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Elmer Bernstein was a Composer, Conductor from New York City, New York.

Ghostbusters Related[]

Elmer Bernstein provided the music for the Ghostbusters Score. Two of those pieces of music were also provided for the Ghostbusters Soundtrack. Ivan Reitman told Bernstein about Ghostbusters months before filming started and was hired before the actors were.[1] He fairly consistently used a 72 member orchestra and recorded the score at the Burbank Studios.[2] Bernstein brought in his son, Peter Bernstein, and David Spear to orchestrate the score.[3] He experimented a little and used three Yamaha DX-7 synthesizers and a French instrument called the Ondes Martneot. For the latter, very few people played the instrument so Bernstein brought in a player from England.[4]

Trivia[]

  • Elmer Bernstein didn't care for the use of rock and roll in the soundtrack and disagreed with the use of the song "Magic" by Mick Smiley and didn't think it helped the movie at all.[5]
  • Elmer Bernstein turned down Ghostbusters II because he didn't want to be typecast for comedies.[6]

External Links[]

References[]

  1. Larson, Randall (1985). Elmer Bernstein and Ghostbusters, CinemaScore magazine #13/14. CinemaScore, USA. Elmer Bernstein says: "Ivan first mentioned this film to me months before he ever started to shoot it, so I was brought in before the actors were even signed. But that's an unusual case."
  2. Larson, Randall (1985). Elmer Bernstein and Ghostbusters, CinemaScore magazine #13/14. CinemaScore, USA. Elmer Bernstein says: "That was done fairly consistently with an orchestra of about seventy two. It was recorded at the Burbank Studios."
  3. Larson, Randall (1985). Elmer Bernstein and Ghostbusters, CinemaScore magazine #13/14. CinemaScore, USA. Elmer Bernstein says: "No, I did not. The score was orchestrated by two orchestrators, one of them was Peter Bernstein, my son, and the other one was David Spear. David's worked for me before, he orchestrated AIRPLANE."
  4. Larson, Randall (1985). Elmer Bernstein and Ghostbusters, CinemaScore magazine #13/14. CinemaScore, USA. Elmer Bernstein says: "It's a composer's holiday, because it gives you such a wide range of things you can do and experiment with. For instance, in GHOSTBUSTERS I had an opportunity, because of the nature of the score, to employ an instrument that Yamaha makes, called the DX-7, which is a very useful synthesizer. and I used three of them. I also used a French instrument called the Ondes Martenot, which very few people play – as a matter of fact I had to import a player from England to play the instrument. It gave me an opportunity to do things of that sort."
  5. Larson, Randall (1985). Elmer Bernstein and Ghostbusters, CinemaScore magazine #13/14. CinemaScore, USA. Elmer Bernstein says: "That's a situation I'm really not happy with. I really don't like it. I recognize that both John Landis and Ivan Reitman are extremely gifted men and they really have an unusual sense for the market, and I think the using of rock and roll songs is part of their awareness of the market, so to speak. Quite honestly, they do it because they think it's going to help sell their picture. Obviously, as a composer, I don't much care for it. I'd rather handle the whole thing myself and, ultimately, I don't think it’s as good for the film as having a completely-composed score. But it's very hard to argue with something like the Ray Parker song from GHOSTBUSTERS, when it is up in the top ten on the charts...In the case of GHOSTBUSTERS, Ivan and I had discussed this right from the beginning. Ivan had told me that he wanted to do this and we had a pretty general agreement on what areas you could best use rock and roll songs in, and in general this plan was fairly well followed. I have maybe only two disagreements in the film itself, where rock and roll was used where I don't personally think it works very well...Yes, that was one of the places I really disagreed with. I didn't think that helped the film at all, and I didn't think the song was important enough, anyway. It doesn't do that much. I think the Ray Parker thing is cute."
  6. Greene, James, Jr., (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, p. 122. Lyons Press, Essex, CT USA, ISBN 9781493048243. Line reads: "Elmer Bernstein chose not to provide an orchestral score for Ghostbusters II. The composer turned down two other comedies during that same period, deciding instead to write music for the drama My Left Foot. He hoped it would lead to more work in that vein. "You know this town," Bernstein said. "You become typecast. I sometimes think this is the only place in the world where it's harder to fight your way down from the top than up from the bottom. You figure it out." Reitman hired Twins composer Randy Edelman in Bernstein's place."

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