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Start Date
12-6-2025 9:30 AM
Description
This paper engages with music and sound in the ‘Ministry of Magic’ area of Universal’s new Epic Universe, and thus this abstract is almost entirely speculative. However, all of Universal’s promotional materials regarding the park and its areas have been highly musical, with videos related to the Wizarding World being soundtracked almost entirely by cues from the film soundtracks (with some library cues thrown in), and notably not just with Williams cues but those from Desplat and Hooper, as well as James Newton Howard, in line with the area’s intrinsic relation to the Fantastic Beasts films (which he scored). This paper, then, extends work undertaken elsewhere to analyse the background music, ride music and live performed music of Ministry of Magic, here drawing on the notion of the musical register (after Farmer and Summers, 2023) to more clearly articulate how each element relates to the dominant musical register(s) of the franchise as it continues to grow. As cues from Hogwarts Legacy have seeped into television show Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking (an interesting crossover in itself) it will prove interesting to see whether the park’s sound designers and composers restrict themselves to the musical register of the film franchise(s) alone.
Methodologically the paper will (through unfortunate necessity) rely entirely on virtual materials and web ethnography (YouTube walkaround videos, ride POV videos, filmed recordings of performances and engagement with fan discussion online), but this will also provide the paper with an additional interpretive angle: that of fan reception and engagement. As the park area’s first guests will likely be among the most ardent fans (and indeed richest, with only multi-day passes currently for sale), it will be interesting to see what the critical ears of these fans make of the park’s sonic environment.
Recommended Citation
White, Dan, "More Magical Music: Epic Universe’s Ministry of Magic as an Extension of an Existing Musical Register" (2025). Theme Park Music and Sound. 2.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/tpms/2025/thursday/2
More Magical Music: Epic Universe’s Ministry of Magic as an Extension of an Existing Musical Register
This paper engages with music and sound in the ‘Ministry of Magic’ area of Universal’s new Epic Universe, and thus this abstract is almost entirely speculative. However, all of Universal’s promotional materials regarding the park and its areas have been highly musical, with videos related to the Wizarding World being soundtracked almost entirely by cues from the film soundtracks (with some library cues thrown in), and notably not just with Williams cues but those from Desplat and Hooper, as well as James Newton Howard, in line with the area’s intrinsic relation to the Fantastic Beasts films (which he scored). This paper, then, extends work undertaken elsewhere to analyse the background music, ride music and live performed music of Ministry of Magic, here drawing on the notion of the musical register (after Farmer and Summers, 2023) to more clearly articulate how each element relates to the dominant musical register(s) of the franchise as it continues to grow. As cues from Hogwarts Legacy have seeped into television show Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking (an interesting crossover in itself) it will prove interesting to see whether the park’s sound designers and composers restrict themselves to the musical register of the film franchise(s) alone.
Methodologically the paper will (through unfortunate necessity) rely entirely on virtual materials and web ethnography (YouTube walkaround videos, ride POV videos, filmed recordings of performances and engagement with fan discussion online), but this will also provide the paper with an additional interpretive angle: that of fan reception and engagement. As the park area’s first guests will likely be among the most ardent fans (and indeed richest, with only multi-day passes currently for sale), it will be interesting to see what the critical ears of these fans make of the park’s sonic environment.
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