'Avengers' Composer Alan Silvestri: Bringing Heroes Together with Music EXCLUSIVE. By Matt Patches, Hollywood.com Staff A great Hollywood blockbuster score doesn't come around too often — after all, no one wants to spend $100 million or more then weave in a risky soundtrack that could derail an audience's reception. Thankfully, Marvel Studios went against the grain and let the legendary Alan Silvestri deliver a rousing, old school score for their 2011 period action adventure flick Captain America: The First Avenger. If there's anyone worth taking a gamble on, it's Silvestri, a two-time Oscar-nominated composer whose works can be heard in such films as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, The Abyss, The Quick and the Dead, Contact and the Back to the Future trilogy.
Following up his inspired work on Captain America, Silvestri returned to the Marvel movie universe for another round: The Avengers. What was the process of you becoming involved with The Avengers after your work on Captain America? Was there a thematic reason for bringing you back? AS: Right. 'OK, Alan. 'Game of Thrones' Composer Ramin Djawadi: 'I'm Just Trying to Create Something Magical' (Q&A) Courtesy of Ramin Djawadi Ramin Djawadi HBO's Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi was recruited for Hollywood by composer Hans Zimmer, with whom he shared an ASCAP Award for Batman Begins.
Grammy-nominated for Iron Man and Emmy-nominated for Prison Break and FlashForward, he's set to score Guillermo del Toro's upcoming sci-fi epic Pacific Rim. Djawadi tells The Hollywood Reporter’s Victoria Ellison how he makes Thrones sound magical and why Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) is his favorite character. THR: Was there a movie that first made you want to become a film composer?
Ramin Djawadi: The one that really triggered it for me was The Magnificent Seven [scored by Elmer Bernstein]. THR: Did you imagine your dream job would be film composer? Djawadi: Always. THR: What are your influences? Djawadi: Yeah, it’s quite possible. PHOTOS: 'Game of Thrones' Season 3 Premiere: Westeros Meets Hollywood THR: Your music is good at building suspense.
THR: I also hear a Celtic sound. Djawadi: Exactly. 'Philomena' Composer Alexandre Desplat Probably Wrote One Of Your Favorite Film Scores. Composer Alexandre Desplat may not have the same name recognition to mainstream audiences as Hans Zimmer, but his body of work speaks for itself. The French born Desplat, a five-time Oscar nominee, has contributed scores to dozens of movies over the last decade, including "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," "The King's Speech," "The Queen," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Moonrise Kingdom," "Fantastic Mr.
Fox," "Argo," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Tree of Life," "Julie & Julia" and many more. His latest composition is "Philomena," Stephen Frears' true-life drama about an elderly woman (Dame Judi Dench) who, along with a disgraced journalist (film co-writer Steve Coogan), searches for the son who was taken from her and put up for adoption by a group of Catholic nuns in 1952. Desplat's score, a mix of haunting waltzes and carnival melodies, is as understated as Frears' film, and never forces emotions onto the audience. "The Queen" (2006) "Argo" (2012) 'The Hobbit': Howard Shore's soundtrack.
When fans of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy return to Middle-earth for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of three films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s earlier book, there will be plenty of familiar sights and sounds. Ian McKellen’s Gandalf plays a major role in this adventure, of course, and a few other favorite actors from LOTR return as well. But it’s the music that immediately washes over the audience like a warm blanket and reminds them that they’re “home” again. Composer Howard Shore, who won three Academy Awards for his work on the previous films, has weaved the now iconic “Concerning Hobbits” melody throughout the new film while expanding upon Middle-earth’s musical palette.
“The Hobbit is a more gentle story than Lord of the Rings,” says Shore, in an exclusive video about the making of the film’s music, recorded by his wife, Elizabeth. “I always begin working with the book, the words, the most important thing.” 5 Orchestration Lessons from John Williams' Flight to Neverland - Composer Focus. For many young film composers, including myself, John Williams is the guy when it comes to orchestral film music.
His scores are lush, complex and exciting. Although we all strive to have a unique voice in our music, there is plenty to be learned by taking a close look at the techniques Williams uses to achieve his orchestral sound. In this article I’ll discuss five observations on the orchestration from the piece “Flight to Neverland”, from his score to Hook. This article is by no means comprehensive, but there are some valuable lessons that typical orchestration books (95% of which should be relabeled “instrumentation” books) wont teach you. You can purchase and download an mp3 of the piece from Amazon here , and if you’re willing to pay a premium price you can even purchase a copy of the full score . 1. Perhaps it’s a result of my background in rock and jazz, but I have a tendency to put a ride cymbal or hi-hat pattern behind just about everything. 2.
Bar 1 (0:00): Bar 14 (0:24): 3. 4. A Conversation with Elliot Goldenthal - The Score with Edmund Stone. AirTalk Event: The History and Future of Hollywood Film Music | Events. Alexandre Desplat Talks Embracing Humor Through Music in 'Philomena' Score. Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in 'Philomena' Composer Alexandre Desplat has never scored a comedy before and, although one wouldn't call "Philomena" a comedy, he nonetheless found the witty repartee between Judi Dench and Steve Coogan a lighter change of pace for his fifth collaboration with director Stephen Frears.
"The movie has this duality, which is often the case with Stephen's movies, where the tragedy is very strong but there's also this distant wit," Desplat suggests. "There's this balance between drama and comedy. It's always a better way of delivering a message, whether it's political or social. "I always try to remember that I love the Italian comedies of the '60s, particularly by Ettore Scola ['Made in Italy']. They would have very deep subjects and always treat them with a sense of humor.When it's tinted with comedy, it makes everything so much stronger somehow. " Alexandre Desplat "Right away, I realized even though it's a duet, it's about Philomena and her journey. Alien - Scorepedia. Alien is the Jerry Goldsmith score for the 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott about a deep-space tugboat crew who face a hostile alien life form that boards their ship and destroys them.
The film marked the first collaboration between Scott and Goldsmith—a turbulent partnership that resulted in most of the music being revised, rescored, relocated, or dropped altogether in favor of temp tracks. Though the score did not survive as a whole in the finished film, it gained widespread familiarity and popularity through the release of its soundtrack album following the success of the movie, and has since become one of the most admired of Goldsmith's science fiction scores.
The score Commission The early concept and screenplay for Alien came to 20th Century Fox by way of Walter Hill, David Giler, and Gordon Carroll, who had formed a production company called Brandywine with ties to the studio (and who helped rewrite the original Dan O'Bannon script). Temp tracking Recording. Angelo Badalamenti explains how he wrote "Laura Palmer's Theme"
BBC iPlayer - Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies: The Big Score. Bernard Herrmann: The Ghost & Mrs. Muir - Film Score Guide - Alexander Publishing. Regarded as one of the greatest film composers of all time, Bernard Herrmann was responsible for some of the most memorable music in film. His work with Alfred Hitchcock produced a slew of classics including Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960).
Several years before collaborating with Hitchcock, however, Herrmann composed the brilliant score for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), which remained a personal favorite of the composer's. Herrmann's score reinforces the film's romantic theme, and much of the music has an appropriately elegiac quality. In mood, orchestration, and even to some extent thematic identity, it seems to prefigure his music for Vertigo. In this latest addition to the Scarecrow Film Score Guide series, author David Cooper examines Herrmann's career in general, as well as the specific elements that went into the creation of The Ghost and Mrs. Composer Focus - Music & Audio Tutorials. Composer Hans Zimmer Talks 'Interstellar' Origin, Punk Influence on 'Dark Knight' (Exclusive Video)
Christopher Nolan's epic Interstellar began with a mysterious letter the director sent composer Hans Zimmer, the latter told a gathering of students Oct. 15 at Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television. Without telling Zimmer that he was planning a futuristic science-fiction film — and without even telling him what the movie was about — Nolan sent Zimmer a letter typed (with a typewriter) on thick paper, outlining what he saw as the theme of his film and asking Zimmer to spend one day writing some musical ideas. Zimmer was hooked, even though he didn't know what Nolan planned to do. In one night, he wrote a four-minute piece with piano and organ. "I really just wrote about what it meant to be a father," said Zimmer.
See more Hans Zimmer on Writing the Music for 'Interstellar' At the end of the filming of Interstellar, Nolan gave Zimmer a watch. A full transcript of the interview follows. ZIMMER: Hello. GALLOWAY: I know, I heard you get up very late each day. GALLOWAY: Why? Composer Interview: Mark Mancina. Composers Roundtable with Hans Zimmer, Thomas Newman, Steven Price, and Alan Silvestri. CONVERSATION WITH JAMES HORNER JAMES HORNER. "If you build it he will come …" Just like Ray Kinsella, the character played by Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, a voice (or rather my intuition) led me to create the Association and the James Horner Film Music website. Every minute, every hour spent working for this project was partly guided by an objective I held close in my heart: publish a new, previously unreleased conversation with James Horner. I gave myself five years to get there.
Next January we will celebrate four years of JHFM… Unlike the composer, who never listens again to his old music and who never looks in the rearview mirror, I’ve often enjoyed turning to the past to evaluate the path taken. I wanted to preface this article by David Hocquet to thank you, dear partners, for allowing me to fulfill my dreams. We built it, he came. Jean Baptiste Martin, President of the James Horner Film Music Association The following discussion was held on November 13, 2014. JH: It's all coloring. JH: I can't remember the score. Danny Elfman on Film Scores, 'Simpsons' and Working With Tim Burton | Rolling Stone. The way film composer and former Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman tells it, his whole career boils down to two words: "Fuck it. " He muttered that philosophical phrase when he offered an opportunity to write his first movie score – for director Tim Burton's feature debut, Pee-wee's Big Adventure – and the musician said it again when given the chance to perform his now-impressive catalog of symphonic cinematic creations in his "Music From the Films of Tim Burton" concert series.
The shows, which opened in London in 2013 and will kick off its New York City at Lincoln Center on July 6th, contain 15 suites of music from throughout Elfman's three decades of collaborations with the director — from the primal mania of Pee-wee to the textured grandeur of Alice in Wonderland, with stops at Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands, among others, along the way.
"So I remember sitting backstage, hyperventilating before I walk out, and Helena Bonham Carter's there," he continues. Why is that? Danny Elfman on Tim Burton, The Simpsons and his return to singing live | Film. While Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are widely considered to be joined at the hairdo – an emo-hipster version of Scorsese and De Niro – it's composer Danny Elfman who has been the director's most loyal and enduring collaborator.
Think of any of Burton's deranged goth-com fantasies, from Beetlejuice and Batman to Sleepy Hollow and Frankenweenie, and it will be Elfman's barbed and bouncy compositions that spring to mind as readily as man-child misfit heroes or morbid, arachnophile art design. Elfman, now 60, was the frontman of performance art outfit turned rock band Oingo Boingo when Burton asked him to score his 1985 debut film, the comic road movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Only twice since then has Elfman surrendered the baton on a Tim Burton film – most recently on Sweeney Todd, which was wall-to-wall Sondheim, and back in 1994 when the pair quarrelled prior to Burton making Ed Wood.
"I'm scared shitless," he says, raising a weak smile. Reading on mobile? Elliot Goldenthal. People + Opinion : Artists / Engineers / Producers / Programmers One of Hollywood's most intelligent composers, Elliot Goldenthal is equally adept at writing for the big screen as the concert hall or theatre. We talk to him about his background and approach to composition, technology and orchestration. Mark Wherry "I tend to gravitate to dramatic and mythic subject matter," admits composer Elliot Goldenthal, who, having written scores for films such as Alien 3, Batman Forever, Interview With The Vampire, Titus and Final Fantasy, needs little introduction in these areas.
While he may not be a household name in the same way as John Williams, Goldenthal is widely appreciated amongst film-score devotees for his distinctive style of composition and orchestration, combining both tonal and atonal harmony, and bringing electronic and ethnic influences into the traditionally romantic world of film scores. In addition to his instrumental studies, Elliot also began composing as a teenager. Elliot Goldenthal vs. Tyler Bates - Victorious Titus/Returns A King. Film Studies 101: Michael Giacchino On Being A Composer | Features | Empire. From Music Editor to Oscar Winning Composer: The Surprising Story Behind the Music of 'Gravity'
When Steven Price came on to "Gravity," it was for a short two-week music editing gig; when he left, he'd spent a year on the project as the film's composer. At first, Price was brought on to help with an internal studio screening for Alfonso Cuarón's technologically-stunning space epic and the two got to talking about how music could work in the film. Two weeks became six weeks, and then Cuarón asked Price to write the score. "When I spoke to Alfonso, it was clear that he was looking to do something different," Price told me in a phone interview from London. "He was looking to investigate how the music could work. " Price had already been experimenting with sound and score for the studio screening, and he "started making odd noises and stuff," as he puts it, dreaming up a soundscape he could use for a film in which silence plays such a huge role.
As Cuarón instructs the audience at the beginning of "Gravity," in space, "there is nothing to carry sound. " Sandra Bullock in 'Gravity' Hans Zimmer - making of HANNIBAL Soundtrack. How Alexandre Desplat creates a film score in three weeks. If you have a full-length feature film in need of a score very quickly Alexandre Desplat may be your composer. The Frenchman has built up an unrivalled reputation in the film world for speed and reliability - with recent credits including The King's Speech, Godzilla and Unbroken. But three films equals less than half his yearly output, he tells the BBC.
Alexandre Desplat sits in a small room at Abbey Road studios in London, taking a break before the afternoon's recording session downstairs. Director Tom Hooper awaits, ready to put finishing touches to his third commercial for Jaguar. But Desplat is happy to take time to expound on what makes a good film composer. "The first thing is, you can't write movie music if you don't know how to write quickly," he says.
"It's not unusual to have only three weeks to score a picture. "Sometimes it's because another composer has left the project. I ask how he keeps up a strike-rate of three or four movies a year. So does he write music each day? How Film Composers Work" How the Game of Thrones Composer Scored the Massively Epic Music of Pac Rim | Underwire. Howard Shore Master Class. Howard Shore Use Well the Days (Part 1) HuffPost Live. I am Hans Zimmer - Ask Me Anything! : IAmA. Interview Michael Giacchino JUPITER ASCENDING. Interview with Thomas Newman. James Horner Tells The Story Behind Five Of His Classic Film Scores. Joe Hisaishi in Budokan - Studio Ghibli 25 Years Concert (BluRay, 1080p) John Williams conducts circus tain chase from Indiana Jones and the last crusade.
Legendary Composer Leonard Bernstein on the Future of Music, Harvard 1973. Making Notes: Starting Out As A Composer. Making of a Film Score. Man Of Steel Soundtrack - Sculptural Percussion - Hans Zimmer. Master Class: Steven Spielberg & John Williams. Psycho - The Shower Scene With And Without Music. Revenge composer iZLER shares his process to scoring story and character. Song Exploder | Episode 7: Jeff Beal. Song Exploder | The Martian. SoundCloud. SoundWorks Collection Interview Series - Composer Marco Beltrami. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Production Diary 14. Trent Reznor, Danny Elfman and Top Composers Reveal Insecurities, Power of Procrastination and the Real Story Behind 'Interstellar's' Controversial Sound Mix.
Upcoming Film Scores. Video: The Music of “Lost” VSL Studio Chat with Danny Elfman. Watch Trent Reznor, Danny Elfman, & Hans Zimmer Discuss Their Work In A Composer Roundtable. Why Hans Zimmer Got The Job You Wanted (And You Didn't) WKUK - Season 5 - John Williams. Www.filmscorerundowns.net/other/elliot_goldenthal.pdf. ‘How To Train Your Dragon 2′: Getting the Music to Soar.