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James Horner at the Todd-AO Scoring Stage, CBS
Radford, Studio City |
Read more at in70mm.com The 70mm Newsletter
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Written by: Jean-Baptiste Martin, Founder of JHFM / Webmaster.
Originally
published October 20, 2014
on
jameshorner-filmmusic.com. Reprinted with permission |
Date:
28.08.2015 |
The origins of the Scoring Stage
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Picture
by Thomas Hauerslev
If you happen to carefully read the liner notes in your Horner albums, you must
have noticed the name of this recording studio several times. The composer has
indeed recorded more than forty scores there, or almost half his discography,
from Swing Kids (1992) to Deep Impact (1998) and finally The Spiderwick
Chronicles (2007). Let's go back to this historical place where the maestro's
brilliant notes sounded in thousands.
In the 1920s, producer Mack Sennett, owner of Keystone Studios, master of silent
films and the man who famously launched Charlie Chaplin's career, moved his
production facilities to a 15-hectare field in California’s San Fernando valley.
There he built a cinema studio, in an area which would come to lie at the
intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Radford Avenue. The inauguration of Studio
City took place in May 1928 and gave its name to the entire western area of Los
Angeles. After Keystone's bankruptcy in 1935, Mascot, Monogram Pictures and
Consolidated Film Corporation set up shop there and merged to create Republic
Pictures. The area was subsequently renamed Republic Studios.
It was during this period, around the end of the 1930s, that the Scoring Stage
was built. Initially destined to be a recording venue for classical music, it
was eventually used for film music. Within a few years it became a place of
considerable renown; Republic Pictures even received a special Oscar in 1945 for
setting up "an outstanding musical scoring auditorium which provides optimum
recording conditions." In 1948, the great Aaron Copland came here to record the
score he had penned for The Red Pony. During many decades, the Scoring Stage and
the surrounding studios dedicated to sound post-production were taken up by Glen
Glenn Sound, a company which did work on over 20,000 movies and television
projects.
In 1958 Republic Pictures ceased its activities and the studios were rented by
Columbia Broadcasting System, which ventured into film production. The vast lot
was renamed CBS Studio Center even before the complete ten-million-dollar
buy-out of the 28 hectares in February 1967.
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More in 70mm reading:
in70mm.com Presents: You are in the
Show with Todd-AO
Working at
Todd-AO Sound Studios
Remembering Dimitri Tiomkin
Remembering Miklós Rózsa
Internet link:
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The Todd-AO Scoring Stage
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Control
room at the
Todd-AO Scoring Stage, CBS Radford, Studio
City, October 1994. Picture by Thomas Hauerslev
In 1987, Glen Glenn Sound was acquired by Todd-AO, the largest sound
post-production company in the USA. Created in the 1950s, Todd-AO was a 70mm
film format offering then unequalled sound and picture standards. Inventor
Michael Todd (Elisabeth Taylor's husband, who passed away in 1955) had the idea
of a huge projection space and six sound tracks to surround the audience, so as
to give the audience the impression of being “inside” the pictures. The acronym
Todd-AO stems from the family name of its creator, followed by the letters of
the optical company which ran the patent, American Optical.
Three million dollars were invested in the renovation of the scoring stage in
1991. Its inauguration on 23 June 1992 marked the opening of the world’s largest
studio dedicated to the recording of film music. The hall easily seated a
150-piece orchestra. The main consultant involved in this restauration was sound
engineer Shawn Murphy. Many engineers, composers, musicians and technicians were
asked to bring in their ideas and suggestions. The place quickly became a venue
of choice for many prestigious composers; Jerry Goldsmith recorded many of his
scores there, L.A. Confidential and
Mulan among many others. Award-winning
Disney scores such as The Lion King were also recorded at Todd-AO.
For many decades, Todd-AO Scoring Stage was the place where legendary composers
brought to life countless unforgettable scores. When he arrived there in the
nineties, James Horner walked into their formidable footsteps.
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James Horner and Todd-AO
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Todd-AO
Scoring Stage, CBS Radford, Studio City, October 1994. Picture by Thomas
Hauerslev
During the eighties, the composer never recorded his scores in the same place
with the same recording team. Apart from regular collaborators Greig McRitchie
and Ian Underwood, James Horner would change editors, sound engineers and
recording stages with each new production. He recorded in such varied studios as
LA’s The Record Plant, MGM Scoring Stage in Culver City and obviously London’s
Abbey Road Studios, where he recored
Brainstorm (the album version),
Aliens, An
American Tail, Willow, The Land Before Time and Honey I Shrunk The Kids. This
veritable recording odyssey came to an end with the arrival of Jim Henrikson in
1988.
“At the completion of Willow, James asked if I would be his music editor on
future projects and I was very happy to accept. He didn’t have a staff so I
began to assume the duties of liaison between James, orchestrators, contractors,
copyists, recording facilities, and studio post-production personnel.”
Jim Henrikson (2014)
Over the course of time, the composer surrounded himself with a steady and
faithful crew, and after Todd-AO’s renovation in 1992, Horner naturally chose
this Scoring Stage as home base. The composer must have considered this as a
uniquely ideal place for his œuvre to blossom over a period of many years, the
first such place ever in fact, all the while enjoying the state-of-the-art
recording conditions offered by the famed stage. James Horner spent fifteen
years here, the output of which shines not only because of the number of scores
recorded here but especially because of the impressively continuous relationship
between the composer and the studio.
“I've been in here for 18 years, I haven't recorded in any other recording
stage in LA and when I started working here it was just like home.”
James Horner (2007)
The rare cases in which Horner was not faithful to Studio City were the ones
that prompted him to return to London, the place where he had spent his
childhood, for reasons that must have been artistic or logistic in nature, or
because the producers had set the project up that way. This explains why his
already well-established relationship with Abbey Road continued to include The
Man Without Face, Legends Of The Fall, Braveheart, Balto,
Enemy At The Gates,
Iris, The Four Feathers and many others. Lest we forget, the composer also
recorded We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story, The Pagemaster,
Back To Titanic and The
Mask Of Zorro at the magnificent Air Studios Lyndhurst Hall.
On top of its proximity to Hollywood, Todd-AO offered two more advantages that
might explain the composer’s attachment: its exceptional acoustics were on a par
with the London studios and the scoring crew, Andy Bass, Marc Gebauer, David
Marquette, Jay Selvester, all overseen by Kirsten Smith, were more than up to
the task.
“The first thing I like about the stage are the acoustics. They match most
closely the acoustics that I am used to at EMI Abbey Road studios in London. The
staff is absolutely creme de la creme.”
James Horner (2007)
Kirsten Smith fondly recalls her time at the head of the Scoring Stage:
“Best job a girl could ever ask for. To be able to come to work every day and
watch a 100+ piece orchestra play what James had written for them was pretty
amazing.”
Todd-AO offered ideal working conditions. To James Horner and his team, the
studios felt like a second home, a welcoming and pleasant place. During the
Todd-AO years, music editor Joe E. Rand used to turn up dressed in costumes that
reflected the movie project they were working on:
Says Kirsten Smith:
« Joe used to ajust his wardrobe to the project we were working on. The first
I remember was Clear And Present Danger. Joe came fully camouflaged and the
recording booth was decked out like a marine army camp. On Mighty Joe Young, he
wore a monkey suit. »
Simon Rhodes, Horner’s preferred « Tonmeister » since Deep Impact, also vividly
remembers this habit:
“On Perfect Storm, Joe turned up in a full wet suit with snorkel and mask. It
was either then or dressed as Mighty Joe Young that he conducted the orchestra
to everyone's great delight.”
So yes, James Horner recorded more than a few scores here, but it is his and his
collaborators’ deep attachment to the studio that stands out. Working at Todd-AO
proved to be so much fun that all involved ended up collecting studio
paraphernalia over the course of the many recording sessions :
“James had accumulated some pretty cool stuff (i.e. cool toys!) that they
stored behind the screen and laid out whenever we were working there. They would
amuse and bemuse all who visited in equal measures but the lava lamps would
always be calming. James would get the studio technical engineer, Marc Gebauer,
to modify and improve some of the electrical ones. My personal favorite was a
tiny hand that permanently rested on the main fader of the desk. That never got
put away.”
In 2006, the CBS executives asked James Horner to record at Todd-AO a signature
tune for CBS Evening News With Katie Couric. As irony would have it, one year
later these same executives decided not to renew the lease, which forced Todd-AO
to close down and put an end to sixty years of film music activity. When he
recorded The Spiderwick Chronicles, James Horner reportedly stated:
“I'm devastated! This place is gone. It's a huge loss”
Fortunately, the story of the Maestro’s music is far from over…
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