My name is Michael and welcome to my portfolio website and blog. Here I document my adventures in cinematic music creation and more.
Hope you have a nice stay!
All in Talking Music
I had a strange Friday night! I did something that at one point in my life was commonplace… And of course, I'm talking about going to gigs. Yes, I managed to get myself out for the first live music performance since the dreaded lockdowns began and as such, I felt the need to blog about it. I had always wanted to blog whenever I went to a gig or a concert, but it kind of never really happened, let's hope we can change that.
I'm basically in love with Spitfire Audio's samples, the textures and colours they have captured over the years have been essential in reaching my audiences and telling the right stories effectively within my film scores. It was during my usual online scout for new samples for my next projects when I stumbled across a series of videos they had published known as Creative Cribs, and I wanted to share it with you guys.
Given their outreach with film composers all over the globe, they (Spitfire Audio) have been able to get an inside look at many composers studios and give us a pretty comprehensive tour. I have embedded my three favorites below and hope you guys will take the time to check them out as well as taking a look at the vast collection Spitfire have posted...
I recently took a trip to Los Angeles and had the opportunity to visit the Sony Pictures lot with my buddy in Culver City and wanted to share some of pictures I managed to take (we were prohibited from taking too many) and highlights from my time there.
I had initially gotten a little frustrated with myself as I was a little unprepared and after knocking on many of the studio doors (including Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions) and being told I needed an appointment, I came to realise I really should have reached out to these guys before I left for L.A. - I guess the excitement of finally visiting the United States and particularly California was a little overwhelming for me which lead me to be slightly unorganised about the whole thing; you can imagine my excitement when I was told yes I could visit Sony, and yes, I could take a look at the scoring stage as it was not being used that morning...
I was lucky enough to snap up some tickets to "Interstellar Live" at the Royal Albert Hall in which Hans Zimmer, Chris Nolan, Michael Caine and even Stephen Hawking were present! I got in early for the pre concert talks which commenced around 90 minutes before the show began…
Who remembers the opening raining blood scene from the 1998 movie Blade? I certainly do as Blade was an important movie for me as a then youngster at a time when the the big screen was just starting to fascinate me. Until yesterday, I had been totally unaware that the music from that scene was composed by Junkie XL and licensed for the scene; cue his initial interest in becoming a film composer.
Seasoned electronic music producer-turned-film composer Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL is being discussed more and more now in the film music world, what with his recent and ongoing collaborations with Hans Zimmer at Remote Control Productions for movies such as Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and of course his amazing solo work on Divergent and 300: Rise of an Empire, but it occurred to me that I had never really taken the time to look into his work.
Yesterday while doing my usual scout, I stumbled across a Collider interview with Tom (below) and found myself immersed in hearing about his start as both an electronic music producer and his transformation into a film composer. I found it humbling to hear that for him, at the time of entering the film score production circuit, his tracks were at number one in several countries and despite this, he took up work as an assistant for the likes of Harry Gregson-Williams to gain a better insigne of just how scores are produced in Hollywood, an amazing level of dedication and respect for an industry he clearly admires…
I had heard Zimmer comment in an interview around the time of Chris Nolan’s Inception in 2010 that he had been contemplating taking some time off from movie scoring to take his music around the world with a bunch of his friends and an orchestra.
I had been intrigued by this but after another seeing one move after another being added to his IMDb page, including another Pirates of the Caribbean, Sherlock 2, The Dark Knight Rises, Man of Steel, 12 Years A Slave and Rush to name a few, it seemed this was going to be unlikely.
This is not to say that I wanted to stop hearing Zimmer’s scores in new movies, far from it, I just wanted to see some of his scores performed live and knew I would be interested to study the stage placement and arrangement of the band, not to mention it would simply be an amazing event should it ever actually take place.
Then I noticed that with the exception of Interstellar (Nolan’s upcoming 2014 feature, and one I’m really looking forward to), his schedule looked fairly light in comparison to the previous years. This was followed by one boring weekday afternoon sitting at my day job bored out of my mind and daydreaming about film as usual, I received an email from one of the many live event websites of which I am partied and they happened to be advertising an event called Hans Zimmer Revealed. I instantly looked into it and excitedly bought the best and most expensive seats I could afford at the time, the gig was finally actually going to happen…
So I went down to the IMAX last week to check out Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity. Like most films, before even getting into the movie theatre I suspected that I may spoilt the film for myself! I always spend far too much time reading about the post-production process and the production of the soundtrack that I usually know far too much about the film. I sometimes feel I should ban myself from the internet for a few weeks before a movie release but I digress.
“The 90-minute picture — unusually short in today’s world — is cited as having just 156 shots in total, with several that are six, eight and ten minutes long”
- Arri Media
What can I say? I thought Gravity was nothing short of awesome! Emmanuel Lubezki’s shots and his editorial team have in my opinion utilised every possible frame of the 70mm IMAX film stock to deliver some truly mesmerising visuals. From the very beginning we have an opening continual 17-minute shot where the camera maneuvers around the characters in space and none of the videos and interviews I had seen with Gravity’s re-recording mixer Skip Lievsay or composer Steven price could prepare me for what the film had in store sonically…
I ventured out to the Royal Albert Hall to watch a selection of live Danny Elfman’s cues for his work on the Tim Burton films and thought I’d share some pictures we managed to take on the night. A really great atmosphere and fantastic to see Mr. Elfman himself performing the role of ‘Jack’ from Nightmare Before Christmas.
