Probably my favorite Soundtrack Experience right here. When the 3-Disc set of the complete score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was announced, it was the happiest and saddest day of my life because I knew that not only was this release of one of my favorite scores going to be super awesome, but no future soundtrack would ever match the greatness that was this release. But LaLa Land being LaLa Land, event that turned out to be proven wrong.
About a month or so before the soundtrack's release, it was announced that there was going to be a special promotion for the soundtrack a whole week before it's release where the Director's Edition of the film would be shown and certain members of the film crew including Jerry Goldsmith's music engineer Bruce Botnick and the blaster beam creator himself, Craig Hundley would be in attendance. The moment I heard that there was going to be "signings" at the event, I had to get in on the action!..... but I had a job and already had my remaining vacation time for a Christmas. So I posted in the film score monthly forum asking if anyone would help me out, and someone responded!
This was such a big deal that I not only paid for his admittance to the event, but also for his own copy of the soundtrack as well. It was one of those things where I thought if I could take care of everything for him, he'll make sure that he gets my soundtrack and the signatures along with it. Well,
He not only got the signatures of every person at the signing table, he also managed to grab Richard H. Kline's signature! He was the director of cinematography for the film who was also in attendance.
Another cool part about this story was where these signatures were signed. Since the three-disc set packaging doesn't really have an easy means of accessing the front cover artwork, normally the decision is made to have the composers sign on the booklet on the inside. I never liked this because you can't show off the booklet! But thankfully someone misspelled a word when the cover went off to the printers, and LaLa Land sparing no expense decided to print out corrected covers that would be handed out at the event and shipped along with the discs to those who ordered online. So when I got my signed cover, I popped open the original cover and replaced it with the signed one. You couldn't have asked for a series of various events to come out so perfectly.
*blows a kiss in the air*
It was just beautiful. Everything worked out perfectly!