In addition to the 58 page memo Welles wrote regarding TOE, there is also a rather elusive 9 page set of notes detailing the soundtrack.
I've found a couple paragraphs of it in an old interview with Rick Schmidlin (http://filmsound.org/murch/evil/).
Does anyone know if a complete copy of these notes is floating around somewhere?
On a similar topic, has anyone ever seen the notes that Welles wrote up regarding The Lady From Shanghai?
Welles' sound notes on Touch of Evil & Lady From Shanghai
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purplepines
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LFS
Some of Orson's notes corrections for the film are at the end of Peter Bogdanovich's This is Orson Welles book.
With his notes in mind, I would change the film in this fashion (I devised this a while ago, maybe it is indulgent to share...):
-Darker music should be the title music, silence the audio when the boat passes, redo the boat sound and slow fade in in time for Orson's dialogue (all of this would serve to remove the music).
-Fast audio fade out after 'I don't smoke' line. Silence until horse starts moving.
-Before Orson's 'hero' line, after he finds the pocketbook, cut to him taking Rita out of the park explaining the status of cabbie.
-Take out near-accident with cab/horse, jump to 'you don't like cops' line because it goes with previous scene's conversation about cops. Silence audio of Rita when she says 'you almost just killed a girl', make walking sound fx the only thing you hear.
-11:21 maybe take a second of the audio out so you can appreciate the marina
- 12:28 Remove horrible music, re-record the dog audio, resume original audio when Orson talks, add boat sound effects, take the music out whenever Orsons not talking, 13:20 on, just fx should be quite nice, re-record the boat motor starting.
-maybe add wind/water sound, even though there is some there.
-take the sound out at 16:00 (Rita jumps), take out music after 'you wait and see' of Anders'.
-17:00ish try to take out some music that swamps the Orson/Rita stuff, though its all over their dialogue. Use wind/water sound, during the kiss especially.
-remove what piano notes you can
-add ocean sound over Rita's song
-24:00 there's music over the dialog, so silence the fade out and anything into the next cut
-silence audio after 'i want to enjoy myself', add all the animal sound effects in the swamp
-25:00ish redo the audio all the way through the walk on the beach, the other guy walking on the beach, all the way to 26:00ish fade in back to existing score I guess.
-redo music during the transition of natives sailing around to be 'sexy, latin american, to add to strangeness' [so instructs Orson], slowly crossfade to existing music when Everett/Rita dialogue starts up
-29:18ish lower the music after the firepit scene, redo with beach audio with guitar music (cuz he passes guitarists), keep the guitar (and slight wave audio) over all this (at low volume), make the existing music sound like its coming out of a radio, that's a solution...have the native guitar song end naturally right before Orson's shark story.
-kill audio at 32:28 with the fadeout, redo what comes after, Bring back original audio with 'Where's mr. bannister?'. Argh, so much music over the dialogue...Take out the material before 'What's your guess Michael?'. Don't overdo the redactions, people will just go 'why is the audio disappearing whenever there's no talking?'
-at 35:00ish, silence after 'So long fella!'
-35:40, kill party music when there's the transition so she runs on the landscape in relative silence
-37:24 change the music during her run, keep it low key so when you come back with dialogue, it is not trivial
-39:00 remove the transition music, add ambient sound fx
-40:00 and on there's too much music, take it out from 40:46 on into transition
-around 42:20 do mini audio dropouts, especially before Everett tells Orson to call him for legal advice
-in the office with Orson and Anders, maybe add music to make the hawaiian syrupy audio corny as Orson wanted it.
-45ish add reverb to all aquarium audio. Kill audio after Rita's last 'take me'. Silence song after Orson's 'the whole of it', bring it back in when Rita starts reading (because we must...)
-kill audio at 48:20 after Rita's 'fool, i know' so they kiss in silence
-at 49:40ish remove all the audio after the gunshot, come back in at 50:13 with dialogue, take it out again after 'corpse in the bay' and return with truck accident 'look out!'
-54ish its iffy as to whether the audio should be redone during gunshot and orson's run on the boardwalk because of that music. You'd have to reconstruct the crowd noise if you did.
-55ish take out audio at transition until 55:14 dialogue
-Maybe take out the last chord after orson says 'completely insane' so you can think about that line and make sure its atmospheric in following scene
1:00- silence the transition music, restart at dialogue, take it out also after 'george didn't have a wife'
1:13, i dunno, keep all that dramatic music? If you take it out, don't recreate the phone ringing, who cares. Remove from 1:14-1:14:20, enough is enough
1:15ish after Everett says 'elsa', kill the audio, replace with ambient stuff, redo the asian woman, return audio at interior of chinese theater. kill it again before she speaks her first foreign line, then don't worry bout it
1:18 silence transition audio, come back in with asian stuff
1:21ish in funhouse after 'fall guy' kill audio replace with clapboard/funhouse audio
1:24:20 redo audio after Everett's last line, come back in at :43, take out audio before her next line
- kill outro audio right after orson saying 'die trying', since its a swelling track, maybe cut it hard, with a slow echo of the audio with added walking sfx
With his notes in mind, I would change the film in this fashion (I devised this a while ago, maybe it is indulgent to share...):
-Darker music should be the title music, silence the audio when the boat passes, redo the boat sound and slow fade in in time for Orson's dialogue (all of this would serve to remove the music).
-Fast audio fade out after 'I don't smoke' line. Silence until horse starts moving.
-Before Orson's 'hero' line, after he finds the pocketbook, cut to him taking Rita out of the park explaining the status of cabbie.
-Take out near-accident with cab/horse, jump to 'you don't like cops' line because it goes with previous scene's conversation about cops. Silence audio of Rita when she says 'you almost just killed a girl', make walking sound fx the only thing you hear.
-11:21 maybe take a second of the audio out so you can appreciate the marina
- 12:28 Remove horrible music, re-record the dog audio, resume original audio when Orson talks, add boat sound effects, take the music out whenever Orsons not talking, 13:20 on, just fx should be quite nice, re-record the boat motor starting.
-maybe add wind/water sound, even though there is some there.
-take the sound out at 16:00 (Rita jumps), take out music after 'you wait and see' of Anders'.
-17:00ish try to take out some music that swamps the Orson/Rita stuff, though its all over their dialogue. Use wind/water sound, during the kiss especially.
-remove what piano notes you can
-add ocean sound over Rita's song
-24:00 there's music over the dialog, so silence the fade out and anything into the next cut
-silence audio after 'i want to enjoy myself', add all the animal sound effects in the swamp
-25:00ish redo the audio all the way through the walk on the beach, the other guy walking on the beach, all the way to 26:00ish fade in back to existing score I guess.
-redo music during the transition of natives sailing around to be 'sexy, latin american, to add to strangeness' [so instructs Orson], slowly crossfade to existing music when Everett/Rita dialogue starts up
-29:18ish lower the music after the firepit scene, redo with beach audio with guitar music (cuz he passes guitarists), keep the guitar (and slight wave audio) over all this (at low volume), make the existing music sound like its coming out of a radio, that's a solution...have the native guitar song end naturally right before Orson's shark story.
-kill audio at 32:28 with the fadeout, redo what comes after, Bring back original audio with 'Where's mr. bannister?'. Argh, so much music over the dialogue...Take out the material before 'What's your guess Michael?'. Don't overdo the redactions, people will just go 'why is the audio disappearing whenever there's no talking?'
-at 35:00ish, silence after 'So long fella!'
-35:40, kill party music when there's the transition so she runs on the landscape in relative silence
-37:24 change the music during her run, keep it low key so when you come back with dialogue, it is not trivial
-39:00 remove the transition music, add ambient sound fx
-40:00 and on there's too much music, take it out from 40:46 on into transition
-around 42:20 do mini audio dropouts, especially before Everett tells Orson to call him for legal advice
-in the office with Orson and Anders, maybe add music to make the hawaiian syrupy audio corny as Orson wanted it.
-45ish add reverb to all aquarium audio. Kill audio after Rita's last 'take me'. Silence song after Orson's 'the whole of it', bring it back in when Rita starts reading (because we must...)
-kill audio at 48:20 after Rita's 'fool, i know' so they kiss in silence
-at 49:40ish remove all the audio after the gunshot, come back in at 50:13 with dialogue, take it out again after 'corpse in the bay' and return with truck accident 'look out!'
-54ish its iffy as to whether the audio should be redone during gunshot and orson's run on the boardwalk because of that music. You'd have to reconstruct the crowd noise if you did.
-55ish take out audio at transition until 55:14 dialogue
-Maybe take out the last chord after orson says 'completely insane' so you can think about that line and make sure its atmospheric in following scene
1:00- silence the transition music, restart at dialogue, take it out also after 'george didn't have a wife'
1:13, i dunno, keep all that dramatic music? If you take it out, don't recreate the phone ringing, who cares. Remove from 1:14-1:14:20, enough is enough
1:15ish after Everett says 'elsa', kill the audio, replace with ambient stuff, redo the asian woman, return audio at interior of chinese theater. kill it again before she speaks her first foreign line, then don't worry bout it
1:18 silence transition audio, come back in with asian stuff
1:21ish in funhouse after 'fall guy' kill audio replace with clapboard/funhouse audio
1:24:20 redo audio after Everett's last line, come back in at :43, take out audio before her next line
- kill outro audio right after orson saying 'die trying', since its a swelling track, maybe cut it hard, with a slow echo of the audio with added walking sfx
Interesting ideas, purplepines.
I think Bogdanovic said (either in This is Orson Welles or in the DVD commentary for Lady From Shanghai) that Welles didn't seem to be as upset about the picture re-edit of Lady From Shanghai as he was about the work (or lack thereof) on the soundtrack.
There are some interesting notes in the Francois/Bertome book Orson Welles at Work, including some reproductions of memos by Welles and Richard Wilson regarding Colombia's recut of the film.
Regarding these elusive memos and notes, I find it puzzling that,
given the importance of sound design in Welles' work, they haven't been published. Hopefully the TOE notes will be included in the new DVD, or in that mysterious book by Rick Schmidlin that's listed on amazon.
I think Bogdanovic said (either in This is Orson Welles or in the DVD commentary for Lady From Shanghai) that Welles didn't seem to be as upset about the picture re-edit of Lady From Shanghai as he was about the work (or lack thereof) on the soundtrack.
There are some interesting notes in the Francois/Bertome book Orson Welles at Work, including some reproductions of memos by Welles and Richard Wilson regarding Colombia's recut of the film.
Regarding these elusive memos and notes, I find it puzzling that,
given the importance of sound design in Welles' work, they haven't been published. Hopefully the TOE notes will be included in the new DVD, or in that mysterious book by Rick Schmidlin that's listed on amazon.
The Lady from Shanghai
Good stuff, purplepines. 
I would add only a cut of the first five words in the line "It was early October when we made San Francisco and dropped anchor across the bay from the city [...]" starting at 39:04. I believe this is a goof, since Grisby asks Michael (41:50) to meet him in his office the night they arrive, and says during that meeting (reading the proposed confession) "On the evening of August 9th - that's tomorrow night, fella - I shot and killed Mr. George Grisby" (42:44). That means they dropped anchor in the bay on August 8, or no earlier than August 7 or so.
Come to think of it, I don't understand (at 6:37) Rosalee's line "I meant for you to find it" (referring to the gun she dropped in the park). Does she mean she threw away her only weapon in order to signal a stranger whom she left some time earlier that she needed rescuing? Rather improbable. Or, is she unconsciously blurting out the hidden truth, that she had a devious purpose to lure him into the rescue so as to test his devotion / strength / gullibility / suitability for her insurance scheme? If the latter, it would mean the holdup in the park was staged by her. That I find rather improbable as well. Also, when Michael finds the gun (2:21), he does not see the gun itself (or we don't) - instead, Welles shows Rosalee's closed purse with her hankerchief sticking out of it, on which is strategically situated (by Rosalee?) the cigarette Michael offered her earlier. If she intended to lure him, then the cigarette was the lure, not the gun. Well, maybe she blurted out that line only because she is nervous or something. In any event, it could seem less confusing if she were to say only the following line "I don't know how to shoot."
Too bad the original cut doesn't exist...I wonder exactly what music was on the temp track, and if that music is available.
I would add only a cut of the first five words in the line "It was early October when we made San Francisco and dropped anchor across the bay from the city [...]" starting at 39:04. I believe this is a goof, since Grisby asks Michael (41:50) to meet him in his office the night they arrive, and says during that meeting (reading the proposed confession) "On the evening of August 9th - that's tomorrow night, fella - I shot and killed Mr. George Grisby" (42:44). That means they dropped anchor in the bay on August 8, or no earlier than August 7 or so.
Come to think of it, I don't understand (at 6:37) Rosalee's line "I meant for you to find it" (referring to the gun she dropped in the park). Does she mean she threw away her only weapon in order to signal a stranger whom she left some time earlier that she needed rescuing? Rather improbable. Or, is she unconsciously blurting out the hidden truth, that she had a devious purpose to lure him into the rescue so as to test his devotion / strength / gullibility / suitability for her insurance scheme? If the latter, it would mean the holdup in the park was staged by her. That I find rather improbable as well. Also, when Michael finds the gun (2:21), he does not see the gun itself (or we don't) - instead, Welles shows Rosalee's closed purse with her hankerchief sticking out of it, on which is strategically situated (by Rosalee?) the cigarette Michael offered her earlier. If she intended to lure him, then the cigarette was the lure, not the gun. Well, maybe she blurted out that line only because she is nervous or something. In any event, it could seem less confusing if she were to say only the following line "I don't know how to shoot."
Too bad the original cut doesn't exist...I wonder exactly what music was on the temp track, and if that music is available.
It seems that several of Welles' complaints with Columbia's sound edit of the picture had not only to do with the musical choices and dialogue cuts, but also how the final sound mix was balanced and "flattened out".
In the page that is reproduced in the Francois/Bertome book, Welles (along with Richard Wilson) notes, regarding the scene where Grisby is spying on Michael and Elsa:
"The shock value of the motor of the boat and the voice have been diminished by the recording so the intended impact is absolutely lost.
[...]
The effect of the retreating motor boat formally similar to a Bronx-cheer, has now been flattened out and Grisby's cry of 'Bye bye!' is no longer lewd or funny."
Regarding the song sequence on the boat:
"The dialogue , while it can be heard clearly, is without any peaks or accent. This is the result of more of that 'smoothing'process. Grisby's voice is no longer intrusive and nagging so that the impact of his character on the scene has been greatly reduced. All the 'levels' are so precisely balanced that the sequence achieves, for the first time since I started to work on it, an overall quality of flatness and banality."
Regarding Welles' original scratch music, I wonder if there is anything about it at the Lilly library. In the reference section of Orson Welles at Work, there is a document listed as "Columbia music catalogue".
Has anyone on Wellesnet had a look at the Lilly archives regarding the Lady from Shanghai?
In the page that is reproduced in the Francois/Bertome book, Welles (along with Richard Wilson) notes, regarding the scene where Grisby is spying on Michael and Elsa:
"The shock value of the motor of the boat and the voice have been diminished by the recording so the intended impact is absolutely lost.
[...]
The effect of the retreating motor boat formally similar to a Bronx-cheer, has now been flattened out and Grisby's cry of 'Bye bye!' is no longer lewd or funny."
Regarding the song sequence on the boat:
"The dialogue , while it can be heard clearly, is without any peaks or accent. This is the result of more of that 'smoothing'process. Grisby's voice is no longer intrusive and nagging so that the impact of his character on the scene has been greatly reduced. All the 'levels' are so precisely balanced that the sequence achieves, for the first time since I started to work on it, an overall quality of flatness and banality."
Regarding Welles' original scratch music, I wonder if there is anything about it at the Lilly library. In the reference section of Orson Welles at Work, there is a document listed as "Columbia music catalogue".
Has anyone on Wellesnet had a look at the Lilly archives regarding the Lady from Shanghai?
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