Are live symphony performances to a movie available? (1 Viewer)

[Steve_Smith]

Near where I live there have been live symphony performances that play along with the film being shown, a example would be the Harry Potter Movies, or Star Wars: A New Hope. I have heard of silent films being shown the same way. I'm not worried about what city or orchestra performs, but is it part of some agreement with a studio that these are "in person" performances and no official recordings are to be made?

 

[Dave Upton]

They do exist, but aren't super common. You can usually find them on line: http://www.moviesinconcert.nl/index.php?page=concertlist

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

I think the OP's question meant "are there recordings available of these live performances?"

 

[Dave Upton]

I think the OP's question meant "are there recordings available of these live performances?"

My misunderstanding. FWIW, I have never heard of one of these being recorded, as you stated due to copyright concerns.

 

[Steve_Smith]

Thanks for the reply, yeah I was just wondering how these are handled. I plan on going to see a version of this to Frankenstein (1931) in October so it got me thinking of a possible home re-creation.

 

[Worth]

My misunderstanding. FWIW, I have never heard of one of these being recorded, as you stated due to copyright concerns.

That, and you'd have the sound of the audience reaction.

 

[Dave Upton]

That, and you'd have the sound of the audience reaction.

That's actually pretty easy to engineer around with mic placement etc, but you'd still have your condenser mics getting pummeled by LFE whenever there was action

 

[Lord Dalek]

The Phillip Glass Ensemble's live recording of Koyaanisqatsi with the NY Philharmonic is the only one I can think of.

 

[Steve_Smith]

The Phillip Glass Ensemble's live recording of Koyaanisqatsi with the NY Philharmonic is the only one I can think of.

It's good to know at least one of these types are available, I'm wondering if either a split of profits between a studio and the orchestra isn't able to be done or if the studio thinks a recording would compete with official soundtrack profits. I guess it makes the performance a "In person" event this way.
For my area, tickets to watch Star Wars: A New Hope this way is 100.00 each, so there is money to go around.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

The problem, as I see it, with recording such a performance is that you also have the film's dialog and sound effects recorded along with the live music. So that would open up a whole series of payments if it was released as a CD - the actors would all need to be compensated, as potentially would the writer, director, etc.

 

[KPmusmag]

Our local symphony played to the film of The Wizard of Oz just recently. It was very well done, but it was an outdoor venue and the sound system was not the best unfortunately.