Intrada Soundtrack Forum

1/1/08

Happy new year!

Thank you all for making this last one our best ever!

Rewind to 1993. That was the year I thought just couldn't get any better. After swinging away for some eight years we finally landed a big one. TOMBSTONE. We made the posters, the newspaper ads, even the end credits of the movie. And it was a big hit! Armed with national distributors, we sold some 30,000 units. Yep. It couldn't get any better.

Or worse.

Welcome to the big time. We fought to get paid, we watched the big chains take without giving, we cringed while distributors went belly up. Our French distributor literally ripped us off for every copy we shipped over there. Nope. It couldn't get any worse.

But we kept our chins up. And because of you, we moved onwards.

Fast forward to 2007. Armed with the internet, we shipped our CDs straight to you and left the chains to fend for themselves. (And the last time I checked, some of them weren't so big anymore.)

So, thanks to all of you, we enjoyed a great 2007. We started it with a salute to Alex North and crowned it with Jerry Goldsmith's all-time scariest. Who knows? Maybe it'll be the year that can't be topped. But we'll sure try. Our first CDs for 2008 will be in stock soon and we've got another two dozen in production, scheduled all the way through this summer. (Which still leaves us fall and winter!)

Here's hoping we fill 2008 with at least something for each one of you! You've certainly earned it!

1/9/08

It's really neat to come back from lunch and find Jeff's dropped new releases on my desk to encapsule and the stack includes LAND OF THE PHAROAHS. No matter what value you put on movie music going back a half century or more and whether today's stuff is more to your liking or not, you've got to admire something that rustles up some 170 real musicians on a recording stage. When the music's this exciting, all the better! Here's to a couple of hours of dynamite Tiomkin. Thanks FSM!

Our own first release of the year's already in stock. We'll post it this coming Monday evening, like usual, with orders going out the following morning. Nearly fifty minutes of scorching action - to this listener, anyway. But I love these noisy ones!

1/12/08

There's method to the madness. It just doesn't seem like it. Judging by e-mail queries, forum discussions, customer chit chat and whatnot, people are genuinely curious about why so many current releases are limited editions. Popular thinking focuses on the small number of interested buyers. Rightly so. Narrower thinking suggests it's just about money. Soundtrack labels putting pressure on buyers to snatch stuff up before it's gone just to ensure it sells. Maybe that happens, but it's not really the reason.

I'll try to shed some light.

Rewind a few years. We started our retail store at the close of the seventies. All soundtracks and nothing but. When we finally mustered up the courage, we launched our Intrada label with a limited edition LP to RED DAWN. Remember, there was no Varese Sarabande CD club yet, no FSM nor SAE, no Silva Screen, Prometheus, BSX or La La Land, no MMM, no Perseverance... you get the idea. We were pioneers, sort of. In fact, our role model was the Entr'acte label and its spin-off series of Southern Cross special edition LPs. I guess the fellow that started Entr'acte during the early seventies, John Steven Lasher, is really the pioneer. Elmer Bernstein jumped in soon with his own label. By re-recording everything he avoided some of the costs but his intended audience was still too small to make things lucrative.

Keep in mind, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) was the key player at this time. No matter how willing a studio was to license out a recording, tremendous fees had to be paid to the AFM in order to make things happen. It didn't take rocket science to figure out that with high production costs and limited market interest, your final selling prices would have to be pretty high. So we gambled that if we made the records, you guys would subsidize them.

And many of you did.

Fast forward to a big event in 1990. After many decades, the AFM finally re-structured its fees and certain soundtracks qualified for reduced rates. It helped us all get lots of cool stuff from major labels but costs were still mostly out of reach for us limited audience labels. But there were now several of us trying to make things happen. Still, it was like what my parents said when I was growing up about how they walked two miles uphill everyday to get to school and then walked two miles uphill everyday to get back home.

But that walk finally got shorter a few years ago when the AFM established a special fee for us little guys. Suddenly all sorts of stuff became possible. New stuff, re-issues, expanded things, you name it. And the number of soundtrack labels grew. But there was still one catch. And it's a big factor in all of this today. The number of units allowed under the new AFM fee is negotiable, but can't exceed 3000. If a label is convinced that something will probably sell well, they can opt for higher fees of course and run with it. Like a smash hit new movie soundtrack or something. But, once again, it doesn't take rocket science to figure out that if you're making a 1950's Hugo Friedhofer CD, it may be cool music but you're audience is gonna be small.

The other big factor today is also pretty obvious. With so many albums coming out, no one but Bill Gates can afford them all. So you folks have to be choosy. Stuff by Jerry Goldsmith may be a priority but Friedhofer will probably have to wait. In some cases albums are limited not because of licensing restrictions but simply because they have difficulty squeezing into the market.

For our part, we just try and meet limited market demands as best as we can by selling what we've made whenever possible and moving on to another one. It's the something for everyone approach. When we can manage a SILVERADO or TOMBSTONE or RAMBO III or ALIEN or whatever, we'll try to keep it around for years to come. But for us, those are few and far between.

And so it goes with our newest CD coming out this Tuesday. 1500 copies to go around. They may disappear fast, they may sit for awhile. But either way, we'll be off and running again with another one on January 29.

See. There's method to the madness.

1/16/08

The most applause I recall ever hearing. Nope, not your response to CHATO'S LAND. I should be so lucky. I refer to Sunday afternoon, observing people doing stuff that people shouldn't be able to do.

Cirque Du Soleil. Entertainment under the bigtop. Yep. Music and dance and popcorn and crowds. And stunts. And I don't mean the Ringling Brothers, either. There was this one stunt where two guys rotated in a pair of giant treadwheels suspended by chains, hanging some hundred feet or so in the air. You got dizzy just looking up at them. Then they spun around really fast, flipped outside the wheels, hung onto the edges, even ran around on top of them as they spun. No wires! (Okay. Let's see the Intrada hamsters do that!) Another event that rocked my senses was like a CGI demonstration or something. Three women do a spectacular dance, then curve into pretzel shapes, put legs and arms underneath each other, behind each other, around each other as if joints were non-existent. Gumby's got nothing on these women. We're talking Ray Harryhausen.

Humans aren't supposed to be able to do this kind of stuff. I know this for a fact because I'm a human and I can't do it. Not even close. But I guess nobody's told these people yet because they're doing it. And for that, they get my applause anyday.

1/22/08

Really useless trivia. This last Saturday my family was occupied for the entire night so I had the whole house to myself. Okay, the pets were around but whatever. Anyway, I wanted a break from music, so I fired up our home theater and watched stuff until I couldn't keep me eyes open anymore. Then I went to bed and thought about my choices. So see if you can top this for... I don't know, total random viewing pleasure I guess:

Episode of THE FUGITIVE (Season 1). ROUSTABOUT (Elvis Presley movie). Episode of 24 (Season Four). SAW IV (on Blu-ray, so all the blood and guts were really crisp.)

I finally conked out on an action movie called RENEGADES so it doesn't really count. But how's that for random viewing... and really useless trivia?

1/25/08

As if you didn't have enough soundtracks to consider buying - and with a recession looming around here, maybe soundtracks aren't your top priority anyway - but come this Monday evening we'll post not one but two more choices for you. It never ends, does it? Sometimes I think third world countries could prop up their entire economies if they just got more involved in movie music!

Anyway, our newest Special Collection spotlights one of the greats from a legendary Oscar-winning composer. Historical film score aficionados should have a treat. 3000 copies will be available.

Our newest Signature Edition is the evocative score that David Mansfield & Van Dyke Parks wrote for Sony's recent Emmy-award winning mini-series BROKEN TRAIL, directed by Walter Hill, starring Robert Duvall, Thomas Haden Church and Greta Scacchi. Mansfield & Parks also garnered Emmy nominations for their impressive score. Nearly 72-minutes of it are on display. Only 1000 copies will be available so if you have to choose between catching the new RAMBO movie or buying this CD...

1/29/08

I'm taking a short breather during one of those ambitious projects. The composer's here, we've got mixes and remixes, multiple takes up the wazoo, you get the idea. Anyway. So I'm taking this break and checking my mail (what else?) and someone says since we're doing so many John Barry CDs now can we consider his wish list. So many? Two.

Okay, I admit. We're certainly looking into more. But he also asked what I thought made Barry so special. I pondered the question for a minute, then fired back a simple response. Simple, but one you just can't say about many movie composers.

Barry has his own voice. He doesn't sound like anyone else nor does he sound like he wants to be anyone else. Best of all, he writes gorgeous stuff! Why should he want to imitate other composers? I've heard a lot of music by a lot of other people that made me think about Barry, but I honestly can't think of any Barry score that made me think of any other people.

If you're seeking the road to greatness, I would imagine originality is a good place to start!