Editing Forbidden Planet (section)

==Soundtrack==
''Forbidden Planet''{{'}}s innovative [[electronic music]] score (credited as "electronic tonalities" due to disputes with the musicians' union)<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 4, 2015 |title=Louis and Bebe Barron: Forbidden Planet at the Dawn of Electronic Music |url=https://5mag.net/features/louis-and-bebe-barron-forbidden-planet/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200101132045/https://5mag.net/features/louis-and-bebe-barron-forbidden-planet/ |archive-date=January 1, 2020 |access-date=January 1, 2020}}</ref> was composed by [[Bebe and Louis Barron]]. The two were originally slated to contribute about twenty minutes of sound effects and electronic pieces, as avant-garde composer [[Harry Partch]] was also due to contribute music. When Partch left the project, the Barrons took over the entire soundtrack.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.redsharknews.com/audio/item/6553-forbidden-planet-was-a-landmark-in-film-scoring|title=Forbidden Planet was a landmark in film scoring|first=Guest|last=Author|website=www.redsharknews.com|access-date=May 22, 2024|archive-date=May 22, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240522131030/https://www.redsharknews.com/audio/item/6553-forbidden-planet-was-a-landmark-in-film-scoring|url-status=live}}</ref> MGM producer [[Dore Schary]] had been approached by them at a nightclub in [[Greenwich Village]] while on a family Christmas visit to [[New York City]], where they asked if he was interested in listening to a demonstration of their electronic music. Schary told them he was returning to California the next morning, but to assuage their disappointment, he promised to give them a chance if they ever came to California. Assuming he had heard the last of them, he was surprised when they showed up in Hollywood a few weeks later. Keeping his promise, he listened to their music, and after a consultation with the head of MGM's music department Johnny Green and the movie's producer Nicholas Nayfack, he agreed to hire them.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NN9NF19EsF8C&dq=Louis+Barron+1986+Keyboard+cocktails&pg=PA7|title=Louis and Bebe Barron's Forbidden Planet: A Film Score Guide|first=James Eugene|last=Wierzbicki|year=2005|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0810856707 |via=Google Books}}</ref> When they declined to have all their equipment transferred from New York to Hollywood for a three-month job, the studio agreed, and the movie became MGM's first production to have its score produced outside of the studio lot.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.effectrode.com/knowledge-base/the-self-destructing-modules-behind-revolutionary-1956-soundtrack-of-forbidden-planet/|title=The Self-Destructing Modules Behind Revolutionary 1956 Soundtrack of Forbidden Planet|access-date=May 20, 2024|archive-date=May 20, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520061036/https://www.effectrode.com/knowledge-base/the-self-destructing-modules-behind-revolutionary-1956-soundtrack-of-forbidden-planet/|url-status=live}}</ref> While the [[theremin]] had been used on the soundtracks of ''[[Spellbound (1945 film)|Spellbound]]'' (1945) and ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'' (1951), the Barrons are credited with creating the first completely electronic film score, preceding the development of [[analog synthesizer]]s by [[Robert Moog]] and [[Don Buchla]] in the early 1960s.

Using ideas and procedures from the book ''[[Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine]]'' (1948) by the [[mathematician]] and [[electrical engineer]] [[Norbert Wiener]], Louis Barron constructed his own electronic circuits that he used to generate the score's "bleeps, blurps, whirs, whines, throbs, hums, and screeches", making heavy use of [[ring modulation]].<ref name="MovieDiva-Forbidden-Planet" /> After recording the basic sounds, the Barrons further manipulated the sounds with reverberation, delay, filters, and tape manipulations (as employed in the piece ''[[Williams Mix]]'', which they had assisted [[John Cage]] in realizing at their Greenwich Village studio).<ref name="MGroovesFP">{{Cite web |title=Notes about film soundtrack and CD |url=http://www.moviegrooves.com/shop/forbiddenplanetsoundtrack.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090925031539/http://www.moviegrooves.com/shop/forbiddenplanetsoundtrack.htm |archive-date=25 September 2009 |website=MovieGrooves}}</ref><ref>[[Alex Ross (music critic)|Ross, Alex]] (2008). ''The Rest is Noise'', p. 402. {{ISBN|978-0312427719}}.</ref>

Since Bebe and Louis Barron did not belong to the Musicians Union, their work could not be considered for an [[Academy Award]] in either the "soundtrack" or "sound effects" categories; this also necessitated the "electronic tonalities" credit. MGM declined to publish a soundtrack album at the time that ''Forbidden Planet'' was released; however, film composer and conductor [[David Rose (musician)|David Rose]] later published a 7-inch (18&nbsp;cm) [[single (music)|single]] of his original main title theme that he had recorded at the MGM studios in March 1956. Rose was originally hired to compose the musical score in 1955, but his main title theme was discarded when he was discharged from the project by Dore Schary in late December of that year. The film's original theatrical trailer contains snippets of Rose's score, the tapes of which he reportedly later destroyed.<ref>Wierzbicki 2015, p. 167.</ref>

The Barrons finally released their soundtrack in 1976 as an [[Gramophone record|LP]] [[album]] for the film's 20th anniversary; it was on their very own Planet Records label (later changed to Small Planet Records and distributed by GNP Crescendo Records). The LP premiered at [[MidAmeriCon]], the [[34th World Science Fiction Convention]], held in [[Kansas City, Missouri]], over the 1976 [[Labor Day]] weekend, as part of a 20th Anniversary celebration of ''Forbidden Planet'' held at that [[Worldcon]]; the Barrons were there promoting their album's first release, signing all the copies sold at the convention. They also introduced the first of three packed-house screenings that showed an MGM [[35mm movie film|35mm]] fine-grain vault print in original CinemaScope and stereophonic sound. A decade later, in 1986, their soundtrack was released on a music CD for the film's 30th Anniversary, with a six-page color booklet containing images from ''Forbidden Planet'', plus liner notes from the composers and Bill Malone.<ref name=MGroovesFP/>

A tribute to the film's soundtrack was performed live in concert by [[Jack Dangers]], and is available on disc one of the album ''[[Forbidden Planet Explored]]''.