Making Music In Selznick S Hollywood

Iconic images from fiery scenes of catharsis in Gone With the Wind and Rebecca to The Third Man's decadent cinematography have proven inseparable from their accompanying melodies. From the 1910s-50s, producer David O. Selznick depended upon music to distinguish his films from his competitors'. By demonstrating music's value in film and encouraging its distribution through sheet music, concerts, radio broadcasts, and soundtrack albums, Selznick changed audiences' relationship to movie music. But what role did Selznick play in the actual music composition that distinguished his productions, and how was that music made? As the first of its kind to consider film music from the perspective of a producer, this book tells the story of the evolution of Selznick's style through the many artists whose work defined Hollywood sound.

In this biography the author interweaves the dramatic incidents of Steiner's personal life with an accessible exploration of his composing methods and experiences

"Surround sound is often mistaken as a relatively new phenomenon in cinemas, one that emerged in the 1970s with the arrival of Dolby. Making Stereo Fit shows how Hollywood studios have instead been implementing surround-sound techniques for the past century and argues that their endurance owes primarily to the long-standing economic tension between stereophonic and monophonic sound. Throughout the book, Eric Dienstfrey analyzes newly discovered archival materials, as well as a myriad of stereo releases from Hell's Angels (1930) to Get Out (2017), to examine how Hollywood's dependence on single-channel sound left filmmakers unable to fully realize the aesthetic potential of surround sound. Though studios initially experimented with stereo's unique affordances, Dienstfrey details how film sound designers eventually codified a conservative set of surround-sound conventions that prevail today, despite the arrival of more immersive technologies"--

David O. Selznick (1902–1965) was one of the most prominent film producers of the Hollywood studio era, responsible for such artistic and commercial triumphs as King Kong, David Copperfield, Anna Karenina, A Star Is Born, Gone with the Wind, Rebecca, Spellbound, and The Third Man. However, film production was not his only domain. Starting in the late 1930s, he built an impressive stable of stars within his own independent company, including Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh, Joan Fontaine, Jennifer Jones, and Gregory Peck. In Starmaker: David O. Selznick and the Production of Stars in the Hollywood Studio System, author Milan Hain reveals the mechanisms by which Selznick and his collaborators discovered and promoted new stars and describes how these personalities were marketed, whether for financial gain or symbolic recognition and prestige. Using a wide range of archival materials, the book significantly complements and reshapes our understanding of Selznick’s celebrated career by focusing on heretofore neglected aspects of his creative and business activities. It also sheds light on the US film industry during the Golden Age of Hollywood studios and in the postwar period when the established order began to break down. By structuring the book around Selznick and his role as a starmaker, Hain demonstrates that star production and development in the Hollywood studio system was a highly organized and systematic activity, though the respective strategies and procedures were often hidden from the public eye.

Film Music in the Sound Era: A Research and Information Guide offers a comprehensive bibliography of scholarship on music in sound film (1927–2017). Thematically organized sections cover historical studies, studies of musicians and filmmakers, genre studies, theory and aesthetics, and other key aspects of film music studies. Broad coverage of works from around the globe, paired with robust indexes and thorough cross-referencing, make this research guide an invaluable tool for all scholars and students investigating the intersection of music and film. This guide is published in two volumes: Volume 1: Histories, Theories, and Genres covers overviews, historical surveys, theory and criticism, studies of film genres, and case studies of individual films. Volume 2: People, Cultures, and Contexts covers individual people, social and cultural studies, studies of musical genre, pedagogy, and the industry. A complete index is included in each volume.

Film is dead! Three little words that have been heard around the world many times over the life of the cinema. Yet, some 120 years on, the old dog's ability to come up with new tricks and live another day remains as surprising and effective as ever. This book is an exploration of film's ability to escape its own 'The End' title card. It charts the history of cinema's development through a series of crises that could, should, ought to have 'ended' it. From its origins to Covid - via a series of unlikely friendships with sound, television and the internet - the book provides industry professionals, scholars and lovers of cinema with an informing and intriguing journey into the afterlife of cinema and back to the land of the living. It is also a rare collaboration between an Oscar-winning filmmaker and a film scholar, a chronicle of their attempt to bridge two worlds that have often looked at each other with as much curiosity as doubt, but that are bound by the deep love of cinema that they both share.

Four Ways of Hearing Video Game Music offers a phenomenological approach to music in video games. Drawing on past phenomenological approaches to music as well as studies of music listening in a variety of disciplines such as aesthetics and ecological psychology, author Michiel Kamp explains four main ways of hearing the same piece of music--through background, aesthetic, ludic, and semiotic hearing.

The transition from silent to synchronized sound film was one of the most dramatic transformations in cinema's history, as it radically changed the technology, practices, and aesthetics of filmmaking within a few short years. In France, debates about sound cinema were fierce and widespread. In French Musical Culture and the Coming of Sound Cinema, author Hannah Lewis argues that the debates about sound film resonated deeply within French musical culture of the early 1930s, and conversely, that discourses surrounding a range of French musical styles and genres shaped audiovisual cinematic experiments during the transition to sound. Lewis' book focuses on many of the most prominent directors and screenwriters of the period, from Luis Buñuel to Jean Vigo, as well as experiments found in lesser-known films. Additionally, Lewis examines how early sound film portrayed the diverse soundscape of early 1930s France, as filmmakers drew from the music hall, popular chanson, modernist composition, opera and operetta, and explored the importance of musical machines to depict and to shape French audiovisual culture. In this light, the author discusses the contributions of well-known composers for film alongside more popular music hall styles, all of which had a voice within the heterogeneous soundtrack of French sound cinema. By delving into this fascinating developmental period of French cinematic history, Lewis encourages readers to challenge commonly-held assumptions about how genres, media, and artistic forms relate to one another, and how these relationships are renegotiated during moments of technological change.