FlyingSerkis
Rivendell
Jan 22 2013, 5:56pm
Views: 2053
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Prologue - alternate score
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OK, so if you have the FOTR Original Soundtrack you'll have noticed that the first track, "The Prophecy", is not the music that underscores the prologue in the film, but comes from an earlier draft. Doug Adams' book The Music of the Lord of the Rings contains a CD called the Rarities Archive which has a full version of a similar early draft. I personally think that these earlier drafts have a more 'ancient' feel to them and are generally a bit more awesome. The version in the film contains quite a bit of music that sounds - to me - like it could have come straight out of Parth Galen or another of the Fellowship's adventures. However, I think there are still some great bits in the film version, and some sections which don't have corresponding sections in the earlier drafts as far as I can tell. So it occurred to me to create a sort of "mega-prologue" which includes the best bits from each version. While I was constructing this, it suddenly seemed like a great idea to make it actually synchronise with the video of the prologue. So I cut and pasted the bits of score together and made sure it made some sort of sense when playing over the visuals. Then I went one step further and actually mixed it together with the existing audio so that it could actually play on top of the visuals, Galadriel and sound effects along with it. Of course it's not absolutely as simple as all that, as the old score is present in the film audio, so I had to make the new score loud enough to drown it out. I could not always make the old score inaudible, and I also sometimes obscured some of what Galadriel was saying (and in fact I almost drowned her out right at the very beginning because I just love the music so much I wanted to turn it right up, despite the Lothlorien music being so quiet it hardly needed obscuring! ) I've put up the video I created on youtube, and I hope it doesn't get taken down for copyright... but here it is for your listening pleasure! As well as the audio issues I have already mentioned, it does have a watermark in the middle of the picture from the software I used to rip the DVD visuals. I would love it if you watched it and told me what you think. Are there any bits from the original score you miss? When we first see the Last Alliance, do you think I should have gone with the Gondor music as heard in the Rarities Archive version rather than the more Sauron-esque music from "The Prophecy"? Any bits sound really fantastic/really silly? Would you like to hear my hybrid score in isolation? If nothing else, it's an excuse to hear yet more Shore awesomeness By the way, from Gollum onwards I've just stuck with what's heard in the film, as the early versions don't really add anything IMO and in many parts are identical to the final version.
Then Manwė and Yavanna parted for that time, and Yavanna returned to Aulė; and he was in his smithy, pouring molten metal into a mould. 'Eru is bountiful,' she said. 'Now let thy children beware! For there shall walk a power in the forests whose wrath they will arouse at their peril.' 'Nonetheless they will have need of wood,' said Aulė, and he went on with his smith-work.
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