The Film Music Society, Inc. (formerly the Society for the Preservation of Film Music, Inc.) is a non-profit educational organization based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1983 by film historian-musicologist, William H. Rosar, the year that the
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
commenced its "
Decade of Preservation."
Mission
Patterned after the
National Geographic SocietyThe National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
, and the Institute of the American Musical (Miles Kreuger, Founder and President) in Hollywood, The Film Music Society has sought broad public support for a mission of national scope: to preserve for posterity the mostly unpublished materials created in the composition,
orchestrationOrchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
, and recording of American motion picture music or film music —
Sheet MusicSheet music is a hand-written or printed form of musical notation; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
(composers' manuscripts,
orchestrationOrchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
s, orchestra parts), recordings (disc, tape,
soundtrackA soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronized...
s), and documents (cue sheets, contracts, correspondence).
History
With the advent of sound films circa 1928 the safekeeping of specially composed
film scoreA film score is an alternative word used for the background music of a film . The term soundtrack is often confused with film score, though a soundtrack may also include songs featured in the film as well as previously released music by other artists, while the score does not...
materials was under the sole purview of the movie studios who owned them and the composers who were employed to write the music. Mostly these materials were stored and continue to be stored in studio music department libraries and in film vaults only accessible to studio personnel. In the heyday of the Hollywood
studio systemThe studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the 1950s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under often...
(c. 1920s-1950s), film composers often retained their manuscripts and recordings of their music given to them by the studios as a courtesy. When scoring
independent filmAn independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced outside of any major film studio. Originally, this term denoted independence from Paramount Pictures, MGM, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., RKO, Universal Pictures, United Artists, and Columbia Pictures, the 8 major studio entities...
s composers often retained all the score materials themselves, but not the actual
music track or
soundtrackA soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronized...
, which was kept by the production company.
In 1937, producer and film industry visionary
David O. SelznickDavid O. Selznick, born David Selznick , was one of the iconic Hollywood producers of the Golden Age. He is best known for producing the epic blockbuster Gone with the Wind which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture. Not only did Gone with the Wind gross the highest amount of money in the U.S...
proposed that copies of selected scores should be deposited at the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, USA, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been singularly important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the...
in New York City, though the plan did not materialize. Ten years later, British musicologist Frederick W. Sternfeld organized the College Committee on Film Music, composed of musicologists, teachers, and librarians, whose goal was to make films, scripts, and copies of film music materials available for study to scholars and students. Some of the material Sternfeld collected for this purpose is preserved in the
Rauner Special Collections Library of
Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private, coeducational university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. Incorporated as "Trustees of Dartmouth College," it is a member of the Ivy League and one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution...
and in the
Bodleian LibraryThe Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
of Oxford University.
Unfortunately the College Committee had been disbanded by the late 1950s, at a time when the studio music departments began to discard portions of their older holdings, believing them to be of no further practical use or commercial value. Probably the greatest single loss occurred in the late 1960s when
Metro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., or MGM, is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B...
Studios in Culver City, CA, discarded all of its orchestra parts and full scores (
orchestrationOrchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
s), material that was both priceless and irreplaceable. At the same time music tracks recorded on nitrate film or magnetic film had begun to deteriorate.
Responding to what was dubbed the "M-G-M Holocaust" by film historians, the veteran film and TV composer
Fred SteinerFred Steiner is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator and arranger for television, radio and film, born February 24, 1923, in New York, New York. He received a degree in music composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1943...
formed a small watchdog group in the 1970s that included himself, his film composer colleague
David RaksinDavid Raksin was an American composer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With over 100 film scores and 300 television scores to his credit, he became known as the "Grandfather of Film Music." One of his earliest film assignments was as assistant to Charlie Chaplin in the composition of the score...
, and music librarian Jon Newsom of the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books. The head...
Music Division. They would periodically visit the studio music departments and encourage departmental personnel not to discard any material before a new home could be found for it, such as colleges or universities, institutions where collections of other film-related material had already been established. In time Steiner believed that there should be a national organization to promote greater public awareness of this precious and unique cultural legacy and to preserve its heritage.
The tragic historical lesson of the ancient
Library of AlexandriaThe Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was probably the largest, and certainly the most famous, of the libraries of the ancient world...
in Egypt being burned during the reign of
Julius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar , , was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
was that as long as only one copy of a book exists it is not safe from destruction. Were it not for the copies laboriously made by the scribes in the Alexandria Library that were then placed in other libraries of antiquity, all would have been lost forever. Knowing of that historical precedent, as a corollary to the continuing vigilance of Steiner's watchdog group, the formation of the Society as a national non-profit membership organization was initiated by Rosar in 1983, and underwritten by soundtrack collector, Henry P. Adams. Its mandate was to seek out film music collections, whether at the studios or in the hands of composers, donate them to academic libraries, and make preservation copies of them to be placed in other repositories. Since its founding the Society has published a quarterly newsletter,
The Cue Sheet, that reports its activities, and includes articles and interviews on film music topics.
Rather like an invisible college, the Founding Board of Directors included a diverse group of individuals, who all shared knowledge and a common love for film music: A composer (
Fred SteinerFred Steiner is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator and arranger for television, radio and film, born February 24, 1923, in New York, New York. He received a degree in music composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1943...
), a film journalist (
Tony Thomas), a librarian (Linda Mehr of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures....
Library), a motion picture music editor (George Korngold, also a record producer and son of film composer
Erich Wolfgang KorngoldErich Wolfgang Korngold was a film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
), film historians (Rudy Behlmer,
Clifford McCarty, and William H. Rosar), a performing arts programmer (Jay Alan Quantrill), and an attorney (Leslie Zador, son of film composer Eugene Zador). William H. Rosar served as its first President (1984-89) and subsequently as its first Executive Director (1989-90). Incorporated as a California non-profit public corporation in 1984, the organization changed its name to
The Film Music Society in 1997. The current president is composer
David NewmanDavid Newman may refer to:*David Newman , aka David "Fathead" Newman, American jazz saxophonist*David Newman , American composer*David Newman , Canadian politician*David Newman , American filmmaker...
, son of the celebrated film composer,
Alfred NewmanAlfred Newman was an American composer of music for films.He received 45 Academy Award nominations, making him the second most nominated person in the history of the Academy Awards, tied with John Williams Alfred Newman (March 17, 1900– February 17, 1970) was an American composer of music...
.
In 1990 William H. Rosar went on to found the International Film Music Society, a
learned societyA learned society is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline or group of disciplines. Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honor conferred by election, as is the case with the oldest learned societies, such as the Polish...
for scholars studying film music from an interdisciplinary musicological perspective. He is editor of the first learned journal in the field,
The Journal of Film Music.
See also
- Film preservation
The film preservation, or film restoration, movement is an ongoing project among film historians, archivists, museums, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images which they contain. In the widest sense, preservation nowadays assures that a movie will continue...
- Film history
- Invisible College
The Invisible College was a precursor to the Royal Society of United Kingdom. It consisted of a group of natural philosophers including Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, John Wallis, John Evelyn, Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren and William Petty. In letters in 1646 and 1647, Boyle refers to "our...
- Film society
A film society is a membership club where people can watch Private screenings of films which would otherwise not be shown in mainstream cinemas. In Spain they are known as Cineclubs, and in Germany they are known as Filmclubs....
- Hollywood Symphony Orchestra
The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra a is 75-member American symphony orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. Its artistic director and resident conductor is John Scott...