THE EPIC SOUND BLOG

Our collection of bite-size, audio related stories from around the web.

John Williams: From ‘Jaws’ to ‘Star Wars’ to ‘War Horse’ and ‘Tintin’


January 4, 2012

There’s an excellent feature on John Williams over at The Wall Street Journal – do have a look:
 

Mr. Spielberg credits the composer for making him “a better director than I could have ever been without him.” Recalling the blockbuster that made them both household names, he describes the “esoteric” placeholder music he’d selected as a model for the “Jaws” score—and how Mr. Williams forced him to reconsider.
 
“He said, “Steven, it’s not an intellectual film. It’s a pirate movie,” the director says, adding, “John is like a great writer. He rewrites me musically every single time.”
After the success of “Jaws,” Mr. Spielberg nicknamed Mr. Williams “Max,” after Max Steiner, who wrote the first memorable original feature film score (for “King Kong”) and helped establish the orchestral language of the movies.

 
Read the full feature on John Williams here.
 
(via @YvetteJJackson)






In-depth audio interview with composer Michael Giacchino


December 20, 2011

Another great, in-depth interview by Daniel Schweiger over at Film Music Magazine, this time with composer Michael Giacchino on the music for MI4 and more.

 

Spying is a dangerous business, one where your survival depends on stealth and disguise, a skill set employed at barely above a whisper. On that account, it’s likely that Michael Giacchino wouldn’t last long as a member of the Impossible Mission Force. After all, his music is just having too much damn fun saving the planet with seconds to spare.
For if he took on the terrorist 1% with pulse-pounding action in “Mission Impossible 3,” Giacchino’s newest IMF assignment for “Ghost Protocol” steps up the stylistic adrenalin to truly impossible runs of excitement and suspense. It’s an A-ticket adrenalin ride through retro spy rhythms, exotic musical locales and brassy action writing that seems like a superhero score waiting to happen.

 

Check it out below:

 

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Video: The making of the Inception score


October 25, 2011

Tracksounds pointed us in the direction of this fine video on the making of the Inception score:

 

 
Speaking of Inception, here’s a great live rendition of the ‘Time’ track from the film:
 

 





  Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact

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Audio interview with Brian Tyler, composer on “The Expendables”


August 6, 2010

Daniel Schweiger over at Film Music Mag has yet another great, in-depth audio interview up – this time around with Brian Tyler, composer on “The Expendables”.


Given Brian Tyler’s talent for also registering myth-making emotion through the mayhem, it seems a given that his powerful work would catch the ear of the legendary Sylvester Stallone, who enlisted Tyler in the formidable task of following in Jerry Goldsmith’s boots to accompany a new adventure of “Rambo.” Tyler’s mix of ethnic rhythms and a gung-ho orchestra made sure that Stallone would stand vibrantly tall as he wiped out another army.


Now Tyler’s re-upped with the actor-writer-director for his biggest, most knowing salute to all that is macho with “The Expendables,” whose army of Mercs make exhilarating mincemeat out of the villains holding thrall over a Latin American island. And leave it to Tyler to once again do them proud with patriotic bombast, batteries of percussive action runs and a virtual marathon of explosive builds- not to mention some real melodic heart to the high-fiving destruction of lives and property.


Hear the interview right here, or hop on over to the original post:


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Check out the trailer for “The Expendables” below:







  Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact

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The score for ‘Inception’ performed live


July 30, 2010

‘Inception’ opened in Danish theaters yesterday, and I’m really looking forward to seeing it. Check out this recording from the ‘Inception’ US premiere, featuring live performances of some of tracks from the movie:



(via @gameost @tracksounds)







In-depth audio interview with Hans Zimmer on ‘Inception’


July 22, 2010

Daniel Schweiger over at Film Music Magazine has a great, in-depth audio interview up with composer Hans Zimmer, on his score for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’.


It’s a composer’s job to unlock the imagination of their directors, translating their flights of fantasy into melody. Few musical dreamweavers have shown as much imaginative dexterity in that regard as Hans Zimmer. Yet even fewer directors have given Zimmer a true match for his talent like Christopher Nolan, whose enigmatic oeuvre consists of such head scratchers as “Memento,” “Insomnia” and “The Prestige,” not to mention two movies featuring The Dark Knight, whose imposing bleakness was abetted by the anti-hero rhythms of Zimmer and James Newton Howard.


If hearing Nolan’s imagination was a tough nut for Zimmer to crack before, then his new film “Inception” takes the filmmaker’s intellectual bent to spectacularly inscrutable heights. It’s a brain-bending, sci-fi tinted mix of “Mission Impossible,” impeccably dressed James Bond action and enough meditations on the nature of humanity and dreams to make Carlos Castaneda scratch his head. Providing a thematic through line to “Inception”‘s multiple, and insanely complicated plains of dream action is an equally surreal, and beautifully thrilling score by Hans Zimmer.


Hear the interview below, or hop on over to the original post here.


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Audio interview with legendary film composer Danny Elfman


March 12, 2010

Film Music Magazine has a 35-minute audio interview up with legendary film composer Danny Elfman, whose composing credits include the music for “Edward Scissorhands”, “Batman”, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, and, most recently, “Alice In Wonderland”.



 





  Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact

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