Update: The song mentioned in the video has been confirmed as the song that was cut. Do you think this scene could work with a song instead of Flying With Mother? Would other scenes like Test Drive work so well with just a song?
I don't think that putting a song instead of a score is inherently worse for a scene, it's just a lot more challenging and brings a lot more problems. There are a lot of movies that have done songs really well such as Baby Driver, Rocky, and the marvel movies (especially the Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man, and Thor movies). The biggest problem with using a song however is the fact that you come across the issue of sometimes a song taking someone out of the experience of the movie and getting distracted by the experience of the song. Having a song specifically made for the movie and a scene helps this a lot and again have been done many times (httyd2, Your Name, Weathering With You, etc.) but it can still happen. With a score, the music can still be distracting but given that it was always made for the movie and typically does not have recognizable lyrics it is less likely to distract from what is going on in a scene as much. Plus they will have those traditional aspects of a score that isn''t present when songs are used such as themes, leitmotifs, etc. I don't think that there is a number of times that songs can be used before they get too distracting, it's always case by case. Weathering with You and Your Name use several songs throughout the movie that were composed by one group specifically for the movie. Both of those films have some of my favorite soundtracks and work beautifully well.
@@RowinHaddick Good points, well-worded. I think because this is a sequel to a non-musical it doesn’t have as much room for songs. You’re right that lyrics can interfere with dialogue and songs can pull you out of the scene (which is what happened when I first heard Where No One Goes). Thanks for the response.
I was obsessed with this song when the movie just came out (can't believe it has been 9 years... time FLIES), I can't imagine HTTYD 2 without it. John Powell is a genius and I'm glad he wrote this masterpiece and saved this heartwarming scene. Thanks for the analysis! Instant like and sub
Thanks, it’s definitely a standout! Have you seen any of my other analysis videos? I’m sure you’d enjoy them too. And please let me know what you think about them, plus any questions.
Flying With Mother is really one of the rare songs that transcript that feeling of freedom, flying (along with test drive and many others). It's incredible to know that it was done in few days ! Your videos are always great, it's really interesting to be mor specific about the instruments, the skills, the story behind, the meaning of every sound. And for the songs, I think it's good as it is. I think that Test Drive's scene would not be as powerful as it is with a song, because what I love in Test Drive is that in the beginning there is some sort of hesitation, it's in high pitch, then it drops, but slowly when Hiccup and Toothless dive, and I really felt like in a roller coster when it goes up, it goes up, then when it goes down, there is this feeling in the beginning where you feel like flying, your heart is beating, your breath a lot before breath out, and with a song it would be difficult to do that. Same for Forbidden Friendship, around 3 min when an instrument is always added, and again, and again, to have a sort of crescendo but with instruments.
That’s a good way of putting it all, thanks. Yes, the score clearly means a lot to a lot of people. Just look at the way you just described Test Drive! I don’t know if you could get that from a song.
@@FilmScoreandMore it's definitely hard to pick one specific thing, but I'd say the way you give us important information about the score that you don't get anywhere else: the background story, the different use of instruments, significance of themes. etc.. I love how you basically do all the research for us and combine it all into a well edited, informing, AND entertaining video!
@@Carissa.I A lot of that research is what I’ve heard or read in my leisure time. So I really already knew it, I just go back to it when I go to make one of these videos. And it definitely takes some effort to put everything together and make it work.
Fantastic deconstruction of how Powell achieved emotion behind this scene. Thanks for providing evidence in the score for every point you make, it makes your analysis intriguing and entertaining every time I hear what you're saying and have a 'ahhhh' moment haha. Love HHTYD and would love to hear more deconstructions of it like this one!
Thanks, I really appreciate that! Yes, the structure and support of this one came pretty naturally and was really deliberate. I already have several other HTTYD score analyses (with more on the way very soon), so make yourself at home!
Thank you so much for doing videos on the second movie. A lot of people just focus on music from the first movie and ignore the rest, but I'm actually in love with httyd 2 so thank you
0:55 Ahh, Dhol drums. I'm an Indian, and I was always confused why the drums of this piece resonated so intimately with me. Turns out, it was one of my cultural instruments being included here!
I don’t tend to comment in RU-vid videos but GOD, I’ve been a huge fan of the how to train your dragon soundtrack for a while and discovering your channel was so refreshing, this is such an interesting story I didn’t know about, and I’m so exited to see the rest of your Analysis, what an amazing creator you’re 💗 (Sorry if there’s any mistakes, English is not my first language)
In defense of Where no one goes, the mixing of Powell's score with the upbeat song make for an experience that still makes my heart race 8 years after the movies release. I'd also argue that because For the dancing and the dreaming adds to the story of Valka and Stoick, and because it's called upon during Stoick's funeral, that is a useful song for the movie. But any more and Dreamworks had better invested in a spot on Broadway
I love these analyses and how they provide so many of the details that I love learning about a film score. But something that this video brought to my attention is that I literally can't tell the lost and found theme, Valka theme, or map theme apart from each other. I always thought it was all just one melody, because for the most part it is usually very difficult to follow along with them.
They’re pretty easy to tell apart once you get to know them. The Map Theme is wandering and has its biggest moment in Together We Map The World. Lost and Found is a very different melody, stronger in those dramatic and tragic cues. And Valka’s Theme only appears in three cues, usually with a bit of sadness to it. It’s a lot to learn when you’re new to it, but it’s easy to catch on.
Thank you SO MUCH - I have been digging around the internet looking for the language the choir sings in during this song and I was never able to find it. You've just solved a ten-year mystery for me.
I’m happy to help! Unfortunately, we still don’t have a translation. However the scorebook for the third movie released today, so we now have the lyrics for it too.
@@FilmScoreandMore It really is such a versatile theme. From the tragedy of “Stoick Saves Hiccup,” to the hopeful crescendo in “Toothless Found,” leading to the triumphant fanfare of “Two New Alphas” - Lost and Found tells a compelling story, perfectly complimenting what we see on screen! SO powerful! Or should I say… Powell-full??
Woohoo, it's finally here! The wait was well worth it. You made me realise so many new things with this video. Like, I never thought about the fact, that the scene is basically a combination of the map theme and lost and found. I also never realized that the map theme was playing in Stoick saves Hiccup. I love your videos and am already looking forward to the next you teased 😊
Yes, he started with writing material for Test Drive, which became the Flying Theme and Flying Ostinato. Those became themes not just for but for Hiccup and Toothless’ relationship.
flying with mother is the highlight of the entire httyd2 soundtrack for me, i can't believe it almost wasn't put in!! i can't think of any other piece of music that makes my heart soar like this one. great analysis! i know next to nothing about music theory but it's super interesting to me
John Powell is great under pressure! Forbidden Friendship came late too. Have you seen any of my other score analysis videos? I don’t actually know that much about music theory either, but I know a lot about the HTTYD scores (and others).
@@FilmScoreandMore after this video i watched a bunch of your other httyd analysis! i’ve been listening to the soundtracks for years but wow, knowing the background made me appreciate it more than ever. knowing the attention to story, characters, and themes in each piece is incredible!! and i love the huge variety of cultural instruments powell used as well. forever salty httyd 1 didn’t take the oscar for best soundtrack!
That’s really great to hear, that’s exactly what I want people to take away from my videos. Thanks for letting me know. And please comment any time you have questions or something to say!
For me, "Flying with Mother" ranks among the best pieces of film score that I've yet heard. You did a fantastic job pointing out to me just how much work went into making it, and I'm doubly relieved that it exists considering how close we came to not having it at all.
@@FilmScoreandMore No, I didn’t know. I only just watched HTTYD 2 this year, in fact. My partner urged me to watch the series and so far, I’m amazed that it took me this long to give the movies a watch. Even if the rest of that film had been utterly awful, this music piece is so unbelievably good that I’d still call it a fair bargain.
@JimmySteller Many people are still discovering this series. I realize it just doesn’t look as appealing as it is, you have to see it to get it. What do you think of the rest of the music? I’ve got plenty of other videos on the scores. In fact, I was a writer for the official scorebook for the third movie thanks to Omni Music Publishing! There’s still so much to cover!
Great video ! I really mean it. I know you were trying to figure out how much info to pack in it, but I think it turned out amazing ! You even managed to pack a few comedy moments in there which definitely worked too, so congrats ! As for the "how much is too much" for songs ; this might sound dumb but, it depends. Depends on the kind of movie. For movies like old Disneys, or Moana more recently, it's kind of made for songs to happen, so there can be a lot without it feeling too annoying (unless you don't like movies with songs but then that's an issue with the whole movie, not just the songs). HTTYD isn't that. You've mentioned it, each of the movies in the trilogy has a "no voice" scene. Or kinda. Forbidden Friendship, then Flying with Mother, and Third Date. Each of these could theoretically have their music replaced by a song, and it sounds like it could work. But in my opinion, it wouldn't. At all. Songs in movies work when they express something, I feel like ; 1 - when they're sung by the characters, it's to communicate their feelings to the audience without needing the character to say it out loud or having the audience guess what's going on. It can also be used for character introductions, like that shiny crab in Moana (most recent song movie I've seen, that's why it's kind of my only example). That's how it is with For the Dancing and Dreaming, the characters actually sing it, and it's there to express true reunion, as before they had found each other physically but it still felt awkward. This scene, this song is what truly reunited them. 2 - when it's just there as a backing track. That would be Hiccup's first scene in the 2nd movie, with Where No One Goes (such an amazing song btw). My interpretation is that they're also there to convey something, like an emotion or feeling, but without wanting the character to sing. And at this point, I believe just soundtrack, pure music does a better job. See Forbidden Friendship : we don't need lyrics to understand that both don't really trust each other, but both are also somewhat curious. The animation is already clear enough, and the music adds just the right amount of wonder and enchantement, without going overboard and taking over the scene. Same could've gone for Flying With Mother, but lyrics would probably just overwhelm the scene, when soundtrack already dooes the job perfectly, as brilliantly proven by John Powell. Third Date could have had lyrics for some kind of dialogue between Toohtless and the Light fury, but again, thanks to the animation, we don't need it. Their expressions and actions are understandable enough. Even in Test Drive, there's no need for a song because the music is already a mix of Hiccup's and Toothless' themes, as these two need to work together. TL;DR : I don't think there's a "too much". I just think there's a "does it fit ?". In HTTYD, character expressions on screen and themes in the soundtrack already do a perfect job at conveying feelings and emotions. Other movies may want to have characters sing to express their feeling in key scenes, as another way of doing it. Flying with Mother did not need a song, since we already understand the characters just from seeing them, we don't need to be told. While "Where No One goes" at the beginning is a nice, upbeat song that allows us to "reunite" with Hiccup, to understand how he grew up during the 5 years and what his mindset is like now, without ruining the scene since we don't actually see him, thanks to his helmet. That was quite a long rant, wasn't it ? But hey, you asked for it. I guess. As for the video itself, I find it really interesting that the choir actually sings real lyrics ! I never realized. I mean, I can't really be blamed, can I ? They blend themselves in so well. Plus, come on, Gaelic ? Anyways, it's even more interesting that the choir goes back to simple "ahh"s when Valka stops leading the scene, being the "teacher", as Hiccup himself shows her something she doesn't know. Such mastery in this craft. I also agree on Skill #3, John Powell's flying music is just so good. From Test Drive's empowerment feeling, Romantic Flight with its sense of wonder, Flying with Mother and its feeling of freedom, and Furies in Love being some kind of mix between Test Drive and Romantic Flight, at least thematically. I'm pretty sure I had more interesting things to say, but they slipped off my mind. After all, it did take a while to write all this ! So I'll wrap this up by pointing out that 4:05 and 8:15 really made me laugh. They're stupid, but that's what makes them funny. At least to me. Keep it up ! Really looking forward to that map theme review (coming eventually lol), it really intrigues me as wall
Thanks for your... _extensive_ thoughts. Of course musicals will have way more songs, that's a given. And maybe HTTYD 1 could work with one in-movie song, but because it didn't have any it always felt a little out of place to me when they introduced non-diegetic songs, as a backing track like you said. I think you're right to think of it in terms of "does it fit" but I also feel there can be a too much. That's my stance on the issue. Yes, Gaelic is indeed used here (whatever it translates to). If you go to the John Powell's RU-vid channel he has a couple orchestral suites scores. The HTTYD 2 one includes a bit from Losing Mom, but instead of humming he's added lyrics in, and I think he just took the same lyrics that play here, but it's much slower and easier to hear. I only just noticed recently. Let me know if you think of anything else you had to say!
If you could do a video on the music of the TV series - Especially Race to the Edge which, in the later seasons, had some pretty damn good music (Dawn of Destruction, S5, E7 comes to mind) - that would be great. Sadly, very few tracks from the TV series have been released, which is a crime.
I haven’t even seen Race To The Edge, just the first season of the first show. Is there any new material or is it mostly pulled from the movies with newer, smaller orchestration?
@@FilmScoreandMore Firstly, you really should watch all of it; it's an excellent series of shows. Riders of Berk and Defenders of Berk start off a bit slow and childish, but they do get fairly good very quickly. I mean, Race to the Edge got 6 seasons and each episode took around a year to make. It genuinely is good TV. Not just good children's TV, good tv in the way that Clone Wars was good TV. As for the music, no, they're not mostly pulled from the movies. There's a ton of original composition. I read somewhere that Riders of Berk had 300 hours of music composed for it. But there are still some movie tracks. Race to the Edge's movie-based tracks are pulled mainly from my favorite httyd track - and the most underrated - Dragon's Den, which was also rescored in HTTYD 2 for the sheep launcher sequence in Dragon Racing. Occasional flying theme, romantic flight, etc. But there are some great new compositions too. They become more and more prevalent in the later seasons. Now it's no The Mandalorian-level scoring, but it's still quite enjoyable. But yeah, you really should watch the series. Race to the Edge is, I think, the best HTTYD property out there. TL;DR, watch Riders of Berk, then Defenders of Berk, then Race to the Edge. RTTE is the best HTTYD property IMO. The music is original AND sometimes pulled from the movies, but not most of the time. Very enjoyable to listen to.
@@Concodroid I know it’s extremely popular among the fans. And I know the intro theme pulls from the string ostinato in Dragon Racing, which was pulled from Dragons Den. It’s a good riff and I’m glad it could be used more there considering it’s not actually used much in the movies.
I believe the synth bass could be a "pop" music influenced from the original song they paired with this scene kind of like how Forrbidden Friendship has instrumental "parallels" (marimbas) to the original song they wanted to go with. Or it could be influenced of Jonsi since Powell worked with him in writing where No one goes. I believe this could be a "pop" influence bc this was done in dragons 1 and also there is some synth in "Meet Drago" as well. Just some thoughts though.
Those are some good theories. I think the desk bells may have come from the song too, based off the video that allegedly has the original. There's some kind of really high sound at the start, but I think it's just piano there.
Is it just me or are cues and scores written at the last moment frequently... awesome? If you haven't heard John Debney's replacement score for the dreadful 1995 film Cutthroat Island, I highly recommend it. Not only is it one of the best pirate scores ever written, but Debney swooped in after a conflict with the original composer and wrote the entire thing in like two weeks. Also no, I have not yet created any music with a desk bell xD Even though Soundiron ran a competition last year to see who could make the best music using ONLY their desk bell library... I should have entered LOL
I've heard great things about Debney's Cutthroat Island score (but not the movie)! Maybe there's something to doing it last-minute. And you should try those desk bells; that seems like fun!
I want to hear the song so bad I wish they could release that deleted song, I really hope it can be released even if its not going to happen I still want it to be released.
@@FilmScoreandMore I didn't realise he had composed this track in 10 Days! I can't even dream of being able to come up with a piece in like 2 months let alone 10.
@@netheriteking7256 Not only that, but it’s 200 BPM! It took me so long to mock up the notation to show on the screen because it’s so many notes, and each measure is gone in under a second in the video!
@@FilmScoreandMore in that case you should probably watch more breakdowns. But given you're making one, you probably already do. But next time maybe pay specific attention to how they use tension-and-release in dramatic pause moments like this. I.e. what you should have done in this part is say "there's a pause", cut to black, say "and then...", then show hiccup flying with the music hitting, etc. But that's just my opinion. It's great as it is anyway.
@@Concodroid Good points. I was aiming for that, but the past few days I’ve felt a little rushed and overwhelmed, plus I had to make sure I didn’t get a copyright claim. My first test version of this video got a claim at that part because I had the music in but hadn’t edited the sequence yet, so there was too much. It’s a lot to balance.
Gotta say, the wait was well worth it! Good work on this one, I would like you to do a video covering the theme "third date" from the hidden word. I feel like there's a lot to talk about it.
Thanks! I do want to talk about Third Date, I even have some thoughts on it already. But I’d at least need some fan-made sheet music for it, which I just might be able to get.
@@FilmScoreandMore one video of John Powell's channel that might help is this one ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6cMeCDxg-r0.html it's a great way to see the structure of the song and where it fits in the scene (with the titles on the upper part) it for sure shows how John Powell is a master of conveying emotion to what's happening on the scene.
I forgot about that piano roll, thanks. That might help a little. Have you seen his Mix With The Masters masterclass where he talks about writing Third Date? I use clips from the trailer all the time when I just want to show him or something technical. I saw the masterclass itself when it was new because he made it free to watch, but I didn't take notes. I remember bits and pieces, but not as much as might really help me for the video.
Seeing that clip of Chicken Run really makes me want to see a video on it, I think it's such a powerful soundtrack by Powell. 'Into the Pie Machine' is one of my favourites. (chicken pies, not apple)
The music of httyd is sooo good, all of them!!!!! #longlivehttyd #httydforever also, the songs aren't too much, i mean look at disney movies and their whole bunch of songs. both music and songs of hhtyd are amazing
@@kaioker I think a lot of it is repeated, but I can update you when I have the book in front of me. In the meantime, I think Powell used the same lyrics at 3:11 in this concert he did a couple years ago. It’s much slower, so it’s easier to hear. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H8wZtvsur-g.html
@@kaioker The missing segment of the lyrics is: "O___ | Na__ liu | vo____ | snyarsht t - ni | gra - y nyi, | O na_ liu_ vo___|___| _" Each vertical line is a break to indicate the end of the measure. I hope that all makes sense and that you can match the lyrics up with the rhythm of the notes.
I find these 3 films to be the top of the heap w/in the 2000s. Personally speaking, I would rather have NO songs in any of them- even in credits. The score is perfectly capable of holding it's own for the duration. I have all 3 soundtracks and rarely play the songs. Too "Disney" for my taste. Just my 2 cents....
I completely agree. Some of the songs have grown on me a little, but they’re not my cup of tea. Not only that, but the first time I saw this movie I had never listened to the music on its own and didn’t recognize the themes, so when Where No One Goes started it had the opposite effect on me film music should; it completely took me out of the scene.
