Hey folks, Now for the first time in a long time there's something on a studio site that I think is really really groovy. Over at the Official Prince of Egypt site I found in the downloads section a screensaver thingee that has art and sketches that sort of float around, but cooler is that you can hear the musical score from the film... not all, but a buncha different selections. Personally I say avoid the Country Western and Pop sections like the plague, but this one item I think is real cool. BUT cooler, and more subversive is the interview our fellow non-pro dude got with Stephen Schwartz.. Here are two questions, and expect the others to go up on his site later today. Enjoy...
I recently made an exclusive interview with Mr. Stephen Schwartz (who composed music and wrote lyrics of POE). As I know you will be updating THE OFFICIAL SITE update tomorrow, it would be great if you mention about the interview to the POE page at "www.spielberg-dreamworks.com/poe" Below are couple of questions from the interview. The rest will be up by tomorrow morning. There are total of 10 questions.
1)Are you doing any more projects for DreamWorks?
In terms of future involvement with DreamWorks: I am talking to them about writing or collaborating on a couple of songs for their up-coming animated feature SPIRIT. Other than that, I have no plans to work for them at this time. For Disney, I am currently inishing the lyrics for new songs for the stage adaptation of HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, which opens in Berlin next June. I have also written songs for a to-be-produced television musical for "Wonderful World of Disney" called GEPPETTO.
2)Were there any songs that did not make it to the final version of the film?
There were several songs written for PRINCE OF EGYPT that didn't make it into the final movie, but never for considerations of "not enough time". Often, the first pass wasn't quite right, and I did a new song or songs that worked better. For instance, in the sequence where the song "Through Heaven's Eyes" occurs -- Moses' gradual adoption into the desert tribe, his life as a shepherd, and his marriage to Tzipporah -- I had written two other numbers which tried to encompass all this action, but I didn't find a tone or overall content that seemed deep enough or strong enough. Finally, one of the directors, Steve Hickner, suggested I look at a poem called "The Measure of a Man", and that inspired the final song. Another example was that I wanted to write a song for the two brothers, Moses and Ramses, to sing early in the film to help establish the strong bond between them (sort of the function of Jesus and Judas singing "All for the Best" in GODSPELL, for example.) I took two or three passes at it, but I was never able to come up with a song that worked within the context of the film. But that's a typical process in writing a musical, be it animated or live musical theatre.
