When I write about film music, I'm always conscious of who my audience is. And often, they're not film music fans, so I'm wary of using too many "inside baseball" terms. It's like if I talk about driving a Lamborghini and mention what the hyper-globulator sounds like.
Most people who aren't mechanics would go, "what the hell is a hyper-globulator?" Well, everyone would because I made it up. It just illustrates the point that not everyone is an expert on everything. And from that, let's discuss the temp track. I asked a bunch of my followers on Twitter if they thought the concept of the temp track is common knowledge to non-film fans or even film fans, for that matter. The verdict: it probably needs explaining.
The temp track - or, to give it its scientific name, tempus tracklisti - is essentially a musical placeholder. Temp is for temporary, and track is for soundtrack. It's what filmmakers do when they cut together their film, and they want to give whoever they're showing it to, be it a prospective composer or a studio executive, an idea of what the end product should sound like. It's beneficial when it comes to mastering the rhythm of editing, and often editors will cut to the beats of the music, like Michael Kahn did for the final reel of "E.T."
There are usually two methods when it comes to creating a temp track. You either use music from anywhere, so anything from classical to any film scores as long as it fits what you want to do, or you use the music of the composer you want to hire. It usually shows that you at least have an understanding of their styles and that you really want them to work on your movie. And no one is immune; you'd think even the mighty John Williams would balk at the mere suggestion, but director Rian Johnson created a temp track of his music for "The Last Jedi," and Johnny was reportedly okay with it.
Nevertheless, the temp track can be a pandora's box of sorts and has been the cause of many heated discussions. Take Stanley Kubrick and his masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey." Kubrick hired composer Alex North to write a score for his film, but while assembling the footage, he went out and obtained a ton of classical music records to mess around with. Unfortunately for North, Kubrick preferred what he had included on the soundtrack and ditched the composer's score entirely, not even telling him before the film's premiere.
What happened to Kubrick is that he fell in love with the temp track. You can love your temp track, just don't love your temp track. He had a severe case of temp track love, although luckily, he pulled it off. Others haven't been so lucky, and sometimes sticking to the temp track or other outside influences can hurt the final film. Just think of all the times you've been watching a movie, listened to the score, and thought, "I swear I know that music." There have been cases where the composer has taken whatever was on the temp track and altered it slightly to try and make it as unique and different as possible.
Take the late James Horner, for example. For James Cameron's "Aliens," he wrote a wonderfully lonely and haunting theme that appears in the opening credits as the escape shuttle floats through space. It's beautiful, and it works perfectly for the film. The only problem is it's not strictly his music. I wonder if it was on Cameron's temp or something Horner put in himself. Still, the theme is based on the adagio from the Gayane ballet, written by Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian in 1942. Oops. Fun fact: the actual adagio is one of Kubrick's classical picks on the "2001" soundtrack.
It happened with John Williams too. People go to infinity and beyond boring everyone about how "Star Wars" rips off Holst's The Planets suite. George Lucas and editor Paul Hirsch used classical music to give Williams an idea of what they wanted, and it's in the film. The temp music they used for the scene where the droids are lost in the Dune Sea of Tatooine was the second side of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," and it's relatively close.
It only sometimes goes that well. Some composers will throw their toys out and go home at the mention of a temp track, even when it has their own music. And who can blame them? When Jerry Goldsmith went to work on "Alien," Ridley Scott and editor Terry Rawlings made a temp track that used several pieces of music from his score to John Huston's 1962 biopic "Freud." He wasn't a fan by any means and was even unhappier when three of the cues ended up in the final cut.
And then there’s the cautionary tale of one Tyler Bates. As some of you may know, Bates has scored films such as Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” and “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and for a while, scored all of Zack Snyder’s movies. And that’s where he got into trouble, specifically while scoring the gayest film ever, aka “300.” For whatever reason, Bates decided to rip off Elliot Goldenthal’s score to “Titus” and got caught, resulting in a legal notice that was posted to Warners’ website when “300” came out on DVD - see below. What probably didn’t help is that Goldenthal had previously scored films for Warners that had made a ton of money, including “Demolition Man” and “Batman Forever.”
Really, it probably comes down to a mix of stature and whether or not the director/producer/whoever wants to pick a fight. It's hard to say whether it's gotten better or worse because many composers sound the same stylistically. But really, it's what's best for the film.
Do you have any positive or negative examples of scores where they've hewed close to the temp track? Let me know in the comments.
Great articles, keep them coming. I've recently noticed that while there is a lot of attention given to scores written nowadays in pop culture — every moviegoer has thoughts on Giacchino's The Batman and Zimmer's Dune — there isn't nearly as much thought given to the art of writing music to picture and its history. How many can tell you what a spotting session is? How many average movie fans can list 3 John Barry scores for non Bond movies? Who is Elliot Goldenthal? My point is that I'm happy you're teaching people, who may have no clue, the basics of film music. Thanks.
John Debney's "Sudden Death" is distractingly close to James Newton Howard's "The Fugitive" but I still like it.