Hi guys, I’m very sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for a while. I was delayed. Actually, I was recovering from surgery and in my slow moving, foggy state was trying to dedicate my clearer hours to getting work done. My inbox has got some nasty cobwebs on it, but I promise I’ll get back to all of you who have written in the past weeks. Ok, so let me try to address a couple of questions: Q: Is the box set still coming out? A: Yes, yes and yes. Q: Will it begin coming out soon? A: Yes. Q: When? A: I can’t say. Sorry. It’ll start later this year. The first release date is tentatively set, don’t fret. Q: Will it include all the music? A: Yes, essentially. It will contain every piece of music heard in the DVD cut of the film. Q: Wait, “essentially”? What’s that supposed to mean? A: Not much, relax. It’s possible that if composition X contains a phrase of 5/4 Isengard percussion music seven times in a row, they may trim it to three to create a more sensible musical experience. But, even these decisions are not absolutely finalized, so it’s possibly a moot point. The bottom line is this: If a piece of music appears in the DVD cut of Lord of the Rings, it will be on CD. If a piece of music was written for the Lord of the Rings and not used, it will be on CD. If a piece of music was written and used in Lord of the Rings but slightly edited in the film, the piece of music as originally composed, performed and recorded, will be on CD. Q: But rumors have been floating around for so long about this being left out of that left out, are you sure? A: Yes. There is a reason for the cageyness exhibited elsewhere in this thread, but it really deals with HOW the music is being released, not WHAT is being released. And I’m sure that sounds portentous as well, but I promise, there’s not call for concern. I heard the rough assembly for Fellowship when I was in NY a couple of weeks back. It was all there and it was an absolutely jaw-droppingly amazing listening experience – completely different than listening to the single disc release. There’s a breadth to the writing score that I think can only be absorbed in this format. It completely envelops the listener in the narrative while highlighting the development and heart that’s made this such a unique endeavor from the start. Despite the fact that I’ve spent a healthy portion of the last few years surrounded by Lord of the Rings music, I was knocked over. It was so engrossing, in fact, that I was even able to ignore the pages of Shore’s Kong sketches sitting on the stand next to me! Well, mostly… Q: Why is this thing taking so long? A: Well, let’s pretend for a minute that Shore and his staff have no other projects right now. So we’ll ignore History of Violence, Sun, Kong a Julliard choral commission and The Fly opera just for the sake of argument. We’ll also skip over the miles of red tape involved in putting a set of this magnitude out. Pretend that no one ever had to shop this project around to get the right producers in place, make sure there was proper time to edit, mix and prepare the physical product – packaging, artwork etc. There’s still the issue of finding the right time to release more Lord of the Rings music. I know some people are complaining that it looks like Warners is double dipping here with the standard releases only a few years in the past, and I’ll talk about that in a second. But the fact of the matter is that in the past four years, fans have sunk a lot of cash into Lord of the Rings – and a sizeable portion of that as gone to CDs. If you turn around and release a CD set just a few months after the one disc Return of the King, you have to deal with a general audience that’s either annoyed, slightly confused about the difference, or simply ready to focus on something else for a while. Bad timing is a sales killer, and believe it or not, putting out this music does not come without a certain investment that needs to be recouped. Q: Get back to that “double dipping” thing. A: As for the double dipping, I know the complaint exists that the full scores should have been released in the first place instead of the single CD editions currently out. (Again, we’ll ignore the financial implications of the niche market who generally buys soundtrack CDs in the first place…) But, you have to remember that the music for each Lord of the Rings film was recorded in the late summer / early fall before the respective film’s release, and then again in March / April for additional DVD material. Do you put out two discs in December, then another in May? Do you release everything in May and hope that the film’s release and awards momentum has lased 5 months past the original release? Do you just skip the DVD music and hope fans won’t notice that 40+ minutes are missing off a “complete” release? And I’ll say again, all this is secondary to the fact that there’s no way a 3 disc set of music available at the time of a film’s release is going to sell to the general public the way a single CD will. It’s not that I’m insulting a general audience’s listening acumen or intelligence, it’s simply a case of what the market will bear. The makers were very up front right off the bat – right after it was clear that Fellowship was a smash. They let us know the rest of the music would be out someday. If consumers wanted to wait until that future point to get the music, they were able to do so. Q: What about the Music of the Lord of the Rings Films book you’ve been mention for years? A: It’s coming, too. It will be tied to the CDs somehow, and will begin coming out at the same time. That’s about all I can say for now. I’ve got a big deadline coming up soon, so I’m getting ready for crunch time! I’ll be giving a little preview of the text in Orlando, FL sometime in August (I forget the weekend), so if you’re really anxious…! Q: So wait, if you’re doing something along with this release, and you’re talking about how good it is, why should we trust you? Aren’t you just a big shill at this point? A: I don’t know. Maybe I am a shill now, but I hope not. I’m new to this stuff so I haven’t yet mastered the skill of talking up something that I’m genuinely proud of and excited to share with people without sounding like some back alley huckster. I made my first trip to Shore’s office less than a month after the release of Fellowship. In some form or another, this project has been gestating since then. This is a true labor of love for a lot of people. There will always be those who say why didn’t you do this or that, but I’m learning that’s the nature of the beast. It’s funny the distrust that you generate when you work behind closed curtains, but often that’s what’s necessary. If I’d decided to pop the cork this time last year and start making unofficial announcements (and we’ll ignore something one last time here, pretending that I wouldn’t have been sued into the Stone Age!), I’d have been announcing something completely different. In the effort to create an uncompromised product that meets the expectations of creators, listeners and suits, things take a while.

Gillossen,vendredi 29 juillet 2005, 14:26 a écrit :Les réunions s'intensifient, les communiqués de presse officiels ne devraient vraiment plus tarder du tout apparemment...