INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MATESSINO AND NICK REDMAN 5th JULY

The re-mastered soundtrack featuring the entire Superman score will be out on 15 Feb 2000.
As a special treat for fans this interview has been brought forward, originally scheduled for release on 17th August (the original release date for the CD Set).

Questions by Scott Hanson, Hiphats and GandalfDC

1. [ Mike M ] As you know, fans on the internet campaigned for about a full year before any definite word was given for a remastered and expanded "Superman" score to finally be released. In fact, in the beginning, John Williams was contacted by myself (Scott Hanson) in person to become involved in making something happen for the 20th Anniversary of his score, but we didn't hear much from his or his agency's end. What exactly was it that brought the "Superman" score to your attention for a re-release? Did the fans' campaign have anything to do with it, and additionally, did you hear from John Williams at all concerning the issue?

Nick Redman and I were talking about an expanded SUPERMAN for a while, even while we were finishing up the STAR WARS Trilogy if I remember correctly. We both love John Williams scores and in particular his shining period from the mid-70's to the mid-80's, so with RAIDERS and the STAR WARS Trilogy tackled, and on-going conversations with Lucasfilm about INDIANA JONES continuing, we talked about the other expandable scores of the period. We did Goldsmith's POLTERGEIST together, and made a big pitch to get CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, which we ultimately lost. Finally, it was the Warner/MGM deal, which gave Rhino access to the Warner catalog, that made SUPERMAN happen. It really wasn't anything to do with the anniversary, the VarÈse release, the rumoured film restoration, or even the campaign letters, really. All of these things made it easier to sell Rhino on the idea, and the campaign did, I think, allay their hesitation about doing it. We did not have any contact with John Williams at all, so we have no official word on what he thinks about it.

2. [ Mike M ] It has been said (though unconfirmed) that John Williams has vetoed an expansion and re-release of his Oscar©-winning "Jaws" score. How does Williams feel about "Superman" being given the golden treatment?

He did sign off on the isolated music track for the JAWS laserdisc, but it came in too late for them to do it. Hopefully it will happen when the title comes out on DVD.
Having no contact with composers is more or less our policy. Our experience is that, with all respect, artists are not necessarily the best judges of their own work, so we go ahead with assembling the release, and then have the composer sign off on it if he needs to or wants to. If a composer wants to be involved fully, they know where to find us, believe me!
Our only contact with Mr. Williams on STAR WARS was in the recording and re-mixing of "Victory Celebration," at which Nick Redman was present. That was all Mr. Williams was concerned with at the time. Now, we can make assumptions about how he "feels" about these sort of expansion projects based on the fact that he was involved with E.T. and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, and those were as laconically chronological as single CD's could get. However, there were dissatisfying qualities on both, which could perhaps have been addressed if the projects were done differently. Neither of them sold well, and much of the original E.T. album is now erased from existence. So it's all a matter of doing what's best for the project from an objective standpoint.

When Williams gets involved, so do a whole throng of agents and representatives which can bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. He was sought out for an interview on RAIDERS, but only after work on the music was finished. On STAR WARS, we had some peripheral contact with his agents, but he did not come forward with any requests. But why should he? The RCA Special Edition STAR WARS CD's generated, for him personally, at least one million dollars. But I think it says a lot about the gentlemen when you see him turn around and give a one million dollar donation to the Arts Society of Boston or something like that. If we put something together that was offensive, I'm sure we'd hear from him and be kept from doing additional projects, but we are quite satisfied with his silent but continuing support.

An example of how things can go otherwise is that on POLTERGEIST we went ahead and assembled the complete score chronologically, including outtakes, without involving Jerry Goldsmith. However, the people involved in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE chose to make him part of it, and he in turn vetoed several tracks for inclusion on the expanded release. Goldsmith is more outspoken than Williams and voiced a few good-natured grumblings about some of the tracks on POLTERGEIST, but the fact is that the complete score for that film is available, where much of STAR TREK remains unreleased.

3. [ Mike M ] For the "Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition" soundtracks done in 1997, a few elements from "Return of the Jedi" could not be found. Does the final content of this 2 CD set include the full score for "Superman" as written by John Williams, or are there still some cues yet to be discovered in the Warner Brothers vaults? How much music will remain unreleased?

That was really a shame about JEDI, because the album master is the only known source for the concert suites and things like the revised sail-barge action sequence. With SUPERMAN, we did need to make use of the album master, but all of the orchestral background score will be on this release including material that wasn't used (some of which was restored for the long television version). The challenging thing on this project was that the only material in existence was tracks for the film itself, so any alternate underscore pieces do not exist because the raw scoring session reels were either destroyed or sent somewhere that we can't find them. This is a shame, since we do have evidence that a few alternates were recorded.

Williams wrote and recorded some sections of source music for things like car radios, etc., which can be heard in the television version. In the feature version they were replaced with existing pop songs. We didn't include these bits because they were incomplete short segments that matched the film. We are including one substantial piece of source music, however, and some interesting alternates of the main themes. So basically we're putting out everything we can, filling up two full CD's to do it.

4. [ Mike M ] Conflicting reports during the campaigning process found that the original masters for this music had been lost in the Warner Archives (which, again reportedly, was part of the reason why VarËse Sarabande took the liberty of a new recording). Is this true? In what shape did you find the material in after sitting in storage for 20 years?

Warner Brothers conducted a thorough worldwide search for any available material on SUPERMAN for a possible future film restoration and what they found were the reels used to mix the film, mix-down elements for the TV version, and a few assorted bits and trims. So yes, the original recording session tapes still seem to be at large. I don't think VarÈse's project had anything to do with this, other than to attempt to corner a niche market, since it looked like an official release wasn't going to happen. For a long time we didn't hear anything, and finally we were told that this material turned up at Pinewood Studios in England, where the film was mixed. It was all sent to the States for transfer. Physically it looked questionable, but far better than some of the elements we've encountered on other projects. However, they played acceptably well. Warner Brothers transferred all the material to safety stock and made digital eight-track tapes for us. The quality was usable throughout but not always consistent aesthetically. There were also the usual pops and drop-outs that I addressed but overall it was easy to work with because I knew what I was listening for.

5. [ Mike M ] Have any of the track names that we are now familiar with been changed? Which ones, and why?

We are carrying over all of the track titles from the original album for purposes of convenience and for clarity with the publisher. But some of the previously unreleased cues have titles which are different from the VarÈse release and from the generic titles that have become more or less accepted by people who are familiar with the score. For example, the cue which was called 'To the Lair' on the cue sheets and on the VarÈse release is now called 'Sonic Greeting' Rhino wanted to make sure that this release is noticeably different from VarÈses.

6. [ Mike M ] How many concert versions, unused tracks and different takes will appear on this new release?

The 'Love Theme' was written as a concert version, but got used in the movie only because the end credits were so long. So we have that and also 'The March of the Villains.' We have an alternate version of the Superman March, which is actually the source of the fanfare which opened the original album. It's really neat. I also kept (as a bonus track) the combination of this fanfare with the 'Main Title March' which is familiar as a concert arrangement. In retrospect I regret not adding a bonus track to STAR WARS of the familiar main/end title combination. There's also 'The Flying Sequence' presented both with and without Margot Kidder's vocal, and two other alternates that I'd like to save as a surprise.

7. [ Nick Redman ] You have done some remarkable work on the MGM/Turner soundtracks for Rhino in the past, not to mention RCA Victor's "Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition" CDs. In comparison to your past work, how challenging have you found your work on the restoration of "Superman" to be?

This was more challenging for me in the sense of getting the project to go in the first place. We went down many dead ends before Rhino came to the rescue. In this case, because Mike is so skilled at what he does, I tended to concern myself more with the ìdeal, the nuts and bolts of keeping the project on schedule and budget. It's very refreshing for me to work with Mike because he's one of the few people I can let get on with taking care of the assembly and editing, knowing that it will be done properly. SUPERMAN was challenging in the album's construction, and with Mike's detailed knowledge of John Williams' work, he is able to deal systematically with each problem as it arises. With the STAR WARS Trilogy we had much more time and a far larger budget, so the challenge of SUPERMAN was in doing a comparable job, with little or no margin for error. I feel no one but Mike could have accomplished what we did under the circumstances.

8. [ Nick Redman ] What got you interested in doing motion picture soundtracks in the first place?

About twelve years ago I was in Los Angeles researching a documentary for British TV on movie music. I met agent Richard Kraft and his brother David, who were very helpful and supportive. Ultimately, the documentary was never made, but David used to bug me to get more involved with film scores. Previously, I had just been a consumer of soundtracks and had no thought of doing albums. A little while later I met Bruce Kimmel, who was in the process of forming Bay Cities, so I agreed to help out. I didnít realise that it would become a more-or-less permanent adjunct to my other activities, but Iím glad it did as it has opened up a world of experience in a very interesting field.

9. [ Nick Redman ] Have you ever met John Williams personally?

Yes, I have, although mostly in social situations. The only direct experience I have of working with him is during November and December 1996, for the recording and mixing sessions of 'Victory Celebration' for the Special Edition of RETURN OF THE JEDI. Having been a fan of his for twenty-five years it was both exhilarating and a bit nerve-wracking. The mix was held at Todd-AO in Studio City and only John Williams, Shawn Murphy, Ken Wannberg, and myself attended. It was fascinating to watch them work in such intimate close quarters, and although I was not there to make any specific contribution, Mr. Williams was a pains to ask me questions and solicit my opinion when he really had no need to. Watching him work I was flooded with memories of all the times I had sat in cinemas listening to his music, and now he was asking me what I thought! It made the whole thing an unforgettable experience for me. The last time I spoke to him in person was at the opening of the Newman Recording Stage at 20th Century Fox over a year later. He had just received his gold disc for the STAR WARS Special Edition and Lukas Kendall and I asked him what he thought. He allowed that the Special Edition CD's had 'turned out quite well' Mr. Williams and his music occupies a special place in my heart.

10. [ Nick Redman ] Where do you place John Williams' "Superman" score in your own levels of appreciation? Do you consider it to be one of your favorites?

I have to confess that I'm not overly fond of the film. I remember seeing it on a dismal, wet London night with a girl that I was about to break up with, and it was all very depressing. Over the years, the film still doesnít impress me, perhaps because of its horrible home video history. I donít even own the ugly laserdisc. Maybe if Warners ever do get around to a DVD restoration I'll like it for the first time. As far as the score is concerned, well it's Williams during his golden period. He seemed to be able to do no wrong in the late 1970's and SUPERMAN contains many moments of vintage Williams. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is my absolute favorite Williams score and it broke our hearts when we failed to secure the job of restoring it. Iím very glad though that it now exists in complete form.

11. [ Nick Redman ] Is it no surprise to you that people still think of the "Superman" score as being synonymous with the character?

I've never really thought about that. But I guess it must be true. I think it may be due to the fact that a composer like John Williams, who is probably the most famous composer on planet Earth, lent his music to it, and thus it becomes ìdefinitive.î In our pop-culture world, the biggest becomes the most popular, and therefore imprinted on the cultural consciousness. I donít believe any film composer prior to Williams has enjoyed his level of mass popularity. The only person who even comes close is Henry Mancini, and that is predominantly for songs. Every time Mr. Williams raises his baton he is potentially contributing to popular mythology, and with that I suppose, goes a considerable measure of responsibility.

12. [ Mike M ] Upon working on this new "Superman" soundtrack release, how does the quality of this new CD set compare with the current existing Warner soundtrack (both domestic and Japanese), or even last year's VarËse Sarabande re-recording?

On each of the projects, we bring in what ever we learned on the previous ones. One lesson we learned is to not underestimate the usefulness of the original album master. In the case of THE KING AND I, we discovered that actual master tape from Capitol/EMI sounded much, much better than the CD's. So for SUPERMAN, the very first thing we did was call in the album master from Warner Brothers Records. It sounded far superior to both domestic and Japanese CD's; we almost couldn't believe it. Before doing anything else we re-mastered the album in order to provide a clear reference of what the music should sound like in terms of mix and separation. In some instances the album master sounded better than our new material, so we mixed and matched, with a great degree of success, I think.

13. [ Mike M ] This new release will no doubt contain cues never before released on CD. Will these "new" cues catch people by surprise, especially those who have not seen the expanded versions?

Almost every track on the new CD is new or has something different from the original album. When you change something people have been used to hearing for twenty years, it is always a bit surprising, but in this case I believe it will be very easy to get used to after a few listens. Some sections, like the restored portions of "Destruction of Krypton" and "Fortress of Solitude" will be pleasantly surprising, as will be the last forty seconds of "Welcome to Metropolis" which were not used in any version of the movie. But all of it will be thrilling because of the improvement in sound quality.

14. [ Mike M ] You have an incredible "track record" on your work with supplementary sections of video and CD re-releases, such as the 30th Anniversary LaserDisc of "The Sound Of Music", the forthcoming "Alien" DVD, and now the new Rhino "Superman" release. What kind of work goes into doing this sort of thing?

That's tough to answer in any concise way. On all the titles you mentioned, I was dealing with films that I loved and knew intimately, so to a degree that carried me through them. So with this kind of encyclopedic knowledge as a foundation I can then jump into months of negotiations, paperwork, interviews, travel, research, writing, editing, not to mention the creative, financial, and technical battles that always come up. It usually involves a lot of all-night work, because I work best when the momentum is strong. With audio work like SUPERMAN, it is better technically to keep going for long stretches, because once your hearing is tuned in to what it should sound like, you can jeopardize the consistency if you stop to make phone calls or stuff like that. When you come back your audio perception has been altered. You might not think so, but it is. It is all creatively and technically challenging from beginning to end. Our company, Sharpline Arts, was designed around making this whole process easier. My partner is Dave Fein, who did the ALIEN and ALIENS laserdiscs with me, and who assembled the commentary tracks and graphics work on THE KING AND I and THE THING. We now have the ability to do a lot of the technical work ourselves, plus all the benefits that come from having several people working with us so that we can do multiple projects. That was how we got the ALIEN and THE LAST STARFIGHTER DVD's, plus SUPERMAN, all done at the same time. Fortunately, SUPERMAN was timed very well, since I spent the week between Christmas and New Year plugged into the music almost non-stop.

15. [ Mike M ] Did you use any special digital remastering process for the original score recordings?

SUPERMAN was the first soundtrack project I did myself on our own audio workstation using Pro-Tools, which is the same system on which we do commentary tracks, isolated music tracks, and the sound mixes for our documentaries and supplemental material. After I load the music I do rough assembly, clean up, fixes, mixing, and editing, a full digital restoration. On SUPERMAN there was quite a bit of editing because some of the cues were literally in tiny fragments on checker-boarded reels which had to be put together like a puzzle. Everything comes in digitally and since we master later on I don't do any processing like I would for a documentary. After I've done everything I can with it, I generate a digital output and we load that into Sonic Solutions with Danny Hersch at DigiPrep. He does all of the equalisation and additional clean-up work there, as well as piecing some of the cues together where necessary and timing out the spaces between them. We used several sections from the album master, and Dan is brilliant when it comes to combining sources imperceptibly. We take as much time as we can afford to get everything right. We generate reference tapes and after I listen to them, we go back and make some changes. When we're done DigiPrep generates a 1630 CD master. What's great is that the quality of the master tapes is transferred digitally, and that quality is preserved all the way through to the manufactured CD's.

16. [ Mike M ] Will your liner notes be as extensive for this release as they were in-depth for the "Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition" CDs?

Rhino didn't want me to be as musicological as I was for STAR WARS, and neither did Nick nor I. We were in agreement that the tone should be lighter and friendlier. Given the long history of the Superman character, however, I wanted to seize the opportunity to build some scope into the notes, so I covered the background and history and how it led to the movie, and also touched on the music that had been used for the earlier filmed incarnations. There is precious little information available about the actual scoring sessions, unfortunately, and as far as commentary on the music itself is concerned, I wrote a bit about the main themes, and then went on to explain what scenes correspond to what cues, which music was not on the original album, and which was not in the film, keeping opinions to a minimum.

17. [ Mike M ] How did you get involved in producing soundtrack re-releases?

I got involved through Nick Redman on THE SOUND OF MUSIC. I'd had some peripheral encounters with him, since he was active at the time in restoring and releasing music from the Fox vaults. So after some contact on THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and some Glenn Miller films, I worked with him on restoring the original multi-track recordings for THE SOUND OF MUSIC in 1994. I was already working on the Laserdisc when I heard about it, and the timing enabled us to include an expanded CD in the Laserdisc boxed set. That was a fascinating experience because we were dealing with fragile original elements that had been declared toxic and were scheduled for incineration. We actually had sound department guys in the machine room wearing surgical masks while they put up these fuming 35mm reels. It was surreal! In some instances we got one good pass out of the reels and managed to get a digital safety copy by the skin of our teeth. Nick and I did THE KING AND I the following year, and STAR WARS and POLTERGEIST the year after that. There have also been a few quickie projects along the way. We work very well together and we always have a good time with these big scores.

18. [ Mike M ] Rhino Records has produced some wonderful releases in the past including the spectacular "Wizard of Oz" Deluxe Set. How have you found your working relationship with Rhino?

I've only done POLTERGEIST and SUPERMAN for Rhino, but they're very easy to work with from my point of view. Julie D'Angelo was Rhino's project supervisor for both of these titles and we also work very well together. She allows me the freedom to take the time to present the music properly, and brings me in on other aspects of the project such as packaging and publicity. As a company they are dedicated to giving their major releases the class and dignity they deserve, and they are to be commended for giving this kind of treatment to many wonderful releases of classic film scores. I've wanted the complete WIZARD OF OZ, BEN-HUR, and GONE WITH THE WIND scores for as long as I can remember. If it weren't for Rhino, we'd still be wanting them!

19. [ Mike M ] What do you think of the "Superman" score twenty years-plus after its original release?

It's absolutely timeless and indicative of what a truly prolific period it was in John Williamsí career. SUPERMAN stands out really, because it's not a STAR WARS or Steven Spielberg film, yet both film and score are as highly regarded by many fans. What I love about Williams' work in that period -- and I said this in the liner notes -- is that while you can tell it's John Williams, there is no confusing STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, or RAIDERS. Theyíre all big scores played by the London Symphony, but theyíre are all distinct and just perfect for their corresponding films. I really like a lot of Williams' earlier works a lot, but his more recent stuff doesn't quite have the same power. He's still a fine, quite sophisticated composer, of course, and doing wonderful things for the concert hall, but thereís something about the films and scores of the late 70's/early 80's that just has the mark of greatness. I think it has something to do with the abundance of really good, distinctive, hummable melodies in his scores from that period. Most of them are very sophisticated, with small and large interval jumps put together, yet you could still find people whistling them when they exited the theatre. In Williams scores from that period these melodies seem to be interwoven in such a way that all the cues have a melodic line that you can follow from beginning to end, yet the orchestration still manage to achieve a level of complexity and richness. A lot of people were hoping that the score for the new STAR WARS film would mark a return to this whole style, but even though itís STAR WARS, THE PHANTOM MENACE is definitely not a 1970's movie. In twenty years, the artists have changed, the movies have changed, and the audience has changed.

20. [ Mike M ] What other Williams' scores do you think deserve the expanding and restoration treatment?

As I said, we have on-going discussions with Lucasfilm about doing the INDIANA JONES trilogy, so hopefully that will come around sometime in the near future. I would personally like to do FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, which was my first exposure to John Williams. His underscore is just fantastic and would compliment the song score nicely. The same for GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS, which is another personal favorite of mine. Iíd like to also see albums for FAMILY PLOT and HEARTBEEPS, each of which is short enough to fit the entire score on a single CD. Some scores, like 1941 and THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, are available in their entirety through a combination of DVDís and soundtrack albums, but it would be nice to have them assembled together properly. Then, with HOME ALONE and HOOK, we have long CD's but major portions of the scores missing from them. I'd love to have 2-CD sets of those. There are also some scores which are surprising for the striking cues which are not available: STANLEY AND IRIS and ROSEWOOD come to mind. And finally there are other scores where thereís just a few fleeting moments missing, like JAWS 2 and SPACECAMP. These are the frustrating ones, because those are the bits of music that will probably never get released. If you have an hour of unreleased music, itís easier to convince a record company to do an expanded edition. But who knows? There was a time when we thought none of these expanded scores would be available, but thanks to companies like Rhino and producers like Nick Redman, who realise there is a market and are willing to take a chance, we can now hear much more music than we ever dreamed possible.

THE COMPLETE SCORE TO SUPERMAN THE MOVIE COMES IN 2000

We thank Mike and Nick for giving us a unique insight into film music restoration.