Fett101 writes:
Any guess as to what Horizons 12.2 refers to, miafka? (yeah, it’s a long shot but I’m dying to know.)
Sorry, no idea.
I picked this up recently, and I’ve really been enjoying listening to it. You can practically see scenes of the movie playing out in your head as you listen, which to me is one of the marks of a great soundtrack.
My favourites of the orchestral tracks (in no particular order than that in which they appear on the CD) are:
2185 A.D.
Eve Retrieve
The Axiom
Define Dancing
All That Love’s About
Fixing WALL•E
I do like the cardboard packaging, however I’d rather keep the CD in a proper jewel case for the most longevity; so I think I’ll be making up and printing a jewel case tray liner insert, and using the booklet as the front insert (it’s the right size to fit a standard jewel case, though I wish it had the title and stuff on it.
I finished the jewel case inlay that I mentioned in my last post, and figured I’d post it here for anyone who, like me, prefers the idea of keeping their disc in a regular case. I thought about doing a single-page version for the front with the title/etc., but the booklet works well enough and you don’t really techincally need the title on the front of CDs, anyway.
I based it off the back of the cardboard case as far as the placement of lettering, etc. goes. Since Disney flashed the BNL logo after the movie itself, I thought a BNL Records logo would be appropriate for the soundtrack, lol. I decided to go with one of my favourite images of WALL•E for the background image; fortunately I found an extremely high resolution version of it. Since I was working off the Canadian version of the CD, it has that bit about Toronto and Universal Music Canada in the legal section… I have no clue if the American copy has the same or different text.
The original is a BMP, but in the interest of bandwidth I’m posting it as a JPEG. I’ve inserted it as in image in both Neato Mediaface and Acoustica CD/DVD Labeller, and the spines match up pretty nicely. I imagine it could also just be printed on blank paper, though personally I prefer using the speciality paper with perferations/etc.
Edit (13.9.2008)… added a reverse side, since the majority of jewel cases these days use the clear disc trays, rather than dark grey. Figured a blank white sheet would look kind of boring, and also this is a way to get the title on the front. The text should be centered inside the area viewable from the front of the case. The picture is, by far, one of my favourites, and I really wish Disney had gone with this for the Region 1 DVD/Blu-Ray cover like they did in France.
AtomicGreymon - Now that’s dedication…
Lovely work! I wouldn’t mind purchasing that if it was legitimate to do so… 
– Mitch
AtomicGreymon - Nice work! “BNL Records” - I love it! The tracklisting page is so pretty.
Does anyone know why the “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” song is sung by a different person on the WALL•E game for Wii?
Also, I said this with a couple of tracks for Ratatouille, but you listen to “POYSC” and you will have to listen to “2815 AD” directly afterwards. You just can’t not listen to them in succession. Both kick-ass tracks, by the way.
And don’t even try to tell me that “The Axiom” wasn’t in some part inspired by Also Sprach Zarathustra. The second part.
I played the Wall•E PC demo an I also noticed that.
Off Topic: Is Wall•E PC any good? I’m not sure if I should buy it or not.
Rachel- I’ve actually noticed that the changing of original music has happened in other games, too. It’s quite annoying. I’m not sure why they’ve changed the singer for the WALL-E games, but it might be either something to do with copyright (though I can’t see this being a problem, since the original song was obviously used in the film, and a lot, at that) or perhaps just to ‘fit’ more with the game?
Depends on the licensing contract.
Videogame music varies depending on the project, contract, wishes of the developers, etc. But they’re always treated as completely separate projects.
So as far as the music for the Wall-E videogame, it was done completely separate than the recording sessions for the movie. It had a different composer, different contractor, smaller sized group (for the most part, made of different musicians), different pay scale, different (smaller) studio, different everything.
Videogames are treated as separate projects than the originals they’re based on. Sometimes you might hear themes from the original movie (re-recorded though – not taken from the original soundtrack), other times it will be completely new music. But they’re treated as different, separate projects. Videogame music is generally done in only one (at most two) days, and the music has to be loop friendly (since the music at some point has to repeat itself as the player sits there and plays). Most of the time the composers for the videogames are different than the original composers (even if original themes are used, it’ll often be a different composer putting them together and adding additional stuff). Not all the time, but most of the time.
Scoringsessions.com has pictures up on their website for the Wall-E videogame recording session:
scoringsessions.com/news/123/
(again, completely different project, personnel, etc. from the movie)
But nothing for the actual movie scoring sessions.
Too bad Scoringsessions.com didn’t take pictures of the Wall-E movie sessions. At least there was a video camera one day taping us, so maybe there’ll be a bit of the orchestra somewhere on the DVD’s “making of”…
PS: as far as the song goes, substituting a different singer happens as well. I’m sure it came down to the royalties required. I remember in one of the interviews with Andrew Stanton, he mentioned that he wasn’t sure they’d be able to get the rights to use the songs from Fox (who made Hello Dolly), but was surprised that Fox was accomodating. Of course royalties had to be paid, and it’s my guess that the videogame makers either didn’t have the contacts to get the OK – or (most likely), they didn’t want to have to pay the hefty royalties to use the original singer’s recording.
This tradition goes back ages. My parents had an old LP record of the “Mary Poppins” soundtrack. Julie Andrews was the one in the “Mary Poppins” movie singing, but when Disney released the soundtrack in the 1960s or 1970s on LP record, it wasn’t Julie Andrews singing… they had Marni Nixon substituting for Julie Andrews instead (to save money no doubt).
That’s really interesting, miafka, and explains the change of singer. I didn’t realise that they only took a couple of days to record a soundtrack for video games! It seems like such a tight deadline, considering how much music a video game has to have to be effective.
Yeah, thanks miafka for that info! =)
You’re probably right - it’s all about licensing, I guess. At least they got permission to use the song in the video game, even if they didn’t get to use Michael Crawford’s version. The “POYSC” version on the video game is almost as good as the original, whoever sung that song, and every time you play the game it starts with it, and if memory serves, it plays it all the way through like in the movie, just about.
I didn’t even make the connection that the WALL•E video game music was recorded in a studio, I suppose you sort of seem to forget about the music that goes into a video game. The music is not on the same level as WALL•E, but it’s actually quite enjoyable in its own right. It captures the feel of the movie quite well. Loop-friendly music makes sense, and I’ve always wondered how they get it to loop together so seamlessly in video games. Thanks for those session photos, too - the orchestra is very small, indeed.
Looking forward to seeing the behind-the-scenes of the music of the WALL•E score session, too. Bring on the DVD already!
Oh yes, I like that track a lot (the last track). It isn’t my favorite, but I usually skip Peter Gabriel and go to that track. It’s full of complex notes, certainly not meant to be melodious, and some of the notes are clearly synthesized computer-like bleeps, ending in the movie credits with Wall-E and Eve holding hands → one of the two major goals in the movie, the other is the plant theme.
And also the piano in the background of Horizon 12.2 is of WALL•E’s theme - really lovely. <3
This isn’t so much a comment about the soundtrack, but about the score… one of the things I love about the score is the recurring theme of “POYSC.” Like at the beginning of the scene where EVE is first scanning things (like the tire yard), there is a bit of the song but it is played in a somewhat dark fashion. It is just a few bars, and very subtle. Unfortunately, I don’t think that part was included on the soundtrack as it may have been too short - time for a YouTube comparison!
Also, “La Vie En Rose” should be earlier on the soundtrack - somewhere between “EVE” and “Bubble Wrap.” And “BNL” should be earlier, too, but the placement on the soundtrack is more suited to the music to do with the Axiom, but still…
Yes, Horizon 12.2 is indeed from the ending part of 2815 A.D., and might be called Wall•E’s truck theme. But after a few more listenings, I can’t decide whether the piano bars that come in strong about halfway thru Horizon are also from the track#3, which is Wall-E. Are you lumping the end of track#2 and track#3 together?
Also, you seem to have stumbled across something in the tire yard, the ‘secret’ theme imbedded in the movie, a theme that runs parallel to ‘Put on Your Sunday Clothes’ in importance (I will have to wait till Nov 18th for the dvd to discern any POYSC in the start of the tire yard scene). You’ve mentioned this Newman theme before, It is the ultra secret of Newman’s soundtrack. Only Netbug009 and maybe one other person here as figured this out, but even Netbug009 missed the fact that what you call the “holding hands recurring theme” pops up no less than 3 times during the movie, and twice during peak moments. Edit: it appears at least 5 times.
For your first question, I’ll have to get back to you on that…
Ultra secret? Heheh. I like that term. Glad to know I wasn’t going crazy. If I remember correctly, too, there might be another version of it hidden within the soundtrack/score, but I can’t remember where. The holding hands recurring theme, are you talking about the music from the track “All That Love’s About”? (The score, not the actual song with lyrics from the Hello, Dolly! movie.)
Yes, that’s the one. It’s track#24. A few people here said it was in their top 3-4 tracks, but far less than those who liked Eve and Define Dancing (which are virtually the same song, I wonder how many people noticed that; someone did mention this earlier) and far less than those who voted for Peter Gabriel’s song.
It has largely to do with being only 34 seconds long on the soundtrack. In the movie, it’s only about 7-20 some seconds during the 3 (EDIT: at least 5 by the latest count!) invocations, but I’m waiting for the DvD to confirm that. It is indeed short, elusive, mysterious. Earlier in this thread people were celebrating: “38 tracks, wowie, zowie!” But then some sober person reminded us that it meant that most tracks would be short, no matter how noteworthy. The title of track#24 does indeed come from the Hello Dolly movie, but I wonder if Newman borrowed some notes… it is so elusive, and he is so liberal in switching between the extensive panoply of musical instruments. Hard to discern.
further EDIT: well, someone just told me that in their considered, perhaps expert, opinion that this track is most likely entirely created by Newman, and not a restructuring of something else. Now five times! that perhaps matches the number of times that POYSC appears. What a beautiful gem of a tune, however brief it may be…
Well if you’re talking about the piano chords that start about 43 seconds into “Horizon”, yes, you’ve heard that theme before. Tommy does a great job of integrating the various themes together. This particular theme with the piano chords you’ve heard a few times already, notably in Track #13 (“Axiom”), about 20 seconds into it (in the same D-flat key, before modulating to C).
As for track #24, as far as I know that’s all Tommy’s (not from Hello Dolly). The title on the CD may be from the Hello Dolly movie, but don’t take CD titles too literally… they’re often thought up and named after the fact.
Actually, I always liked tracks #12 and #13 (as well as Define Dancing). Together, they encompass a lot of the movie’s themes.
There’s an additional short little article in today’s LA Times “Envelope” section (see the thread about LA Times Envelope for the other stuff) talking about the “Down to Earth” song. I’ll just type it in since it’s not online yet (perhaps in a few days). Most interesting is this quote:
The spacey sound effects of this “Wall-E” cut [“Down to Earth”] were lifted directly from Newman’s score. That was director Andrew Stanton’s directive, Newman says. “Andrew was interested in having me bring some of the music I had used in the movie to Peter, so it wouldn’t appear to just be a left turn,”
But here it is in full:
(The article talks about some of the front-runners for Best Song catagory…)
THE CROWD PLEASER
Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman’s “Down to Earth”
The spacey sound effects of this “Wall-E” cut were lifted directly from Newman’s score. That was director Andrew Stanton’s directive, Newman says. “Andrew was interested in having me bring some of the music I had used in the movie to Peter, so it wouldn’t appear to just be a left turn,” he says. But the futuristic sheen that underlies the cut received a wallop of warmth from Gabriel’s vocals, as well as the ground, gospel finale, courtesy of South Africa’s Soweto Gospel Choir. It’s largely a pair of keyboards that comprise the instrumentals, but the textures are deep enough for an orchestra. Nearly every sound, for instance, is manipulated just enough so as to note be easily identifiable. It’s all a bit out of this world."