AUDIO MOMENTO

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Conversations with Screen Composers: Rachel Portman OBE

Conversations with Screen Composers is a new series of three events at The Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room where three music composers are interviewed each on a different night by host Tommy Pearson of Red Ted Productions. Wednesday the 9th of May’s event featured Rachel Portman OBE discussing her work on films such as Emma & Chocolat.

The evening started with

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Posted May 14, 2012 at 4:01 pm 1 notes

#composers#film composer#rachel portman#film music#score

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The Adventures of John Williams, the Composer

Reblogged from writtentomorrow

writtentomorrow:

If it’s Steven Spielberg, it’s John Williams.

As someone who’s been interested in listening to soundtracks from movies - a trait picked up from Rakesh after first listening to soundtracks from Swades (A R Rahman), the journey has come a long way, thanks to buddies like Siva, Rama and more.

John Williams is the Ilayaraja of the West, so to speak. His expanse and orchestral scores are a multi-volume story in themselves. I’ve not been a great fan of his - instead, choosing Hans Zimmer, John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams as my top picks - but the reverence the man commands through his scores is awesome.

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(Source: writtentomorrow)

Posted January 3, 2012 at 4:20 pm 3 notes

#john williams#composers#audio momento

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Film Music Magazine interview with Howard Shore on The Hobbit and LOTR film score

Reblogged from moviesorientated

Daniel Schweiger: One of the truly great film music concerts I’ve seen was the live “Fellowship of the Ring” that toured this year. It was akin to watching a three-hour scoring session. Can talk a little bit about the project, and what do you think it adds to the whole canon of “live” film music?
Howard Shore: When you’re creating the score, you don’t have that dramatic arc of hearing how all of these pieces will fit together. It was only after assembling and releasing the complete “Rings” recordings that I could really hear the piece for the first time. And I thought they were all playable in a concert setting. I wanted to hear “The Fellowship of the Ring” played in its entirety, and one of the ways to do it was to play it simultaneously with the film. I thought that maybe it was possible to do it once or twice, though I also knew it would be very difficult to do. I thought of Ludwig Wicki, who’s a Swiss conductor I’ve known for a few years. I asked him if he was interested in doing it, and thankfully he agreed. He’s the one who’s really creating these concerts so beautifully. When I went to see “Fellowship,” it was like I had never seen the film in that way before. I heard the film in a new way, and saw the music. Everything was just so visual. I could feel the vibration in the concert hall of those 240 people on stage. Even the colors of the film looked different. It was a very exciting experience, kind of like an enhanced concert, or an enhanced movie going experience. You could compare it to the silent movie accompaniment we were talking about in “Hugo.” There’s just something pure about it. The response to “Fellowship” was so strong that we’ve continued it with live versions of “The Two Towers” and “Return of the King.” Ludwig’s been playing them all over the world. Erik Ochsner, who’s assisted Ludwig, has also conducted a few “Rings” concerts as well. We even had two concerts the same evening in different cities.
DS: I’d even have been thrilled if they turned off the dialogue completely and just play it with subtitles. Do you think that’s your dream for a pure “Rings” concert?
HS: No, the Tolkien dialogue is beautiful. It all becomes part of the storytelling experience.
DS: I guess your next big epic journey is with the forthcoming two parts of “The Hobbit.” Have you been down to New Zealand where Peter’s filming them?
HS: Oh yes, I’m actively composing now on “The Hobbit.” I love Tolkien, and I love Peter’s work. He creates such incredible films, which makes it even better for a composer. These films are endlessly interesting to me. I never tire of them, because the “Rings” films are fascinating worlds to work in. But scoring them doesn’t get any easier, I have to say! You would think after “The Return of the King” that you’ve done everything. Now there are two films ahead and it’s just a mountain to climb really, but it feels good. “The Hobbit” is quite inspiring.

Posted December 15, 2011 at 8:04 am 2 notes

#audio momento#composers

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Film Music Magazine interview with Howard Shore on Hugo score

Reblogged from moviesorientated

Daniel Schweiger: “Hugo” is essentially a fairy tale about the movies, and how its illusions affect real life, especially in giving a boy the power to dream amidst desperation.
Howard Shore: The film is based on Brian Selznick’s wonderful graphic novel “Hugo Cabret,” which created a fictional story around the real life story of Georges Méliès. Not only was he one of the first filmmakers, but Méliès was also certainly one of the first directors to use special effects. His story is experienced through a young boy named Hugo, who lives in the train station where Méliès’ shop is. In my own role as a composer, I always try to play my music through the point of view of the story’s main character. For a boy who’s Hugo’s age, everything is seen with wide-eyed wonder. In fact, you often see Hugo’s eyes peering out through the clocks. So it’s like a child’s view of that world, especially in how Hugo is fascinated with how machines work. And just as he studies their movements, I study the character’s actions as I work. I also collaborated closely with Martin Scorsese and his editor Thelma Schoonmaker during the editing process. We decided to reveal a lot of the score early on. In the very first reel, there are seven major themes that are developed. Then I also introduce other themes later on for Georges Méliès and his magic when we flash back in time with him.
DS: You’re a very “dense” composer, in that your music seamlessly flows with lush, full melodies that are not easily broken off from one another. When you’re scoring a film aimed at an all-family audience. Is there any trick in making your complex approach accessible for a young audience?
HS: Again, I just write to the character’s point of view. I don’t think you have to be a kid to understand how a twelve year-old feels. I spend a lot of time with my grandson, who’s eight. That certainly helped in my approach to “Hugo.” It was truly a wonderful experience to detail the relationship between Hugo and his friend Isabelle.
DS: How “French” did you want to make the score?
HS: Because I do all my composition in sketch form first, I don’t really deal with the “sound” of a score in the orchestrational sense. I just deal with the harmony and the counterpoint. Then I do the orchestration after that, introducing certain elements. One particular instrument that I thought would be ideal to use in “Hugo” was the Ondes Martenot, an electric instrument that was developed during the 1920’s, which is the same period the movie’s set in. You might call it a French Theremin. And since the movie was dealing with mechanical inventions of the period, the Ondes fit perfectly into “Hugo”’s world. I also took the sound of a café orchestra from the 20’s and used it as the core of the soundtrack, building an orchestra around it. We had quite a large number of players on “Hugo,” I think about 88 people. It was all detailed around the soloists.
DS: One notable aspect of your score is that when we flash back to Méliès’ origins, you actually assume the role of a silent movie accompanist.
HS: You’re dealing with the period of silent films, which went for quite a long time- over 30 years in fact. The thing to remember about what we call “silent films” is that they almost always had music accompaniment. You see that in the film where Georges Méliès goes to a carnival, and into a tent where the Lumière brothers are playing their landmark film “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.” A live pianist is next to the screen, playing the music of Saint-Saëns, who was a popular French composer of the period. So I’m kind of working from that premise that these films aren’t truly “silent,” since you have a traditional music accompaniment to them. When we use the term “traditional” music, I think we’re really referring to the movies that we love from the 1930’s and the 40’s, films whose music derived what those original accompanists were playing during the silent era. They used popular classical music, where it was done on a solo piano, or with an orchestra.
DS: Could you tell us about “Hugo”’s lovely end credit song?
HS: It’s called “Coeur Volant,” and it was written by myself, Elizabeth Cotnoir and Isabelle Geffroy, who’s also known as Zaz. We used melodies from within the score for it, and worked with the wonderful French singer Zaz. But then, I love the idea of creating themes that you hear right at the beginning of the film, and carry right through the arch of it, from the mystery of the automaton and to the adventure of these kids and the adventure of the police inspector. So it’s particularly satisfying for me when all of those melodies finally break out into song. Zaz’s voice is just as much of a fantastic resolution to me as an instrument would be. It’s a beautiful way to end “Hugo.”
DS: When you’re doing a score like this, do you feel that you’re discovering as much as Hugo is?
HS: Oh yes. I love the adventure. Film music really lets you submerge yourself into different worlds. Here it’s the worlds of Georges Méliès and Paris in the 30’s. Why not go there? It’s a wonderful place to be.

Posted December 10, 2011 at 8:05 am 5 notes

#composers#howard shore#hugo#audio momento

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Reblogged from geekrest

geekrest:

Hans Zimmer recently sat down and discussed his experience on scoring The Dark Knight Rises, which he’s currently developing, and on how well he’s worked with director Chris Nolan on the franchise. There’s no question that Zimmer, along with James Newton Howard, has done some fantastic work on helping to sculpt the Nolan-based Batman universe almost as much as Nolan himself with the dark, hero-esque score that began in Batman Begins and was truly defined in The Dark Knight.

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Posted November 29, 2011 at 4:41 pm 5 notes

#audio momento#composers#hans zimmer

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Reblogged from lastdonutofthemind

lastdonutofthemind:

Artist: Ennio Morricone

Song: “A Fistful of Dollars Suite”

Album: A Fistful of Dollars OST (1964)

Genre: Film Score / Soundtrack

It’s pretty much common knowledge that Ennio Morricone is a god among composers. Not only does he write extremely intricate and moving pieces but he’s scored literally hundreds of films in his career (around 500), including some of the most memorable ones around. His work has become so deeply embedded into pop culture and general film culture that absolutely everyone has heard at least one of his compositions, whether it be the classic theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly or the grandiose and equally moving “The Ecstasy of Gold”. As much as I love the score to the final installment in the classic Dollars trilogy however (I mean honestly, how can someone dislike it?!), I share equal feelings for Morricone’s first effort as a film scorer for spaghetti westerns: 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars. This is where it all began. Budget constraints led Morricone to use electric guitars and unconventional sound effects among other things to compose one of the best film scores to this day and I’m thankful. Not a single day passes where I wish the film’s budget were a fragment larger; the raw, sometimes comedic and always downright epic vibe is simply unmatchable. Ennio Morricone, you are quite simply an absolute genius. If you’re a music fan, do yourself a favor and pick up his spaghetti western soundtracks; you won’t regret it. The same can be said for film lovers (and while you’re at it, pick up the Dollars trilogy. It’s a must!).

Posted November 8, 2011 at 4:10 pm 5 notes

#audio momento#composers

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Tonal Excess: Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda scores "The Raid"

Reblogged from tonalexcess

tonalexcess:

In a recent interview with Billboard, Linkin Park vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Shinoda revealed that he will be scoring the upcoming Indonesian action film “The Raid.”

While Shinoda has done smaller film and television score work in the past, this film is the most involved project he…

(Source: Billboard)

Posted November 8, 2011 at 8:06 am 2 notes

#audio momento#composers#soundtrack

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'Moneyball' and 'Abduction' Composers and Directors, Music Supervisors Compare Notes, Gripes @ Billboard Film & TV Music Conference

Posted November 5, 2011 at 8:09 am 8 notes

#audio momento#composers#supervisors

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"
When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings or about his ideas, of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic here on sixth avenue for instance, I don’t have the feeling that anyone is talking, I have the feeling that a sound is acting, and I love the activity of sound. What it does, is it gets louder and quieter, and it gets higher and lower. And it gets longer and shorter. I’m completely satisfied with that, I don’t need sound to talk to me.

We don’t see much difference between time and space, we don’t know where one begins and the other stops. (…) People expect listening to be more than listening. And sometimes they speak of inner listening, or the meaning of sound. When I talk about music, it finally comes to peoples minds that I’m talking about sound that doesn’t mean anything. That is not inner, but is just outer. And they say, these people who finally understand that say, you mean it’s just sounds? To mean that for something to just be a sound is to be useless. Whereas I love sounds, just as they are, and I have no need for them to be anything more. I don’t want sound to be psychological. I don’t want a sound to pretend that it’s a bucket, or that it’s a president, or that it’s in love with another sound. I just want it to be a sound. And I’m not so stupid either. There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Don’t have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure. The sound experience which I prefer to all others, is the experience of silence. And this silence, almost anywhere in the world today, is traffic. If you listen to Beethoven, it’s always the same, but if you listen to traffic, it’s always different.
"

Reblogged from este-o-este

John Cage (1912-1992) Composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, amateur mycologist and mushroom collector. (via este-o-este)

Posted October 22, 2011 at 8:10 am 52 notes

#audio momento#composers

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Made in China: Tales of an Outsourced Composer: Tonight's the Night

Reblogged from derekzhao

derekzhao:

This film wins the award for bending me most out of my comfort zone. The project is very much a blast from the past - I spent two months on it last year, we recorded in early December, but the film itself only recently got completely finished - mixes, color correction, conversions and all….

Posted October 19, 2011 at 8:31 pm 22 notes

#audio momento#composers

Posts tagged composers