Crusade's Music - yeah or neh

[Jobuca]

Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

Granted music, especially, is a matter of preference but I liked the music in Crusade. It seems to me that the problem that most people had with it was it wasn't your standard orchestra fare with strings, horns, etc... or the musak rock stuff they'll sometimes have in shows. Personally I give JMS credit for trying something new and I thought it worked great. Whether most people were ready to accept something that different is another story.
OK thats my opinion. discuss, refute me, etc...

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[Frizzell]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

The theme music from Crusade was definitely a departure from what the fans were used to. At first I was unsure about it, but I think my opinion was colored by the fact that we had just finished Season 5.

The music from Crusade was very different. I found that upon my second viewing of Crusade that I personally paid little or no attention to the music. There were a few scenes that I thought were overpowered by the music.

Some of the unkind comments that have been directed toward Even Chen's music have been unfortunate, because, to me, they have been on the borderline of personal attacks.

In the end, I thought that the music was ok. Do I prefer Christopher Franke's music? Yes. That is just a matter of taste, and I do not think that the music in anyway "spoiled" Crusade.

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When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in a confederacy against him.
-Jonathan Swift

 

[Mondo Londo]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

It thought the music (Evan Chen?) was... funky. From what I remember, it sure didn't let you sink into your armchair and relax -- it kinda kept you thinking. But maybe I'm reading (hearing?) too much into it.

I remember it being jarring at first, but I got conditioned to it eventually.

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"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

 

[crazybillyo]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

I vehemently disliked the aCtA music. It just didn't work.

However, Chen's music did sort of work for Crusade, even if I didn't care for it that much. Crusade was different in mood and in other things than B5, so it's fitting that the music for it would want to go along with this mood.

Given what we've seen of the Anla'shok in the past, I wouldn't hesitate to say that Franke's scores would be better suited for B5LR. The Rangers have this kind of epic theme going on, and Franke's stuff fits the bill. Crusade didn't have this (at least not of what we saw), so maybe Chen was right for it.

But I still like Franke better. His SiL stuff in particular is just mind-blowingly excellent.

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Sheridan: Are you trying to cheer me up?
Ivanova: No sir, wouldn't dream of it.
Sheridan: Good, I hate being cheered up. It's depressing.
Ivanova: So in that case we're all going to die horrible, painful, lingering deaths.
Sheridan: Thank you, I feel so much better now.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

I think the music of Crusade got way too many negative comments. It was different. In my opinion, the music seemed to fit the mood of the show.

Just because Franke's music was more "dramatic" doesn't mean that Crusade's was bad.

Look, JMS tried something new. In the end a lot of people hated the music, but I give the guy credit for trying something new and "unsafe". Maybe if Trek took up this philosophy we'd have a more interesting story.

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"Yes."

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

People forget that when Christopher Franke replaced Stuart Copeland as composer for the series (Copeland had done the original music for The Gathering) he was attacked just as vehemently as Evan Chen was for his A Call to Arms score. Many of the criticisms even sounded the same: "This isn't music." "It's that Euro techno-pop crap." "All he does is bang on things."

People don't react well to change. After a single 90 minute movie they had decided that Copeland was the one and only composer for B5. I've never heard that score, since I've never seen the original cut of The Gathering (Franke composed a new score for the re-edit, in part because many of the restored scenes had never had any music written for them.) But from some of the comments about Franke's early efforts, I gather it was closer in spirit to the kind of John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith "movie music" that people have come to associate with SF since Star Wars and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

A lot of the same people who whined about Franke when he took over the musical chores for B5 went after Chen with a vengance. And a lot of the comments didn't just verge on personal attacks, they went way over the line: like into racial slurs and death threats. (I'm not kidding.)

I thought Chen's music for ACtA was new and different, and I've come to like both it and the Crusade stuff more with repeated exposure. I also think Chen got better as a dramatic composer the longer he worked on the series - as had Franke before him. Chen especially impressed me because, prior to ACtA, he had never written a film score of any kind. A respected classical composer in his native China, Chen had walked away from a successful career to come to the United States and study jazz and other musical styles. He supported himself as a dishwasher while persuing his studies.

I think it is great that JMS took a chance on him. And Christopher Franke apparently didn't mind Chen's music. His own label, Sonic Images, released a CD of Chen compositions.

I think the whole thing was much ado about nothing. Although I'm glad that Franke will be back on Rangers, I wouldn't mind a bit if Chen was part of the deal if and when Crusade ever returns.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[bakana]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

I have to come in on the side of those who Like Chen's music. Although I did think the Mix was off in many scenes. I don't know who was responsible for the Audio Mix. It may even have been screwed up by someone not even employed by the Show.

They did have occasional problems with B5 Audio & Video during the process of Sending it to the Stations. The company that did the satellite uplinks was careless on several occasions and stuff got messed up.

There was one episode where Londo and Morden were in the garden talking and all the CGI got Removed from the scene at some point _After_ the final mix. They had to resend the episode to all the stations.



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Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[Quagmire]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

I didn't mind the Crusade music and thought it was getting better. ACtA's music doesn't bother me as much as it does others but while I understand he was just getting started I can't honestly say I like it either. I think that given time people could have become just as attached to Chen's music. Besides each time I see B5 season one I sometimes wonder what the hell Franke is doing.

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Bus
"The pink ones keep ya from screamin'." Grandpa

 

[drakh]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:
I have to come in on the side of those who Like Chen's music. Although I did think the Mix was off in many scenes. I don't know who was responsible for the Audio Mix.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Jms.

He likes loud noises.

He calls it "dynamic"

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>That was the major problem I noticed in Crusade. When the music is so loud you can't hear what the people are saying, it's a Problem. Not the sort of mistake JMS makes.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

When this happen? I can only recall one instance, a battle scene in ACtA where JMS very deliberately didn't use dialogue or much in the way of sound FX and let the music carry the sequence.

There is really only one way that anyone could or would screw with the soundmix of a complete master tape for a television show - that's by running it through an equalization process. (Anything else is to time consuming and why the hell would anyone want to?)

What JMS has mentioned is that in the early airings it seemed that Sci-Fi was running the existing Dolby Surround soundtracks through a filtering stage normally used for [non]-Dobly tracks, in effect trying to re-equalize something that had already been equalized. (I forgotten the technical details, and frankly JMS doesn't understand the technical end of this stuff very well himself, so that is a very approximate rendering of the problem.) This resulted in some muddy sound.

B5's sound design is much more sensative to this kind of treatment than most, because JMS was constantly running up to the FCC dynamic-range limits, designed to prevent the 3-inch speakes in Philco 19" TV sets from blowing out.

As for the CGI glitch that you mentioned, that did not take place after the final version went out. (Because it is pretty much impossible for technicians at a TV studio to removed CGI that is embedded in a film-to video transfer.) What happend in that (and a few other) cases is that after the show was approved another error was spotted. While fixing that last error, just prior to uplinking the show to the satellite, a technician inadvertantly reloaded an earlier version of the shot with Morden and Londo. Nobody caught it until the first time it aired. (Similarly a tech once inserted a couple of frames from another show into a B5 CGI sequence because he was playing around while waiting for a B5 scene to finish rendering, and accidently hit the "save" button when he was through.)

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[drakh]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
(Similarly a tech once inserted a couple of frames from another show into a B5 CGI sequence because he was playing around while waiting for a B5 scene to finish rendering, and accidently hit the "save" button when he was through.)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>You're confusing two incidents here... The "tech" who got bored was the season 1 rotoscope guy, who drew glowing eyes on Garibaldi in Babylon Squared. The footage from another show was a few frames of Hypernauts CGI missplaced into Messages From Earth by Fuondation Imaging.

 

[whitestar90]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

Ewen Chen didn't do it for me, Chris Franke's music seen to fit the scenes and sounded right for that particular scene whereas Ewen's seemed out of place.

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Emporer Turhan-"How will this end"
Kosh-"In fire"

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

Just thought I'd throw my two creds in. Fwiw, I'm pro-Evan Chen. In fact I bought a few copies of his "Crusade" CD to pass around so they could try it on my nickel, no risk, return if it ain't yo thang. And yes, people kept them.

I'll admit I'm attracted to off-the-wall music, but I like music that [gasp] has emotional vibrancy. It doesn't have to go boom, but something that resonates at the emotional core, I'm there.

I found all the flack Evan Chen had gotten for his work on "Crusade" ironic (not to mention OTP). I always considered Stewart Copeland's music for "The Gathering" is closer in style to that than any other. Percussive, seemingly without structure on the first hearing, mechanistic rhythms, metallic audio textures. Anyone who watched "The Equalizer" a lot would probably recognize it.

When I heard Christopher Franke was getting the music score duty, I wasn't overly thrilled. I was a fan of the Police from way back, and I'd given up on Tangerine Dream, the band CF used to be with. But I checked out a few of his solo albums and decided B5 was gonna to get a kewl new sound.

Hey, it turned out for the best. I liked Copeland's score for the pilot, but it didn't convey the sense of an epic tale in the making the way CF's music did.

Same thing with Evan Chen and "Crusade." The show was supposed to be new, alien territory. The music conveyed that. Different, a cool and wild mix of styles that didn't do what was expected.

And say what you will, but at least it wasn't another semi-Wagerian John Williams or Danny Elfman knock-off. Every bit of music in the B5 universe had its own identity. It wasn't trying to sound like anyone else.

Hell, if someone wanted clones of what's already been done, they shouldn't have gone to B5 or "Crusade" in the first place.

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Joe Medina (neargrai@aol.com)

"...that which are, we are"

[This message has been edited by Darquin (edited July 23, 2001).]

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mondo Londo:
The one that always comes to my mind is the score from The Magnifcent Seven. Of course, David Lean's incredible 1, 2, 3 combination of The Bridge on the Rive Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zivago also featured music I'll always remember. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good ones, yeah. Really memorable! Maurice Jarre's work on those especially, at least for me.

No doubt the music is there to help the story flow. But to what degree is a composer helping a project if the music competes with the story?[/QUOTE]

Cool question! Competing for attention, you mean? Music that overwhelms and distracts the audience from the movie has got to be a bad idea 99.9999 percent of the time.

And for those folks who felt that way about Evan Chen's stuff, I can understand that. It's harder to enjoy any vid if you can't get along with the music accompaniment. One of the more elusive parts of the equation, I think.

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Joe Medina (neargrai@aol.com)

"...that which are, we are"

 

[Psi-Kid]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

I personally like the music from Crusade, but its definately not Christopher Franke. Still good.

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Hippie Teeps, my one weakness.


Oh, and Mundanes Suck.

 

[Mondo Londo]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

Many of us remember scores as much as the movie or TV series from which they came. The one that always comes to my mind is the score from The Magnifcent Seven. Of course, David Lean's incredible 1, 2, 3 combination of The Bridge on the Rive Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zivago also featured music I'll always remember.

No doubt the music is there to help the story flow. But to what degree is a composer helping a project if the music competes with the story? Record sales, aside of course. It's also another Oscar to win, so it can help the story that way, too....

I don't have a position on this, just wondering...

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"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

 

[bakana]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>
B5's sound design is much more sensative to this kind of treatment than most, because JMS was constantly running up to the FCC dynamic-range limits, designed to prevent the 3-inch speakes in Philco 19" TV sets from blowing out.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just an FYI, the FCC dynamic limits have Nothing to do with blowing out Philco speakers. The only way to do That is to turn up the Volume Control on your set.

The limit is imposed for strictly Technical and Electronic reasons related to interference between Picture & Sound and to keep one station's signal from bleeding over into Another station's signal.

Morden Dat, I will not attempt to explain.



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Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[bakana]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> JMS.

He likes loud noises.

He calls it "dynamic"
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, but he _Doesn't_ usually mix the music so loud it drowns the Dialogue.
That was the major problem I noticed in Crusade. When the music is so loud you can't hear what the people are saying, it's a Problem. Not the sort of mistake JMS makes.

Which is why I think someone screwed up AFTER the mix was approved and boosted the volume on the Music.



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Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[GideonsMine]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
When this happen? I can only recall one instance, a battle scene in ACtA where JMS very deliberately didn't use dialogue or much in the way of sound FX and let the music carry the sequence.


<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks Joe. I have all thirteen episodes and am actually watching them now, at no point does the music overshadow the dialogue. There is that scene in where the fighting is going on and no dialogue is supposed to be heard, just the music and the scene.

I for one liked the music, heck even Andromeda's theme has grown on me somewhat, i wouldn't buy the stuff on a CD from Andromeda, but it isn't as annoying anymore. Suppose I have gotten used to it.

I did like Chen's music though, it was thoughtful in spots, thrilling in other spots, and genuinely fit the show.

Again, this is only my opinion but I generally preferred it to Framke's music. Both were good, but one has more "flair" to the actual scene. In a word, Chen.




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Colleen L. Stanford
Gideon's Mine, all Mine
(he just doesn't know it yet, LOL)

 

[Frizzell]

Re: Crusade\'s Music - yeah or neh

Gideonsmine:
"Flair", that is a very good way of stating it.

As far as I am concerned, Crusade is like Chen's musical baby, and if it returns, I hope that he is brought back to do the music.
The two have become interwoven in my mind.

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When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in a confederacy against him.
-Jonathan Swift