through other (legal) means. Has anyone who has listened to the entire soundtrack can confirm this? 
But thanks for the reply, Rachel!
And thanks miafka for your detailed account of the production of the soundtrack. I didn’t read all of it (I’ll wait till the release of Up here before I go over it in detail), but I’m sure the rest would appreciate your effort in sharing with us the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of the music of Pixar’s newest masterpiece.
OK, here’s the story on movie trailers. Most trailers are made way before the film is finished (which is why, more than occasionally, you’ll see scenes in a movie’s trailer that are later cut or never included in the actual movie). And when it comes to music in trailers, the problem is that there’s usually none available from the actual movie to use when the trailers need to be made. This is because music is one of the last things added to a movie (usually less than a month before a movie comes out) – and that’s way too late to use for trailers, which need to be made very early in the process, way before the film is finished. So let’s say you’re making a movie… what do you do for trailer music? Here are your choices:
(1) Hire an orchestra to record music specifically for your movie’s trailer, even though the movie is usually still being worked on, and none of the score has yet been written or recorded. This happens every once in a while if they have the budget for it. Sometimes the trailer music will be written by the composer attached to the film (we recorded a very early Star Trek trailer that Michael wrote to air during the Super Bowl almost a year before the score was recorded). But often when doing new music for trailers, the composer for the trailer is not the composer attached to the film, but usually either someone up-and-coming, or someone who specializes in writing music for movie trailers. A typical trailer session is a 1-hour call for the musicians (normal movie sessions will either be a 3-hour or 6-hour call per day with multiple days).
(2) Forget using new or unique music, and find some music already recorded to use on your trailer. This can be pop songs (like one of the initial Wall-E trailers), or more often than not, to use bits and pieces from previous movie scores. The trick here is to pick pieces of older movie scores that convey the emotions you want, and perhaps make it just a little familiar… but you don’t want people to recognize where it’s actually from. In other words, you don’t want to use “Star Wars” or “ET” because anyone listening would immediately think “Oh, that’s the Star Wars music…” and stop paying attention to the trailer. It should be a little familiar, but never recognizable. For instance, Randy Edelman’s “Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story” and especially Marc Shaiman’s “The American President” are two scores that I’ve heard lifted from for trailer music. Soundtrack fans out there will know many examples.
(3) Go to a company that specializes in providing music for trailers (but not written for any specific movie). This differs from #1 because #1 is creating new music specifically for your movie. But there are companies that write all kinds of stock (generic) trailer music that they will sell to anyone who wants to use it in their trailer. From what I understand, this is what Up did for the earlier trailers (someone put a link up somewhere to the company that provided the music). This music is never for sale to the general public (you won’t be able to buy it on a CD), it’s for sale only to film companies for them to use in trailers. They’ll have a vast library of music, and the filmmakers can pick and choose what music from a pre-existing library they think will work for their trailer.
So those are pretty much your choices. As far as Up goes, as far as I can remember, we never had any special trailer sessions. Initially for the early trailers (as someone else pointed out, I don’t have any firsthand knowledge) the music came from one of these trailer houses. For the later trailers, we had already recorded some of the music, so some of the trailer scenes used music from the movie’s earlier sessions (Pixar movies are unusual in that most of the time a few sessions are done early on, instead of everything at the last minute… so at least there was some music from the movie ready to go if they wanted to use it). So one of the late trailers that shows the house lifting up has some snippets of the original version of this cue (when it was “big”)… and if I remember right, was kind of a mix of stuff from the film and stuff not from the film. But the early trailers didn’t have anything from the film, and, as someone else pointed out, came from a trailer music house.
Yes, that’s Carmen, by Georges Bizet (actually, the Habanera from Carmen), and it’s used in the actual film (the scene where [spoil]Carl is slowly going down the stairs in his motorized chair-lift[/spoil]). Michael arranged it, but it’s basically Carmen’s Habanera. rachelcakes1985 is right that at times, composers will slightly alter a piece of music to “homage” it and avoid copyright problems while still making it recognizable to the audience… but in this case, there’s no copyright worry because Carmen was composed over 100 years ago.
about the Star Trek screening. Did Ben Burtt attend that screening at all? Or Michael Giacchino or J.J. Abrams?
Don’t know if Ben Burtt was there. Michael wasn’t, because he was probably busy working on Land of the Lost, but at one of the LotL sessions, mentioned he saw it at a midnight screening. JJ Abrams wasn’t there either, but videotaped a message that was projected before the movie began, saying he’s sorry he couldn’t make it, and thanking everyone involved in the making of the movie they’re about to see.
whether this “Original Trailer Music” track is on the film soundtrack
Generally, unless music used in a trailer is also used in a film, there’s no chance you’ll hear the trailer music on the film’s soundtrack CD. Sometimes a film’s DVD release might have one of the film’s trailers as an extra, so if you’re lucky, occasionally you might be able to hear it that way…
Thats really amaizing miafka! I’ve always wanted to compose or play the score for a pixar film when I grow up, since music is practically my life.
Out of any Pixar film the score for Up has to be my favorite. I loved how the movie’s main theme was encorporated in a lot of the movie and how all of the music went perfectly with the characters emotions.
Thanks for explanation behind trailer music, miafka. =)
thedriveintheatre - I’m not sure if this is one of the tracks you were wanting, but on the Aussie version of the Up website they have one of the tracks from the earlier trailers played as background music on the site. I’m pretty sure it’s stock trailer music (probably in existence before the Up recording sessions even began) and not written by Michael Giacchino, but if you wanted to record the music through your soundcard, or wanted a copy of that music from me, the best version of the track is on the ‘downloads’ page, with doesn’t have any sound effects, as long as you don’t scroll your mouse over anything.
Didn’t know where to ask this, so I thought this thread would be the best.
Who sings “The Spirit of Adventure”? From the soundtrack?
Thanks in advance
Hi, Simon-Simon! Turns out his name is Craig Copeland. (It was a big mystery to a lot of us!) Check out the thread linked below.
[url]The Spirit Of Adventure song.]
That thread also has a link to another thread about the Soundtrack, with more interesting info. There is also a link to some behind-the-scenes video of the recording session. I love the song!
Oh thank you so much karly05, so sorry I missed that thread! I’ll check it out right away! Thanks for the help
It can be hard to find the old threads sometimes, once they go down the page a-ways.
Not really anything new, but it’s funny, I didn’t even notice this the first two times seeing the film but noticed it today upon seeing Up once more for the 3rd time:
the orchestra personnel aren’t listed in the closing credits, but there is a line in the MUSIC credits that thanks us, saying: “Special thanks to the orchestra for bringing the music to life.” I guess that’s not so bad.
A shame most people leave during the credits; they never get a chance to hear the song at the very end of the movie.
It’s a hot day here and maybe that helped, but considering the film has been out for 3 months already, it was a pretty good crowd still for the afternoon showing (between 1/3rd and 1/2 full).
I agree with miafka. Those songs are awesome. I got goosebumps with Married Life (eventually, crying), Up With End Credits, Up With Titles, Seizing The Spirit Of Adventure, The Small Mailman Returns, The Spirit Of Adventure…err…lots of it! I guess I should write down the whole track from the movie, though!
Thanks for the music guys!
My faves are Married Life, Up with End Credits, and Up with Titles, and Carl Goes Up. Up with End Credits is the best score I’ve ever heard. It’s better on the soundtrack, there’s parts that aren’t in the movie (being the most beautiful parts, regrettably)
The whole score is so darn good.
I kept an eye out for the special orchestra message on my second viewing, and that was really nice that Pixar added in a thank you to the musicians, miafka. Maybe some people from Pixar have been reading your threads in the past where you mention that the musicians are never credited?
Shock horror! I have a question: the recording of the music used [spoil]from Carmen[/spoil] towards the beginning of Up, do you remember recording that in the Up sessions, or is that a recording pulled out of the archives? That would be cool if you did indeed record it and it does sound fresh to me. Thanks miafka!
EDIT: Nevermind, I just read above where you said that it was Michael’s arrangement, so you probably did record it in the Up sessions. Well, it sounds great anyway.
Nah, I was more after the one that plays after 1:01 in the teaser.
And I don’t know whether anyone has posted this before, but if you guys are interested, the track is Adventure of a Lifetime from trailer production house Two Steps From Hell. I’m really glad to have found it (Thanks to CraigoProductions who mentioned in the comments). Love the french horns and violins, so uplifting!
I’m so happy, this music makes me feel like flying!
Yee-uh! Thanks so much for that track, thedriveintheatre. When listening to it, it makes me want to say “So long, boys! Pfffft!” 
How’d ya find it?
EDIT: Nevermind, I just read where you found out about the trailer music production company. I should really read posts more thoroughly. Heh.
You may have stumbled onto something here… apparently Two Steps from Hell is the one-stop shop for trailer music, at least for Pixar. And LOOK here’s the music used in the WALL-E trailer, woop! I’ve been wanting to know where that music was from for such a long time. You should recognise the music used in the main WALL-E trailer in that video from 1:18 onwards. wipes tear What a great find!
Have you ever played a session for any of the TSFH recordings, miafka? They seem like they’d be just as fun to play as any movie recording… if not more fun because they are very thematically condensed pieces.