HELP!!! What's everyone with a decent sized analog mixing board doing for a stand?

there was a period there where everything had a sound but somehow everything but John Hughes movies was still really unique. Like Bucaroo Bonzai could not be mistaken for Blade Runner which is not the Eurythmics soundtrck for 1984, and yet....

One could still bring a distinctive film score to market in the 80s. I don't doubt the theory that a bajillion tracks of booming SFX, and NLE stations that emboldened every person on the production team to nitpick the edits have eroded one's ability to become the next John Williams.

last really, really interesting score was Fight Club I guess...

last really, really interesting score was Fight Club I guess...

Oh I think there are plenty of scores in the last 20 years that I'd consider really interesting, and there is certainly no shortage of talented composers working today... I'm just a child of the 80s and I miss the clear, memorable, hummable themes that became inseparable from the stories and characters they supported. Then again, maybe the themes of the Harry Potter and Avengers movies* are just as memorable to kids who grew up with them as Jaws, Star Wars, Superman The Movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Back to the Future were to me, and "great" is just whatever makes a good impression on you when you're 8 years old... but at this point I'd kill for a movie with yet another recycled batch of John Barry themes... I mean, that dude turned in fairly identical scores for King King, Out of Africa, and Dances with Wolves (over 3 different decades!) and I still think it all works, because they're good themes, and there is enough breathing room in the scenes they support to allow for some actual music.

*I chose those 2 specifically because they're also Williams and Silvestri, my point isn't that the talent pool has gotten worse... just that there is so much loud crazy @&#% going on in "fun" movies now... there's just less room for music to do its job.

the dark knight opens really strong for example and slowly but surely descended into some chord changes, really 2 chords... you thik its going somewhere, that there's a joker theme coming but there's not... and its not like Zimmer doesn't know what he's doing. GLadiator is loud, actiony and loaded with memorable themes for each character and/or locale.... he even has his big action Wagner music and that segue into Rome rom the clouds...

Team Zimmer does what it does very well, and I think for Chris Nolan, especially, they deliver exactly what is wanted by their employer and then some. I'm one of those people that had a great time seeing Interstellar in the theater, no issues with volume or dialog mix... and a mid-80s Silvestri theme wouldn't have been a fit for a movie like that, obviously. If mass-audience movies still needed clear, memorable themes, that were hummable by average folks, I am confident Team Zimmer could deliver... I just don't think there is a priority placed on crafting films in a way that could support such a thing... and given how much money movies were making without them (in the last of the before-times) I doubt many are going to course correct for the sake of good themes.

Per our fanboy praise of HBO's Watchmen last week, maybe serialized prestige shows, with their thinner FX budgets and more breathable pacing, are the new playground for tying characters to earworms?

Per our fanboy praise of HBO's Watchmen last week, maybe serialized prestige shows, with their thinner FX budgets and more breathable pacing, are the new playground for tying characters to earworms?

I think this is probably where its at.... big budget films are looking for atmospherics, tension and bombast and NOTHING MORE. Take it away and miss it, lsiten on tis own and meh.... but like GOT, Watchmen, Westworld have more defined themes.... or like Clint Mansel has gone over to TV prestige shows and is doing DC/HBO max Doom Patrol to great effect...its not that long ago he di Pi....

I'll make no bones about the fact that even though i like a lot of modern actioners and superhero movies the editing is just nauseating most of the time.... last fast paced movie I truly felt good about was Ronin and that was awhile ago.

Well said. I have nothing more to add to this film scoring tangent within a tangent, the last word is all yours. :D

Just out of curiosity, what kind of mixer were we talking about here ?

https://equipboard.com/gear_photos/9617

https://equipboard.com/gear_photos/9617

a big, heavy, vintage soundcraft one