How to say your Best Wishes to all?

Dear Reader

Dear Listener

We don't know, but this is how we want to thank you...

2012 was a very unique year for our radio program. Not only did Lumière have his first birthday with the main editor, Ruben Laureys and technician Dieter De Roover. After one year, our program can be proud and conclude that our audience was stable and starts to get a good reputation in the student population of Leuven and an audience worldwide. A new member joined the team, Bert Wastijn, and next to a bigger fanbase on facebook, a new account on mixcloud and a twitter channel, we can proudly say that our blog is our biggest succes. 

After only 4,5 months, our pages and blogs have been read more and more every month. This December, it was visited more than 400 times and we published monthly new facts, opinions and information about our program (average of 6/month). We hope to continue this evolution by growing and presenting even more quality blogs by inviting experts and enthusiasts to write for us. We already received 3 guest blogs that were appreciated by all our readers and started multiple discussion in the small Lumière community. Thank you Laura Van Wymersch and Diana Goderich for writing those great texts for us. We invite u all to contact us, send blogs or get involved with our blog and program to make this an even broader platform for movie music and its history. 

On Air, we also invited a remarkable amount of guests and had opportunities to interview different amazing composers. Not only the World Soundtrack Award winner Brian Byrne and Wim Mertens, also Jef Neve, David Wingo, Lucas Vidal ... made time to get in touch with us. A huge thanks to them and to professor Jan Baetens from the Institute of Cultural Studies in Leuven, who took us more than once in an adventure of Literature that was adapted to the big screen. Those experiences were great for us as team behind Lumière, but we hope they were as educating, entertaining, informative ... for you as they were for us. Also, you are invited to suggestions, remarks and questions to make Lumière even better in 2013.

For a team like us, three volunteers, it's great to produce a weekly program and to work for our weekly hour of movie music. But that isn't the thing that gives us energy: it's you, the listeners of our radio show and the readers of our blog that give us the satisfaction we hope for. We hope to keep raising our amount of audiences and to keep receiving honest and nice feedback! Keep up the good work and we will try to keep up ours too!

So, to get this blog to an end... we would like to thank everyone who ever cooperated with, listened to an read Lumière. We want to stress that for us, this year was magical with only great 'ups' and we hope to continue this even more in the next year. Thanks especially to every name that was mentioned in this blog and every name that slipped our mind. Know that without you, our program wouldn't be what it is now. We hope you'll hear Lumière as it is a program of all of us. Thanks to work, listen and read us. 

Keep spreading the word! To finish, we present to you our top blogs and mixclouds, to relive this year the fullest before entering 2013. Enjoy your stay at our blog and dream with the sounds we played in 2012. 

Blog Top 5: 

1  Soundtrack Broken Circle Breakdown

2  John Parish' soundtrack voor 'Little Black Spiders' opent het Filmfestival van Oostende

3  The Hobbit: Soaring over Middle-Earth (Guest Blog by Laura Van Wymersch)

4  "Rond de wereld met filmmuziek" (V): Spanje

5  The Russian action movie: the sociological poetry of criminality (Guest Blog by Diana Goderich)

Mixcloud Top 5:

1  Lumière 2012.9.9

2  Lumière 2012.16.12 Lumière SPECIAL: Best of Soundtracks on Sunday

3  Lumière 2012.23.9 De Ontknoping (I)

4  Lumière 2012.14.10 "Rond de wereld met filmmuziek" (II): India

5  Lumière 2012.3.09 La Nouvelle Vague - Godard (I)

We hope to 'hear' you soon. With the best of wishes in 2013!

The Lumière Team

Ruben Laureys, Bert Wastijn, Dieter De Roover

Best of Soundtracks on Sunday (Part 3)

Who missed our Best of Soundtracks on Sunday? The Lumière Special is now uploaded on our Mixcloud.

Just curious about the top 10 of the Best of Soundtracks on Sunday that you all picked for us?
Here is the line up!

10  Sound of Music: My Favorite Things

09  La Vita è Bella: La Vita è Bella

08  Beauty and the Beast: Tale as Old as Time 

07  Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring: Theme

06  Pulp Fiction: Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon

05  Requiem for a Dream: Theme

04  Pirates of the Carribean: Theme

03  Kill Bill 1: Twisted Nerve

02  Lion King: Circle of Life

01  Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain: Comptine D'un Autre été l'après Midi

Lumière 2012.16.12 Lumière SPECIAL: Best of Soundtracks on Sunday by Lumiere_Radioscorpio on Mixcloud

Best of Soundtracks on Sunday (part 2)

Dear Lumière fan!

This sunday it is the moment of truth. As described in our previous post, on sunday December 16th a Lumière Special will take place. With not just one, but two special guests, not only will the mystery be solved about our last Film and Literature contest, also you all voted for your favorite movie music.

To help you enlighten this episode, we provide you this small tip! The top ten will look like this:

10  ______________________________________

09  ______________________________________

08  ______________________________________ 

07  ______________________________________

06  ______________________________________

05  ______________________________________

04  ______________________________________

03  ______________________________________

02  ______________________________________

01  ______________________________________

Keep this sheet close on Sunday! Fill in the missing movies and songs so you will never forget what were the Best Soundtracks on Sunday 2012!

Hear you soon!

The Lumière Team

The Hobbit: Soaring over Middle-Earth

The Hobbit takes us on a new journey through Middle-Earth, decades before the story of The Lord of the Rings. We are reunited with some old, trusted characters and are introduced to a number of new ones. Despite quite some production issues, the film is directed by another trusted character, Peter Jackson and written by Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh, with the addition of Guillermo del Toro. The composition of the music was once again entrusted to Howard Shore.

All in all, the story is nicely interwoven with The Lord of the Rings through a shared moment. Bilbo and Frodo are preparing for Bilbo’s one hundred and eleventh birthday as Bilbo decides to write down his adventures in a book, with the intriguing opening: “My Dear Frodo, you asked me once if I had told you everything there was to know about my adventures. While I can honestly say I have told you the truth, I may not have told you all of it…” However, the story takes a long time to gather speed. In an effort to draw us right back into Tolkien’s fantasy world, the film opens with an impressive battle sequence that tells the background story of the dwarves that are soon to appear. I would have liked for the film to have started of differently though, with the joyful wit that is so characteristic of The Hobbit and separates the book from its big brother. That playfulness luckily comes into play when we revisit Hobbiton and the thirteen dwarves start tumbling through Bilbo’s door, figuratively and literally. The strength of the book and of Bilbo as the unlikely hero, lies in the growth of the character from a homebird with childlike qualities to an epic hero without ever losing his charm and humouristic appeal. The filmmakers and actor Martin Freeman succeed in bringing this transformation to the screen, but in my opinion, it would have been more true to the heart of the story and more beneficial to its progress to allow for the film as a whole to develop in a parallel way from the start on. The Riddles in the Dark scene was one of those scenes strongly anticipated by many Tolkien fans and as such also by me. I have to say that I was not disappointed and might even say that the long moment when Bilbo looks into Gollem’s eyes and makes the fundamental choice without which the whole further history that is The Lord of the Rings never could have ended well, is one of those scenes that will stick in my mind forever.

As we visit a lot of the same places we did in The Lord of the Rings, a large part of the music in this film is reminiscent of the existing trilogy at many points. The themes for the Shire and Rivendell have remained the same, with some minor arrangements here and there to keep it fresh and when Galadriel appears we even hear parts of the old Lothlórien theme. The “In Dreams” melody also makes a comeback, but the music that accompanies the dwarves is an entirely new theme, characterised by the use of brass players, translating the robust nature and mighty history of the dwarf folk, but also the nostalgic longing to regain that history into music. This history and sense of longing is very clear in the dwarf song that is integrated in the trailer and consequently in the film. The song is an original poem from Tolkien, as included in the first chapter of his Hobbit book, put to music and a beautiful accolade to the writer’s poetic talents. However, for me, the one scene where music and image reach their full potential has to be the one where we as viewers are soaring through the air together with the mighty giant eagles and the music brings such a calm and peace, as if there are no dark forces and no wars to be fought and there never were.

Laura Van Wymersch

Laura Van Wymersch is 24 years old and studied English & Dutch Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven. Not only has she been one of the most loyal fans of Lumière, on November 25th, 2012 she was also our guest expert in Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings adaptations. Listen to the interview here.  Laura already wrote a blog about the Lord of the Rings that can be read here.

Best of Soundtracks on Sunday!

During the last few weeks, Lumière tried to collect the most favorite soundtracks of its audience. On sunday, between 7 and 8 pm, the selected top tracks will be played and for one hour: radio scorpio will again be the place to be for your favorite music. Take your shot and vote for your favorite tracks before the voting ends!

Hear you all on sunday!

John Debney composes for Jobs

Picture found on screenrant.com 

Apple fans, beware! Today, an interesting post of the Internet Movie Database draw our attention. The website posted a picture of Ashton Kutcher as the former CEO of Apple: Steve Jobs on their facebook. According to the iMDB website, the life of Steve will be displayed and told in the movie titled Jobs, that will come on the big screen in 2013.

For the movie, that will be more than just about Apple, John Debny will compose the soundtrack. If it will be only new composed music or if they will use songs connected to Jobs life, is not clear. Still, with a quote from the iMDB: "Academy award nominated John Debney is considered one of the most sought after composers in Hollywood. His unique ability to create memorable work across a variety of genres, as well as his reputation for being remarkably collaborative, have made him the first choice of top level producers and directors ..." Our expectations are high! Debney already composed for both movies and animated movies. He wrote music for disney's 'The Emperor's New Groove (2000)' and 'Sin City (2005)', just to give some examples.

Who cannot wait to see the movie, can go for the page on iMDB, or one of the articles. Listen to some music of Debney here while waiting for more.

Film&Piano

Zondag 2 december staat onze aflevering in teken van de relatie tussen piano en film. 
Omdat dit zou kunnen uitmonden in een onoverzichtelijke hoeveelheid hebben wij voor u een selectie gemaakt. 

+ We beginnen met een interview met op het moment een van de meest opvallende jazz-pianisten in België, Jef Neve. Zijn output en projecten zijn zeer divers: onder andere jazz, popmuziek en soundtracks. Eerder dit jaar verscheen zijn Sons of the New World, waarvan hij al materiaal speelde op Pukkelpop en waarmee hij in december de Vlaamse podia afreist. Zijn Sons of the New World tournee zal hem ook in het buitenland brengen. Jef Neve is een van de jazzpianisten die zijn muziek bij een zo groot mogelijk publiek wil bekend maken. Hij verwelkomt dan ook samenwerkingen met popartiesten als Gabriel Rios met open armen. Daarnaast schreef hij ook de soundtrack voor Felix van Groeningens' De Helaasheid der Dingen, gebaseerd op het boek van Dimitri Verhulst. Voor de in 2011 verschenen The Artist speelde hij de pianopartijen van de soundtrack. En daarnaast schreef hij ook nog eens twee pianoconcerti. Je kan wel terecht spreken van een muzikale duizendpoot. 

+ We duiken de geschiedenis in naar wat bekend staat als de vroege film of stille film. Dat deze niet stil was is duidelijk. Vaak was er muzikale omlijsting door pianobegeleiding (geïmproviseerd, repertoire stukken uit de klassieke muziek, populaire muziek, muziek uit catalogi zoals deze van Sam Fox). Daarnaast werden ook het harmonium, orgels en voor de grote 'movie palaces' uit de jaren 1910-20 heuse orkesten gebruikt. Maar mechanische instrumenten zoals de playerpiano of fonografen werden ook ook gebruikt. Het is niet logisch dat het dan steeds om korte stukjes muziek gaat, fonograaf-cilinders kon namelijk maar een 3-tal minuten muziek bevatten
Maar dat was lang niet alles. Soms was er een commentator die uitleg gaf bij de beelden (of de toeschouwers tot stilte of interactie aanzette), sprekers achter de schermen, een geluidstechnicus die voor geluidseffecten zorgde. 
En het publiek droeg ook zijn steentje bij. Tot 1910 was cinema een waar community-gebeuren: er werd gelachen, gezongen, geschreeuwd, gepraat, ... Met de institutionalisering van de cinema veranderde dit evenwel. De toeschouwers' interactie werd in de juiste banen geleid (serieuze film = stilte in de zaal, komedie = lachen op het juiste moment) en vanaf 1913 was stilte zelfs de norm. 
Muziek en geluid in films is van een heel andere aard in de vroege periode van de cinema dan vandaag. Er was voor je jaren 1910 nog geen sprake van echte filmtheaters. Film werden bekeken in vaudeville theaters, café's of op kermissen. Dat het een heus multi-mediaal spektakel was (met bijvoorbeeld veel gezang, muzikale tussenspelen) hoeft dan niet te verbazen. 
De pianist speelde niet noodzakelijk tijdens de film en ook niet noodzakelijk de meest toepasselijke muziek. Er bestaan karikatuurprenten van pianisten die even 15 minuten pauze nemen voor een sanitaire onderbreking. Soms is er zelfs sprake van ware jackass-muziek die het karakter van de film helemaal ridiculiseert door "ongepaste" muziek. Rond de jaren 1910 begon men echt na te denken over welke muziek bij welk beeld paste. Hieruit vloeide cue sheets, catalogi voor pianisten en handboeken voort. Stukken werden gerangschikt naar een gemoedstoestand of iets wat men wil illustreren (Hurry Music, Agitato, Chinese, ...) De bekendste zijn deze van Sam Fox (met muziek van JS Zamecnik), Guiseppe Becce's Kinothek en Ernö Rapée's Encyclopedia of Music for Pictures  en Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists. 

De geschiedenis van de vroege film zal uitgediept worden in de eerste aflevering van de reeks "Reis doorheen de geschiedenis van de filmmuziek" die in maart 2013 geprogrammeerd staat. 


+ Tot slot kijken we naar drie recentere films en welke rol de piano hier speelt:
Shine (1996)
The Pianist (2002)
La tourneuse des pages (2006) 



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