Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Thanks to Neil for pointing the way to this thread.

For years Titanic was always thought to be near impossible to achieve an expansion. The same reasons kept coming up like 'Sony doesn't want to license it' and 'it's too expensive because of the success of the OST', and even some speculation that because James Horner personally earned a percentage of the score's album sales, that also played a part. If the word 'unexpandable' was real, Titanic would have fit the bill.

Then it happened. We were floored. It was a stellar package, tastefully and respectfully done.

All we know is that according to LLL at the time of the release last year, they said Braveheart seemed to pave the way for it. So many details are discussed about the many John Williams albums, but this score is just as deserving of an insider's peek into how it came to be.

I'm sure many of us even beyond this board would love to know.

Thanks!

Nick, I wasn't really privy to those discussions. I first heard about Titanic happening at the 2016 LLL holiday party. I didn't know if I'd be working on it or not, but was hopeful. I worked with Mike Matessino on assembling it from the original 6-track mixes. I had to determine the material used on the album and those edits as well as study the manuscripts for the appropriate cue titles. As you can imagine, there was a lot of data on this one.

It was daunting because like so many other James Cameron films, what was recorded and intended is usually not what wound up in the film. I had the film edit sessions and they were a mess of cues cobbled together. It was handy for take selection in cases of intercuts, but that's about it. We decided, as we usually do, that it was best to go with the composers intentions and not how the score wound up in the movie. The final album is my playlist with few tweaks made to it.

I was working on this and Die Another Day concurrently and amused myself once when I realized I was working on two movies featuring icebergs.

James' intended score was of course the way to go, as you said, what was recorded and intended is so often not what ends up in the final product, and James' music of course ended up a batch of sonic confetti three times over.

I have to say, that you got to work with the score in its 5.1 configuration makes me more than a little envious, as that 1998 DTS 5.1 CD and subsequent SACD release was something of a revelation and a fascination, because it showed just how unique the score's mixing and production was with regard to all of the heavy synth usage, two examples being the sparse orchestral presence for the celebratory cues of snare drum, bell, chimes and woodwinds for a cue like "Southampton", and that there was the curious decision to essentially duplicate the synthesized choir in the front channels, to the rear channels, so when the music was mixed down (something I had fun experimenting with over the years), the choir would end up out of phase. Invert one pair of channels and the choir disappears or loses some of the notes. As an audio novice, it was a lot of fun to experiment with sound in that way, and enjoy it in its unique configurations.

It's a shame 5.1 albums are a niche-of-a-niche, because to get to hear those intended versions of 'Southampton' and 'Leaving Port' in surround sound would be a dream come true to say the least. So sad the market isn't there for multichannel music, even digitally.

It was an honor to get to review / analyze the album for the James Horner Film Music website. I even followed it up with an article detailing the (many) re-releases of the original album over the years leading up to it.

Yes, the many John Williams albums over the course of time have been treasures for many, but James Horner's Titanic 4-disc set was and always will be extra special to me. Something I cherish and remain so very grateful for.


Cheers.