Editing and the score of TLJ

I'm not sure how common it is off the top of my head, but I know I've heard of it before. I love this approach, though. Music, even in Star Wars, has a tendency to be vastly under-appreciated. I'm glad that isn't the case here; hopefully, the whole narrative will shine a little more brightly as a result.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if John Williams has been working on both Episode 8 and 9 scores simultaneously. Giving, RJ is writing Episode 9.

 

He posted a tweet recently that he had a temp score for a rough cut of TLJ made solely out of previous Williams music, in vast majority coming from Star Wars.

Rian also recently confirmed he's in no way involved in Epiosde IX's script.

 

They do it on Guadians of the Galaxy as well. Even before actually, they play not only the songs from the awesome mix but also the score while shooting the movie. So sometimes the actors wear earbuds to hear the music while acting the scene out- that way they still get to record dialogue.

 

Uncommon to my knowledge and such an approach is relatively unheard with regards to a modern Hollywood blockbuster. It would be interesting to know if/when TPTB sometimes choose to "hero" the score over the pacing of an initial screenplay edit though. (I know some bands e.g.Tool have utilised a similar technique to much success in songwriting by writing the music first and adding the lyrics to the pacing of the musical arrangment.)

Although the space-opera genre relies on a music heavy soundtrack and JW's scores are always very dominant in the mix, film is still a predominantly a visual medium. When studying audio production we were always taught the aim of a film score was to support and add to the story first and foremost and the standard rule was that a soundtrack should never dominate/detract from the visuals.

Whatever the case of the creative decisions for the TLJ, due to the nature of the film-making process and the fact the sound and visuals should dovetail together to provide a coherent narrative, both will always require some degree of further editing in post production in order to marry the two in a pleasing and effective way.

 

You know the ROCK group Metallica actually does this. They create the music and then they build the lyrics around it. Sometimes it works and sometime it doesn't. If this is true, I am interested to see where this goes.

 

I mostly film and edit wedding films for a living. I always choose the music first and build the story around that.

 

there are only two movies that i am aware of that did things according to the music and that's the last part of E.T. and Guardians of the Galaxy. I personally think that if RJ does it right it might be as spectacular as that last scene in E.T. The question remains.........Can the visuals live up to the Music?

 

It was done with multiple Spielberg films and a more recent and succesful example is the Battlestar Galactica reboot series. In the last case, the score even became a quintessential part of the story.