Gateway Scores: Edward Scissorhands

Throughout my life there have been a handful of “stepping stone” scores that have turned me into the composing film music-loving-junkie that I am today. Yes, I had the ubiquitous STAR WARS (1977) experience almost identical to Lee’s and a host of others of my generation. My parents’ album, which I listened to as a young boy, is still hanging on the wall of my studio which I occasionally will get down and listen to. Other scores like PATTON (1970), VERTIGO (1958), EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987), and JURASSIC PARK (1993), just to name a few were all responsible for sprouting their own branches on my tree of film music adoration. However influential those listening…

Gateway Scores: Alien

I don’t know if this is a true story. Richard Burton was playing the lead in a comedy on Broadway. Before making his entrance he told the stage manager, “Tonight, I’m gonna make ‘em cry”. He went on and, as promised, he brought the audience to tears when they should have been laughing. With the greatest respect to the ghost of Richard Burton, film music can also evoke tears, tension, fright and every other conceivable emotion. Speaking of ghosts, I’ve sat many times on an empty Fox scoring stage wondering how Joseph Mankiewicz reacted the first time he heard Bernard Hermann’s main title of “The Ghost And Mrs. Muir”. Did Mankiewicz break down in tears?…

Gateway Scores: West Side Story

When the question came, “What was the score that really pushed you over the edge to get into this field?” I found myself at somewhat of a loss. My gosh, I thought, there are so many, and they all just blur together, I can’t think of any in particular. But no. There is one that stands out. I’m almost embarrassed to talk about it, because it goes so far back, to 1961. West Side Story – scored by Leonard Bernstein. Now, West Side Story wasn’t originally a film — it was a Broadway musical, based on a novel, in turn based on Romeo and Juliet. But it was a huge success when it came to…

Gateway Scores: The Lion King

So, I am a musical junkie — I love all kinds of music. I tell you this because music for me is a personal and emotional journey. Whether I’m listening to a Top 40 hit or a film score, the music has to touch me… It has to tug on my emotions. Film music has always intrigued me in that a car chase scene or a love scene can spark my interest. Not just that it’s there in the scene, but that something inside of me — my “emotimeter” — turns on. Like most of the contributors and composers on SCOREcast, we all have had the “Wow” experience… The moment that you said, “I want…

Gateway Scores: Men in Black

When Jai asked us to write a Blog this week on the score that got us into the business, or at least opened our eyes to the industry, I was reminded of something I was once told in an interview I had done with a composer called Andrew Sigler. I keep coming back to this time and time again, as I think Andrew really hit the nail on the head: “…I always wonder if [people] confuse their influences with their favorite composers, which are not always the same thing. I’ll put it this way, influences run more deeply and subconsciously than ‘my fave five’ composers. For instance, I love Stravinsky. And I love to say…

Gateway Scores: Chariots of Fire

I could talk about the Chariots of Fire score in the context of Vangelis‘ innovation at the time, about the risk of producing an electronic score when synthesizers were still basically curiosities, about how he regardless managed a deeply emotive and well coordinated work a year before MIDI appeared, and how, in spite of all the risks and challenges, still won the 1982 Oscar for Best Original Score – but I won’t do that. My “Gateway Score” experience may seem overlay dramatic and romanticized to everyone but me, but this is how it happened. When Chariots of Fire came out in 1981, my parents decided we would all go as a family and see it….

Gateway Scores: The Secret of My Success

When Jai asked me to talk about my Gateway Score — the score album that really grabbed me as a child and convinced me that scoring films is what I HAD to do for a living — I sort of froze at the thought of the assignment. “A real composer would talk about John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, or Bernard Herrmann,” I thought to myself. “When everyone hears my pick (insert Adam Sandler’s famous little-boy-sad-face here)… They’re all gonna laugh at me!“ While I love action films and I flip out for science fiction on a pretty regular basis, I have always been the drama guy. I love a great drama, especially one that contains strong…

Gateway Scores: Star Wars (Episode IV)

Strangely enough, it was quite a while before I owned an actual score album for Star Wars. My parents, in a moment of thrifty but well-intentioned genius, brought home the Electric Moog Orchestra LP for my consumption instead (!). I still have that album, by the way. Maybe it was a sign, because I’ve been doing exactly that same thing—i.e., faking the sound of an orchestra with my synth rig—pretty much my whole career. It’s something I’ve been specifically hired for again and again. So I have to thank the Electric Moog Orchestra for showing me the way. …But enough on that! Star Wars was for me what I suspect it is for many people…

Gateway Scores: What Got You “Hooked”?

As a special SCOREcast theme for this last week of June, you’ll see several posts on the Main Page covering a topic that we all love to talk about: our love of film music. We asked our SCOREcast Contributors to tell us what film score got them hooked into the idea that scoring films might be the career for them. From many certain classics to some that you might have ever heard of before, it is possible that you’ll be as surprised as we were with the responses. Have fun reading their stories… and be sure to log in and comment on your own Gateway Score!