NarniaFans Mailbag #40: Douglas Gresham on Lewis’ inspiration for Lucy Pevensie; Film Scores

The last two weeks have been some of the busiest weeks I’ve had since re-launching the mailbag. Last week, in fact, was so busy that I didn’t get a chance to do the mailbag. I usually do it on Wednesdays, but there was something important that came up last week. You see, there was a movie that came out that has made nearly a half of a billion dollars worldwide, so far. Being a child of the 80s, I had to see it. Twice. On opening day. Yes, I am a geek, and no, I don’t recommend this movie for children to see. But I won’t be reviewing it entirely unless I am asked to write further on it, the film is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and I loved it. Not every minute, but I thought it was great overall.

Now for an update that many of you asked me to give. For those that didn’t know, my sister was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and was to have surgery this week. The surgery lasted twice as long as the doctors had anticipated, and they wound up taking the entire thyroid out. Apparently she isn’t entirely in the clear, as of yet; but she’ll be having radioactive iodine treatments soon that should take care of the rest. Prayers are welcome. She also has a convent of 250 nuns praying for her. She plans on entering the convent this fall.

We’ve got some great letters this week, so let’s get to it.

Q: In the LWW Extended Edition, on disk 4 (Visualizing LWW, The Complete Production Experience) Douglas Gresham states that when Jack and Warnie were living at the Kilns during WWII, several children were sent to live with them, and that one of them was the basis for the character of Lucy Pevensie, and that she became a well-known actress in England, and was still alive today.

Anybody know who he’s talking about?

-Islandgeek

Paul: I went straight to the source on this one, and got word directly from Mr. Gresham himself!

Douglas Gresham: The girl who was the model for Lucy was June Flewett, later to be known as Lady June Freud when her husband Clement Freud (Grandson of Sigmund Freud) was knighted. He died just a couple of weeks ago. June was an evacuee at The Kilns, and later volunteered to stay on there to help out.

Q: I was wondering if Harry Gregson-Williams was doing the soundtrack for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader film? I feel like I heard somewhere that he isn’t, since it has been taken over by Fox. If then he isn’t doing the soundtrack does that mean that all new music (with no recurring themes) would have to be created? I’m not sure if there are copyright issues there..?

Thanks!

~Marie

P.S. I thought of this question because I know that when a new composer did the soundtrack for the new Pirates of the Caribbean the old music was copyrighted and he couldn’t even use the old themes anywhere on the soundtrack.

Paul: Great question Marie, though this one is going to take some time for me to answer. Bear with me as I expound upon my knowledge of the film soundtracks to which you are referring.

Long ago, David Arnold was announced to be the composer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Harry Gregson-Williams won’t be back for this film, but that doesn’t mean that his themes won’t be reprised in some way. I don’t believe there are copyright issues, as the Narnia franchise isn’t Disney’s, it’s Walden Media’s; and Walden Media is still on the project.

When it came to the soundtrack for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, which was attributed to Klaus Badelt, it turns out that is a slightly misleading. There was actually a team of composers behind the soundtrack of the first Pirates film, and all of them did so as part of Hans Zimmer’s Media Ventures. Ramin Djawadi, James Dooley, Nick Glennie-Smith, Steve Jablonsky, Blake Neely, James McKee Smith, and Geoff Zanelli each composed snippets of music for the score. Klaus Badelt served as the music supervisor on the project, with Hans Zimmer acting as over-producer. Zimmer, himself, couldn’t take credit for having composed the score, because of an agreement with with another studio at the time.

Side note before I move on to the next film in that series: Alan Silvestri was the original composer on Curse of the Black Pearl, but his score didn’t match what producer Jerry Bruckheimer had in mind for the music. The movie’s score was written from the ground up by Media Ventures at a break-neck speed, with only two or three weeks to complete. They started with stock-music that Media Ventures already had, and built on that to complete the score.

Now, for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Hans Zimmer had far more time to actually work on the score. He wrote themes for characters like Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones, as well as the Kraken. In much the same way that Prince Caspian had his own theme that didn’t appear in the first film, Davy Jones had his. There were rehashes of musical ques from the first film in both of the sequels, but Zimmer wanted to create defined themes.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End did the same thing, expanding themes established in the first two films, while also establishing some new ones, such as the Will Turner / Elizabeth Swann love theme.

As you can see, it was never a case of copyright infringement. It could never be, as the same company and composer worked on all three films. What you witnessed was a progression. Think of it like a favorite band. A band such as Skillet or Relient K. Every album they release sounds like them, but it’s new music. If all they did was change the lyrics, but not much else, they’d be Nickelback. And that gets very boring, the more it is done.

There are many great examples of things like this throughout the film world. The Lord of the Rings is an obvious example, as it’s quite possibly the greatest music written for film in the history of the motion picture. But one film series in particular always starts the same, but different: Star Wars. John Williams will even tell you, the theme music that plays over the opening crawl is different for each film. He uses different instruments to emphasize different emotions for each film. It’s very subtle, yes, but it is intentional.

A good example to look at, though, is the Harry Potter series. John Williams was acting composer in the series for the first three films. The theme has been used, though, in all films since. The same will likely be true of Narnia, though each book is entirely different from the last, so it’ll probably sound pretty different each time.

And that’s all that I have time for, this week. I have a lot of projects to finish tomorrow, so I need some sleep! Contact us with your questions!