Zimmer: the Super Walmart of media music

A new article in USA Today’s Game Hunter section talks about Hans breaking into the game music market.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it kindof legitimizes game music. Others have done the reverse (ie. Giacchino, Gregson-Williams (of the Harry variety)) by scoring games and then moving up to movies.

So what’s my problem? Well, not a lot really, except that in the future everyone will go to Hans Zimmer for their movies/games/TV/corporate video/commercial music needs. Not the man Hans Zimmer, but the superstore called Hans Zimmer. Complete with door greeters and everyone working fully part time so that the corporation doesn’t have to buy its employee’s healthcare.

The funny thing is, I have grandparents who swear to their motto “only buy ‘Made in the USA’” and they do most of their shopping at WalMart. I’m pretty sure that a good portion of the merchandise is not made in the USA. I’m not going to tell them though, I like them happy, and I would like to avoid any arguments we may have on the subject.

So WalMart is not unlike Hans Zimmer the music store, or the man. Someone contracts HZ to write music, but you never really know who helped to ghostwrite it. The future only bodes more of the same, except instead of making reels with samples of music that I think a potential commercial client would want to see, I have to make a reel that i think HZ would want to see, all for a job in a special HZ cubicle  replete with a database of popular cues and chord progressions.

With all of that, I don’t want you to misunderstand me… one of my goals is to start as that door greeter and work my way up… but dammit, can I do it without moving to Los Angeles?!

In other news, the wife and I are going the tonight’s showing of  Gamera Vs. Guiron at the Hollywood Theater in Portland. This is where I will learn who amongst three has won the scene scoring competition. Weird way to do it, only because a portion of the bounty/reward is two free tickets to a showing of GvG, but in order to learn if you’ve won the tickets to see the show, you have to buy the tickets to see the show. Oh well, supporting local art and whatnot… I’m for that.

New countdown: 13 days until Star Trek is released on Blu Ray and DVD. Yay!

Posted

The music has been posted. 2 other contenders… so far.

Classic Japanese Monster ate my homework

So I finally submitted my music for the “Monster Music Contest” hosted by filmusik.com. It hasn’t yet been posted on their site, but I have received confirmation that it has been received.

However, I have posted it to my youtube account so that I could put it up here. For your viewing pleasure:

Feedback, thoughts, questions, hate/flame? Give it, I have semi-thick skin.

Speaking of thick skin, I stabbed my thumb this last weekend while carving my pumpkin. It’s okay, no need to worry, except for the fact that my pumpkin now has the taste for blood.

Not too much else right now, but I did finish the 2nd rough draft of my sonata’s 4th movement, now only 15 more minutes to start and finish by Dec. 7th (damn that’s scary).

It’s Raining in Portland

Wednesday. Humpday.

Trying to finish up the fourth movement of my sonata for Marimba and Clarinet. Not so fast… I haven’t written four movements, I only started with the fourth. But I feel a little under the gun because I have a goal to complete the entire sonata by the time Winter term begins in January.

I’m also getting ready to upload my score for Gameron vs. Guiron to filmusik.com. I’d be interested to know if my friends (Herr, Mikey, etc…) are also submitting anything so that i can keep a weather eye out. After that, not a whole lot on the horizon in terms of scoring… at least nothing i can speak of yet.

I am submitting for consideration to score a piece for PSU’s New Music Ensemble. They only accept four people from those who submit, and out of those four, only one gets played on their spring concert, so that should be interesting.

Speaking of things musical, the OR symphony is doing a concert next weekend that consists of music from video games. and then a few weeks later they’re doing their film music concert. I am very excited to see one or both of these, and hope that i can get some tickets with my student ID.

In other news, Apple released a whole bunch of stuff yesterday including new mac minis, imacs, and some other stuff. I can’t wait to get the new mac mini server. I see a lot of potential for collaboration on projects, like the next Larson/Reimer opera. Who knows? I sure don’t. Also, I can’t wait to try out the new “magic mouse”. It looks very interesting, and hopefully as great as the “mighty mouse” except without that stupid gunk magnet of a scroll-ball. But still, no mac purchases until the Mac Pro is updated.

Star Wars, In Concert!

This is what I did on Wednesday. The Star Wars: In Concert traveled to Portland, and it… was… frakkin’… awesome! Obviously its hard to top a concert that includes music that is brilliant and inspiring. This was made even better by the fact that there were collages of film to accompany the music.

All narrated by Anthony Daniels, the show was in two acts with an intermission. And because we were a happy audience, we received an encore.

It is hard to remember all of the cues played, but i think that’s mainly because they were all conglomerated into sections to follow the story line from beginning to end. Everything was wonderful, but these are the cues i can remember:

• Anakin’s Theme – this was extended further at the end of the cue to really draw out the imperial march (or Darth Vader) theme.
• Flag Parade – This theme was also amended with some very cool string variations of the motifs.
• Dual of the Fates – Totally awesome and powerful. If I remember correctly, this cue was also attached to the Battle of the Heroes cue. Which, at the point when there was footage of them doing battle on the lava planet, fireballs were emitted from the stage to annunciate the large hits. I must say that this music wouldn’t have been the same without the choir killing it too!
• Droids
• Love Theme – Anakin and Padmé
• Rise of the Empire – This included the “Imperial March” in its entirety.
• Jedi Theme
• Leia’s Theme
• Cantina – complete with the cantina band’s song.
• Astroid Field
• Throne Room

Those are what I can remember. I feel like there was one or two more, but I can’t recall. Of course the finale was “The Throne Room”, but the encore was the “Imperial March” which was so badass, and at that point everyone was so hyped up that it was more like a rock concert. At one point during the encore, the flute duet (played by female flautists) was up on the big screen, and some audience members were cheering and cat calling, which actually made one of the players smile embarrassed while blushing. It was a weird and funny moment that i guess i never thought i would witness at a classical music concert.

This concert definitely instilled in me (once again) my absolute love of things musical and epic in nature. I think that by coming back to music, I’m once again on the right track!

The following is a short clip that i took (perhaps as proof to myself). I didn’t want to keep my camera out to long (for fear of “the man” taking my phone away, also) so that I could pay attention to what was happening.

Seattle & Harry Potter VI

This last weekend, Ruth and I took a weekend vacation to Seattle to check it out (kindof). It was a lot of fun. Saturday morning we started out by going to Pike’s Place Market and strolling though to see the produce, seafood, and wares of the Seattle market. after this we strolled along the piers and then took the monorail to the Space Needle where we had lunch in the rotating restaurant. It was awesome! The above picture was taken in between bites of gourmet Dungeoness Crab Mac & Cheese.

After lunch we continued our exploration of the city, and took a tour of the Underground of Seattle, where we saw some cool stuff and learned a little about the history of Seattle. After that, dinner and a movie, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. More on that later.

The next morning, we had Starbucks from the original Starbucks location. And then we went explored a bit more. Then we had Iver’s fish & chips on the pier. After that we went on a two hour boat tour of Union Lake, and the locks, Puget sound, and Seattle Harbor. A great time for sure. All in all, it was really fun and warrants a return trip.

So finally, we saw Harry Potter VI. I liked it, but having already read the books it was very hard to love it. I understand that to make a film watchable, it has to be no longer than a certain length and include material that will keep the audience interested. Unfortunately, this story in movie version didn’t translate very well. The movie definitely included important highlights… but lacked in substance. A lot of character was missing, and a major scene that I, for one, was looking forward to with great anticipation… the battle in the castle and courtyard. I sincerely hope that they are able to do a much better job with the final book (two movies)!

Now the score. Nicholas Hooper is back for this installment, and hate me if you want to, but i love this score. The choral work he does for the cue “In Noctem” and just the character of the score in general are magnificent. I wonder why? Did he read all of the negative reviews he recieved for his first Harry Potter attempt? I don’t know… but it must be tough going against the master (John Williams)!

So in listening to the score i’ve been trying to pinpoint what about it makes me like it so much and i think i’ve figured it out. In addition to the choral work (which is always a weak spot for me because i love it so much) there are a lot of techniques in here that sound like what Thomas Newman (Lemony Snickets, Shawshank Redemption, Wall-E) would have done. There’s even a little bit of Giacchino minimalism thrown in for good measure.

The music, overall, worked really well for me in the film. I think one of the best cues that Hooper was able to pull off was when Hermione was crying alone in the stairwell. On the CD it is the track called “Harry & Hermione.” Its very interesting to me that when I listen to the music now (without the film) the track sounds fine but is missing some of the muscle that it had in the film when the shot flowed to Draco. Perhaps it was the mix for the film, or just the combination of the pictures with the music that made my mind love it… I don’t know.

Now onto the death scene. When it began, I felt very disappointed. Just like Hooper’s score for HP5, it didn’t meet my expectations of how I wanted my emotions to be pushed. This is how I felt here too. But when everyone in the courtyard at Hogwart’s lifted their wands into the air, Hooper really ramped up the music, and the cue actually transformed into something I wanted for that moment, and although it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it was better than i know it could have been without that. Confused?

This picture is of downtown Seattle and also Mt. Rainier.

not a lot going on

So here I am, waiting for a little bit before i jump on the old bicycle to go to school.

Not a whole heck of a lot going on. My first composition lesson of the term begins today, this is okay, except that i didn’t compose anything over the summer, so we’ll see how that works out.

The Vikings (with Favre) beat Green Bay last night. It was a good game.

Today the Twins have a one-game playoff against Detroit… good karma.

November 1st is the deadline for the filmusik guiron contest.

So until something else comes up… have a wonderful day.

Why all the hate?

I finally got around to watching Terminator Salvation. From listening to everything that i’d previously heard about the movie, i wasn’t expecting much. Especially after the much publicized Christian Bale rant. I definitely thought that his actions would make me feel very negative towards him.

So first of all. I like the movie. I don’t know if anything will surpass T2, but for me, Salvation is now my second favorite terminator movie, with T3 bringing up the rear (I really didn’t like that one). I thought the effects were awesome, and some of the long shots were really cool and well thought out.

I didn’t mind Christian Bale that much either. Although he will never again rank very high on lists of actors that i like, he will be in the select group of actors who i like watching onscreen, but that’s about it. Tom Cruise is one of those.

As far as the soundtrack goes, I’ve had the score since it came out, so i knew what to expect. I like it, there’s no doubt about that. My Danny Elfman playlist is getting really long. I really liked the tie in of the previous terminator theme, and the combination of electronics and acoustic instruments. At times, it seemed reminiscent, if not a watered-down version, of Batman. The thick brass is very enjoyable, especially when he has a great string line to accompany it. Also, I’m always a sucker for huge percussion sounds. Elfman does a really good job at times of matching the brass to some of the sound design in the movie used for the harvester (a sound that is very similar to the alien ships in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.) The score is good, but not my favorite Elfman score.

The wife and I finished Battlestar Galactica. Loved it! For me, the fourth and last season began a little slowly. There seemed to be a lot of exposition, and for some reason I was in the mood for some badass cylon human interaction. My patience was definately rewarded at the end of the season. I don’t want to write any spoilers here, but needless to say, it was huge!

I thought that Bear McCreary did a really good job of keeping a very tight sonic world for Battlestar, including little things that Gibbs did for the miniseries. There was really only one thing that i didn’t care for, and the was the guitar sound in a couple episodes, where it had a lot of chorus, reverb, and delay. He used guitar in other spots, but it was more distorted and really fit well into what he was building. For instance at the end of season 3 (All along the watchtower) was the song, and i thought he built it up beautifully with the heavy percussion. In fact one of my favorite cues was called “heeding the call”. It has very many levels and really rockin’ feel to it.

So now with BSG completed, here is my watch list (including shows that start in the spring):

• Sunday – Dexter, Bored to Death, Mad Men
• Monday – 24, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Lie to Me, House, Castle
• Tuesday – V
• Wednesday – Lost, Glee, Friday Night Lights
• Thursday – Bones, Fringe, 30 Rock, Community, Parks and Recreation, Flash Forward
• Friday – Stargate Universe

It seems like a lot… and it is, but I haven’t started school yet. I may have to reassess… and take less credits. HA!

I am not Hercules

It’s official. Ben and I got our “thanks, but no thanks” email informing us that we didn’t get the Hercules gig. Obviously we wanted it, but now that we don’t have it, I can actually commit to school again. If we had gotten it, I was considering taking a fall term sabbatical to write the score. So I am not sad.

The person who did get the gig is Patrick Morganelli who has worked with Christopher Young (Spiderman 3), and an assistant orchestrator for Michael Giacchino on an episode of lost (I presume from his time in USC’s film scoring program (goddammit I’m jealous)). Anyways, someone I can stomach losing a job to.

Now that it’s official I wanted to present the clips that Ben and I scored for consideration.

Our orchestration was for

• Flute
• Bb Clarinet
• Horn
• Trumpet
• Trombone
• Percussion
• Piano
• String Quintet

The official sample clip provided from OTO was the clip that follows. I used Logic with EastWest Platinum Samples, with live singing by Claire Craig-Sheets and Bryan Coover.

Ben and I also made the decision to take a second clip from the movie and score that as well (hoping that it would show our ‘depth’ maybe, but also the fact that because we were submitting as a team, we would have no problem meeting the deadline. Ben also used Logic and EastWest Gold samples. The soloists are Claire again, with an on screen debut of my own voice (we couldn’t find another tenor on short notice).

So that’s that then. Moving on. What do you all think of the OTO Gamera vs. Guiron challenge? I am definitely going to do it. I have an email out right now to filmusik for the absolute deadline for submission, so anyone interested, I’ll keep you apprised.

In other music news, Maelstrom the Zombie Opera DVD’s have gone on sale. I’ve also finished putting together a CD of the July 23rd performance, I’m just waiting for Apple to approve my application for digital distribution, which I don’t know whether or not it will happen… you know, because I’m such a small fry. Not sure yet if we are going to sell hard copies; I like the idea, but digital distribution just seems so much more sexy. And who knows… maybe one day the soundtrack for 1 In 9 will show up on iTunes too.

In relation to all of this, we submitted Maelstrom digitally to the library of Congress to gain copyright. (Thanks Ben’s mom!) Very exciting.

So that’s what’s up right now. Very excited to start the new season of Fringe, and check out Community. First things first though, 9 episodes left of BSG.

Sharpen Your Pencils…

…and fire up your sequencers. An opportunity to dust off your computers (and your brains) and compose about 2 minutes worth of music.

Here’s the contest:

Filmusik is a group that creates original collaborative performances to film.  In our 2009 project Gamera vs. Guiron a new score is performed live in the pit for the 1969 Kaiju Film: Gamera tai Daiakaijū Giron (roughly translated as Gamera vs. Devil Monster Guiron).

We figured why let our composers have all the fun.  We’ve created 2 clips of the film with the soundtrack removed like we use for the live performances, anyone can create music for them and they will be posted here for everyone to enjoy.  Death-metal? Acappella? Bluegrass? It’s all fair game, however you envision this monster music to be.

The Winner Gets:

• 2 tickets to the upcoming shows
• $50 cash prize
• Their score included as an extra on the Filmusik: Gamera vs. Guiron DVD.
• Copy of the Filmusik: Gamera vs. Guiron DVD released in November 2009.

The complete rules for entry and submission are here.

Specifically I am posting this for my blog network of fellow composers (Herr, Pikey, Bard) as a chance for us all to do something where we can hear each others’ work as per this assignment.

Filmusik is the same group that has teamed with Opera Theater Oregon for the Hercules film. The announcement for that projects composer hasn’t yet been announced (at least not to me or Ben, my writing partner) so I won’t be posting our submission yet. Hopefully soon we’ll find out one way or another. Until that time, I have to start thinking of music for school. Still working on finishing my EA Poe song.