Soundtrack

In this episode, we recognize the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 mission as Matt Morton reveals both inspirations and challenges of scoring the epic documentary. He talks about his desire to use and feature sounds, instruments and effects only available at the time of the Apollo 11 launch in 1969. Morton reveals some of the challenges he faced upon making this decision and how he consulted with the synth manufacturer Moog, among others, on how to reach his goal of authenticity. He also dives into some of his escapades in adding reverb and a unique rhythm he developed for a climactic track “We Must Be Bold.”

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In this episode, Justin Melland opens upon about his own personal, childhood fears of Ted Bundy and he reveals how tapping into those fears and helped him compose the music for the series and even take musical risks he might not have otherwise. Melland shares his "favorite sound in the world" and how he was able to work this sound into his score. Lastly, the composer details how, fueled by 80s-nostalgia, he wrote a love-song for a killer.

In this episode of the Annotator, John Murphy shares how this adaptation of the book, not being a musical immediately affected the tone of his score.  He vividly describes how he chose to approach several key themes and character moments from the series, how he he played cello for the very first time on this score, and how his composing process for this project made him feel like organizer and minimalist extraordinaire Marie Kondo.

In this episode, Andrew Lockington breaks down his main title, several key musical pieces from the series and the thematic development over the course of Frontier.  He reveals how he chose to specifically and delicately handle the numerous cultural and historical elements of the score; employing them to produce a more modern-contemporary score than one might have anticipated.  In contrast, Lockington also talks about how he found spots in the series for larger, orchestral moments.

Maury Laws, who as musical director for Rankin-Bass productions supervised the scoring of such animated TV classics as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman”…

In this episode, Brian Trifon and Brian Lee White reveal the origin story behind their production team, Finishing Move.  They talk about how and why, for Crackdown 3, they wrote full tracks first and extracted the needed musical stingers to be used throughout the game from those full pieces.  Finishing Move take us deep into four tracks from Crackdown 3 including the headline track “Jaxon’s Jam” and reveal where you can find a special version of the track within the game.

In this episode, Frederik Wiedmann shares how decided to build on the musical foundation that was laid for season one.  He reveals how he employs and develops two important, character, thematic elements from season 1 and lastly, his lofty musical goals for the climactic piece in the season 2 finale of The Dragon Prince.

Composer Frederik Wiedmann reveals his magic behind the original music for season 1 of Netflix's original animated series #TheDragonPrince 

Composer Cris Velasco talks about returning to the franchise after co-composing the score for the first Darksiders game.  He shares how the main theme organically developed through the selection of key lead instruments as well as with the lead vocalist from the band Niyaz, representing the protagonist, Fury.  Velasco also also shares: how and why he chose the waltz to form the backbone for a key boss-fight cue, the delicate conversation he had hiring a vocalist to do heavy-breathing for the score without revealing its context, and, for another boss-fight, how, after missing his window to record with a choir, he was still able to instrumentally convey the religious aspects of the confrontation. 

Composer Kathryn Bostic talks with Kristen Romanelli about two of her recent score-projects: "Clemency," directed by Chinonye Chukwu, which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and the documentary, "Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am," directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, which also played at Sundance in 2019.  Bostic also talks about her long history with Sundance outside of the festival and her recent experience as the Film Scoring Artist in Residence at the Berklee College of Music.

In this bonus episode, Stefano Lentini talks about the motivation and message behind the music contained on the album ‘FURY’ and he shares how his music was written to not only to reflect on how humans deal with the emotion of fury, but also on it’s impact upon politics and the world at large. Lentini shares about some key collaborations on the album musically, but also visually. Returning to his work for La Porta Rossa, Lentini concludes by opening up about one last collaboration - working with English songwriter, Charlie Winston, on the song “It’s Not Impossible,” which was used as the main title of the Italian TV series.

In this episode, H-Pi reveals details from his original score for the STYX: MASTERS OF SHADOWS including some of his diverse inspirations such as: fellow French video game composer, Olivier Deriviere, the Finnish symphonic metal band, Apocalyptica, Shostakovich and singer/song-writer Amy Winehouse. He also reveals how he came to work with Sinfonia of Pop Orchestra on this project and how playing his main theme for STYX on his in-laws grand piano ended up inspiring a bonus track for the game. 

In this episode, Nainita Desai talks about the unique challenges and opportunities afforded to her through UNTAMED ROMANIA - writing her first score for a large scale orchestra. Desai discusses in detail how she reveals the characters of the animals through her musical themes and, in contrast, how the music she wrote for the various landscapes depicted was directly influenced by those landscapes themselves. Finally, she reveals which piece was the most difficult and how Untamed Romania was different from all of the other documentary scores she has written before.

In this episode, Rozen dramatically describes his all-new arrangements of music from Majora’s Mask and how he created the ominous, yet beautiful blend of symphonic, synth, and sound design for Children of Termina.  He also describes some of the original music he composed for the release, his inspirations for it, and how, through this release, he sought to bring gamers back to their memories of playing the original video game.

The recently released survival horror game Days Gone is already winning over many audiences with its expansive open post-apocalyptic world, massive zombie hordes, and real-time weather effects, the game has a lot to offer those who are willing to spend the time, put in the effort, and kick a lot of zombie ass. One of […]

In this episode, Joshua Kaufman and Justin Rubenstein take us through the development of their catchy main theme for COSTUME QUEST. They share eight versions of their theme, from their original sketches through to the final iteration and in between they vividly describe the process of writing, receiving feedback from the show runners, and finally implementing that feedback.

Composer John Powell accepts the 2018 IFMCA Score of the Year Award for "Solo". Interview by Jon Broxton. Photography by Kaya Savas.

In this episode, YVES GOURMEUR shares how he approached scoring this film before having seen a single frame of film and the results after his pre-liminary scoring work was matched up to the edited film. He also talks about why he chose acoustic instruments over synths … even for a film that features a lot of communication technology. Lastly, he reveals how he stealthily employed some sound processing to provide some subtle audio special effects without sacrificing the organic nature of the instrument.

In this episode, Hannes De Maeyer opens up his score for Immenhof and how he musically communicated the the feelings and ideas of loss, compassion, perseverance and love. While bringing us through some of the film’s main story-points, De Maeyer dissects a number of his prominent themes and describes how they are employed with a variety of different tones and in different settings throughout the film.

In this episode, Kristina Bishoff talks about her unique challenges in writing her score, both as a composer and a mother of two young children.  She explores several of her inspirations and motivations behind several of her key themes and the instrumental palette she chose to help accentuate the reader’s experience.  She also shares the story of writing a theme (on one-hand) as a part of a stretch-goal from the $100,000 Kickstarter campaign she ran to fund this project.