Philippe, why did Cirque want Danny involved in this show?
Decouflé: Cirque du Soleil asked me to work on this show and to find a creative team. So my very first idea was let's ask Daniel, because he's one of my favorite composers. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a movie I have seen 50 times. And I had the chance that Danny, he hadn't seen a lot of dance shows in his life, but he saw my solo work in New York a little while before.
Elfman: It was really a bit of fate. I had an agent who was booking concerts. So one night in New York, he says, "We're going to go see a show, a dance show." And I get to the theater and there's just this picture of one person. It's a solo. And I go, "What?! You've taken me to a solo performance? Oh my god, I'm going to see a modern dance solo performance! This is going to be horrible!" And I loved the show. I said, "Whoever this Decouflé is, I'd love to work with him some day." And six months later I get this call saying Cirque is interested. And you also have to remember I started out as a street musician. I was a fire-breather, same as Guy [Cirque Chief Executive Guy Laliberté]. My first performing in my life was with a French musical-theatrical group, Le Grand Magic Circus.
The music for "Iris" incorporates many different styles, from Latin jazz to Balinese gamelan and Japanese taiko drums to serialism.
Elfman: Sometimes I'd get an idea thrown at me, just something to grab hold of. So there was lots of things, like doing Gershwin-esque, or doing Leonard Bernstein, doing something romantic.
Is there anything you haven't been able to do in the Kodak Theatre?
Decouflé: I have a model of the Kodak Theatre in my house in Paris, a big one, and I've slept with it for three years. (Laughter.) There is a basic problem in the Kodak: It's the American sickness of king-size. It's too big. It's a reproduction of an Italian theater, but really like king-size. So we had to fight to try to twist the relationship that the spectators have with the space. Because if you respect the normal aperture, it's too big, too far.
Elfman: That's what I noticed right from the beginning. "Iris" is much more human-based. There's a sense of anticipation that's more old-school circus than the new Cirque du Soleil shows. Because I've seen "O" twice, I've seen "Ka" twice. And I never feel that anything could ever go wrong in those shows, they're like clockwork. But here, you have four people, two people, six people, just doing their act, there's no help, there's nothing but them and their bodies. I bite my nails and grit my teeth much more than in any other Cirque show that I've seen. I know they're going to be OK, but I have to look away at moments because it just looks too insanely difficult. To me, of all the Cirque shows I've seen, this one, its unique quality is that connection with the human element. You don't need $100 million of CGI. You're just watching performers performing. And what a joy that is.
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
To Die For
“Much like Beetlejuice, nothing seemed to work for temp. I had the pleasure of seeing the movie in a preview without the music and watching the audience be totally confused. After the score was in, the preview got much better because I was able to bring a tone to the film. Nobody quite understood what the film was, and the music going in helped the audience understand what the tone of the film was. They knew that To Die For was a dark film about a murder, but the score let them know it was OK to snicker and laugh a little. They didn’t understand that at first, that it was OK to have fun with the film. So I knew I had to do that right away, starting with the opening titles.”
Wanted
“I don’t think about pop music a lot. I’m busy all the time. If someone asks me to sing something, I’ll be like, ‘OK.’ The producers of Wanted had been struggling to get a song together, and Cathy Nelson from Universal said, ‘Why don’t you take a theme from the movie and turn it into a song?’ So I did, and I laid down a bass line and did one verse and one chorus and sent it out, and I didn’t think about it again. So Wanted is done, and I’m off in London scoring Hellboy with Guillermo Del Toro, and I get a call from Cathy. And she said, ‘Remember ‘The Little Things’? That song you did for Wanted?’ And I said, ‘Uh, no.’ So she sent me an MP3, and [director] Timur [Bekmambetov] decided that’s what he wanted. They needed it in about a week, and I was in the middle of scoring in London. So I wrote another couple of verses and a chorus and did my best to demo it in my hotel, and suddenly we had to go record it. I got a producer named Dave Sardo, and he came in to lay down the tracks, which I wasn’t really able to be there for. But he used my demo as a guide, and I went there in between sessions for Hellboy. We were working around the clock, and I would take a break and go into a side studio to record the vocals.
“And just to torture me more, Timur wanted a Russian version. And I asked him which Russian singer he was going to use, and he insisted that I do it in Russian. So after a double session with the huge Hellboy orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, I met with a Russian coach. But Russian is really hard, especially for an English-speaking person. So we would go over it line by line, and I would sing it back to her in Russian. To my ear it was exactly how it was supposed to sound, but she was constantly laughing, because I kept getting it wrong and couldn’t even hear the difference. By the end of that session, I felt like my brain was spent. There was no more brain. It was gone. I will never think another thought. Trying to sing in Russian murdered me. But it does exist. “The Little Things,” in Russian, sung by me. Those are the sacrifices we make for directors we love.”
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
Berita tanggal 19 Juli yang lalu *uhuk!*, poster The Hunger Games di-publish di Yahoo! Movies. Film ini score-nya akan dibuat oleh Danny Elfman. Berikut kutipannya:
Katniss wears a mockingjay pin -- the flaming symbol on the poster -- which is a sign of rebellion against Panem's oppressive government.
I must say that's a pretty poster, tapi hati-hati membaca artikelnya, ada plot spoiler. Lihat poster-nya di sini. Filmnya akan diputar tanggal 23 Maret 2012.
Danny Elfman membuat lagu untuk dinyanyikan Christine Guter di pementasan Iris. Berikut kutipan wawancara dengan Christine Guter:
Guter: Just this past week I sang the background tracks for the new Cirque du Soleil "Iris" show that will be playing in L.A. Music by Danny Elfman.
Sander: How much time did you have to prepare for that?
Guter: You are given no time to prepare. You show up to the sound stage and sight read the music. It's extremely challenging, exciting and rewarding. You don't really have the liberty of making mistakes when you're on the clock in the studio. Time is money.
Sander: Do you get much direction for your studio vocal performances?
Guter: The composer is almost always there, as well as the vocal contractor. There is also a conductor who assists. They let the choir know what sound, vocal color and emotion they want to convey in the music: darker, sweeter, more vibrato, classical sounding, straight tone, etc.
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
GCD: Are you a big fan of musical theater?
DE: You know, I'm really not a big fan of musical theater onstage, but the things I love, I really love. My tastes run close to Tim's: my favorite musical would probably be Sweeney Todd, so I was incredibly happy when Tim was doing that. I'm not a fan of contemporary musicals per se. I love classics: West Side Story, old Rodgers and Hammerstein. In the last 30 years, I've liked bits and pieces here and there but I'm not a fan of pop musicals. When Broadway went with pop in general as a motif, it kinda lost me a bit. But I haven't given up on it. I still want to do something interesting and strange that I could get my teeth into. It's just a matter of getting the right project.
GCD: So there is a possibility we could see a live stage musical from you some day?
DE: Oh yeah. A Broadway-style production? Absolutely. I have worked on a few already. I've dabbled.
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
The Danny Elfman Project
4 PM Symposium
7 PM Concert
Following the success of The Goldsmith Project, AYS explores the work of famed film composer and popular musician Danny Elfman. Selections from Elfman's scores for Tim Burton's Batman and Edward Scissorhands, among other movies, will be performed alongside classical masterpieces. This is a great opportunity to hear Elfman's scores be performed live in the concert hall! The afternoon symposium will feature a live performance and discussion of his innovative work and collaborations.
Free events | Reservations open March 6
Baca di situsnya di sini. Konsernya si gratis, cuma tiket pesawatnya aja ke Taipei trus ke LA yang musti dibeli, sekitar 1100 dolar pulang pergi, plus akomodasi slama di sana uhuk.
LIONSGATE today announced an unprecedented film music collaboration between Academy Award® winner and two time nominee T Bone Burnett (CRAZY HEART, COLD MOUNTAIN) and four time Academy Award® nominated composer Danny Elfman (ALICE IN WONDERLAND, SPIDER-MAN) on the music for the highly anticipated film adaptation of THE HUNGER GAMES, based on the first in Suzanne Collins's runaway bestselling book trilogy.
Elfman and Burnett will be collaborating on the film score, with Burnett also serving as the film's Executive Music Producer, producing songs for the film and soundtrack.
Said Lionsgate's Head of Film Music Tracy McKnight of the musical dream team assembled on behalf of the film, "THE HUNGER GAMES is such a special property – it has worldwide mass appeal, but it's also sophisticated, cerebral, soulful, and rebellious. We needed a composer who can translate these qualities musically, and we have not one but two incredible artists in an absolutely thrilling first time ever collaboration."
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
...composers have been full of bullshit since day one. Ever since Bernard Herrmann said, to answer the question, “Why did you write the Psycho score for strings?” “Because it was black and white,” and people still say that now. Of course that was bullshit. Citizen Kanewas black and white. That doesn’t mean anything. It’s just something that popped into his head. So that is part of the job. None of us know how what we make work works, and I think any of us that are any good, in particular, don’t know what we’re doing really, or how it works.
...for ten years I went between the band and scoring, and it was a love/hate thing, but it kept the balance. And then for the next ten years, I didn’t, and I found myself really losing it. I had to find something else, so I started writing scripts, and I wrote three scripts and sold them, but I never really stuck with it. But I had to do something else, and then I realized I’ll take this commission. And when I did that, I realized I need to do something every year that’s not for film. I haven’t been totally true to that, but I’m trying, and I know exactly the piece I wanted to write this year. I want to start doing chamber music now; the ballet was a great experience. And these things are great pressure valve releases because I can’t do just film music or I’ll go nuts.
...as it turns out, I have five films booked, which is the most I’ve ever had in the future, which is weird. I’ve never been able to see more than two or three ahead, and I don’t like, actually, having my future all booked up. So it’s a very weird thing because it’s like, “Oh, I see. Fourteen months of my life is already totally spoken for,” and it’s scary, but it just happened. It’s a two-Tim Burton year, and a Sam Raimi, so there’s three. I’m not going to say no to Tim and Sam -- that’s already three movies. And then Men in Black, well of course I don’t want somebody else to do number 3, so there was another one. And then another one called The Hunger Games popped up, which seemed like really interesting thing.
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
Wow... banjir! Restless dari Gus van Sant sudah selesai tinggal menunggu dirilis 16 September 2011. Iris akan mulai dipentaskan oleh Cirque du Soleil tanggal 25 September 2011. Film Real Steel akan diputar 7 Oktober 2011. Berikutnya The Hunger Games 23 Maret 2012. Film Tim Burton terbaru, Dark Shadows direncanakan akan diputar 11 Mei 2012, diselingi dengan Men In Black III 25 Mei 2012, dan kemudian film Tim Burton lainnya Frankenweenie tanggal 5 Oktober 2012. Terakhir adalah Oz, The Great and Powerful tanggal 8 Maret 2013.
Oz, The Great and Powerful adalah "a prequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum, told from the point of view of the Wizard. It tells how the Wizard arrived in Oz and how he became the ruler." yang akan dibuat oleh sutradara Sam Raimi yang artinya ribut-ribut antara Danny Elfman dengan Sam Raimi di Spider-Man 2 sudah selesai dan Elfman mulai lagi membuat musik untuk film-film Raimi, yeah!
Situs Billboard.biz menurunkan artikel mengenai musik Danny Elfman untuk Iris, berikut kutipannya:
"It was all completely evolutionary as it came together," Elfman told Billboard.biz at the Kodak Theatre, where the show "Iris" opens in previews July 21. "In a weird way it was nothing like working on a film. It was closer to working with Twyla Tharp on the ballet."
Elements of the score heard Thursday in the rooftop scene were clearly inspired by film noir classics, Alfred Newman and "West Side Story," which Elfman acknowledged. Otherwise, he says, the music was designed to complement the ideas of writer-director Philippe Decouflé.
"There are two characters, so there are throughlines for them. Does it make logical sense like a script? Absolutely not. This is a surrealistic homage. You get a sense of characters moving through the story, but the story is very much a dream."
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
FishbowlLA melaporkan review mereka terhadap Iris, berikut kutipannya:
The media got its first glimpse this morning of Iris, the new permanent Cirque du Soleil show set for previews at the Kodak Theatre in July and an official opening September 25th.
FishbowlLA has seen a few Cirque shows, and we can honestly say that there’s something extra special going on here, thanks to the subject matter of cinema, the heart-of-Hollywood show location, and the fact that the music is provided by none other than Tim Burton right-hand band Danny Elfman. The composer’s sensibilities are as perfect a match for a Cirque moviola as they are for the filmmaker’s phantasmagorical canvases.
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
Wawancara Mike Ragogna dengan Danny Elfman sekarang sudah dapat didengar audionya. Berikut kutipannya:
Oh, yeah, there are a lot. Right now, his talent makes me miserable because he is so good and even more prolific than me but I can't dislike him because A, he is a good guy and B, he is a great composer, and that is Alexandre Desplat. I think he is the motherf**ker on the street that has to be reckoned with for other composers right now in my mind. Not the most successful, but that doesn't define who the best is.
Dengarkan di sini. Transkripsinya dapat dibaca di sini (duluan transkripnya dari audionya..).
Each one of Tim’s films would open another door. Pee Wee opened a big door. After Beetlejuice, then, “Oh, he can do fantasy. Okay. Crazy fantasy.” After Batman, it’s like, “Oh, we can give him big films and darker films.” And afterEdward Scissorhands, it was like, “Oh, well he can do romantic.” So all the early Tim films, each one of them marked, equally, another door, because then I was trying to work in every genre. So I was really aggressively trying to always get out of every niche that I was in. I wanted to do romantic, I wanted to do ridiculous, I wanted to do dark… Bernard Hermann was able to do everything, and I wanted model myself after him. And Jerry Goldmsith can do everything, every genre. So, to me, these were the guys who I felt like, even if I could never approach their level of talent and musicianship, I wanted to try to go, if I could, for the level of versatility I found that they were showing.
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
Buzzine mem-publish wawancara dengan Danny Elfman, berikut kutipannya:
DE: Yeah, and I realized, when I was transcribing the Duke Ellington, I could hear anything I needed to hear. I could play a little bit of the record, stop it, freeze it, and get all the piano parts that he played. I could get it all down exactly. And I also learned, in those years, that I was able to hear parts that the musicians, who were all better than me, couldn’t hear, and I thought that was odd. He’d play a wrong harmonic conversion in a chord, and I said, “No, no, it’s like that, like I wrote it.” And he goes, “Oh, are you sure? I hear it the other way.” And I’d listen to it and go, “No, it’s definitely that.” And then he’d go, “Oh, okay.” So I learned to trust my ear, basically, in those years.
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
Daniel Robert Elfman (lahir di Los Angeles, California, Amerika Serikat, 29 Mei 1953; umur 58 tahun) adalah musisi Amerika Serikat yang terkenal untuk komposisinya "The Simpsons Theme" dan terkenal sebagai pemimpin/penyanyi/penulis lagu rock band Oingo Boingo dari tahun 1976 sampai bubarnya di tahun 1995, dan telah membuat ilustrasi musik film secara ekstensif sejak film Pee-wee's Big Adventure di tahun 1985, terutama untuk sutradara Tim Burton.
Ia telah mendapatkan empat kali nominasi Academy Awards untuk musiknya di Men in Black (1997), Good Will Hunting (1997), Big Fish (2003) dan Milk (2009), mendapatkan Grammy Award untuk musiknya di Batman (1989) serta mendapatkan Emmy Award untuk musik tema film seri Desperate Housewives.
Baca lengkapnya di sini :D
The Hollywood Reporter meliput Tim Burton exhibition di Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) dan menurunkan laporannya kemarin, berikut kutipannya:
Elfman — who said that the night "really was memory lane" — confirmed that Frankenweenie, which is due for an October 2012 release, is "more than halfway through" production. He'll be scoring the film but has yet to start. "I really don't start until they are in a rough cut. Tim usually cheats it a little bit. He usually brings me in about the middle somewhere and often I will come up with some ideas then. I do read the scripts and get ideas, but none of those ideas have ever survived. When I look at one of his movies, I blank out my mind from anything I thought from the script."
Baca lengkapnya di sini. Situs LACMA-nya dapat diakses di sini.
Pada tanggal 28 Mei, The Gazette menurunkan tulisan mengenai Philippe Decouflé, berikut kutipannya:
Decouflé chose American composer Danny Elfman. “Two or three (film) composers are like God for me,” Decouflé said. “But only one of them, Elfman, is alive. The Nightmare Before Christmas (by Tim Burton) is one of my favourite movies.”
Pada tanggal 28 Mei, Variety menurunkan artikel mengenai Tim Burton exhibition di Los Angeles, berikut kutipannya:
The Burton exhibition, originally organized by New York's MoMA in New York, will continue on to the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris after the L.A. run ends on Halloween.
Danny Elfman, a frequent Burton collaborator on pics including "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas," composed music specifically for the exhibit to help enhance the "Burtonesque" environment.
Baca lengkapnya di sini.
Tanggal 23 Mei, Huffington Post mem-publish wawancara Mike Ragogna dengan Danny Elfman mengenai Elfman-Burton Box dan lain-lainnya, berikut kutipannya:
MR: Are there any composers out there whose work you admire?
DE: Oh, yeah, there are a lot. Right now, his talent makes me miserable because he is even more prolific than me but I can't dislike him because A, he is a great guy and B, he is a great composer, and that is Alexandre Desplat. I think he is the motherf**ker on the street that has to be reckoned with for other composers right now in my mind. Not the most successful, but that doesn't define who the best is.
Baca lengkapnya di sini!
As a four-time Oscar nominated and GRAMMY®-award winning composer, Danny Elfman is the mastermind behind some of the world's most memorable movie scores including Spider-Man, Milk, Midnight Run and Mission: Impossible as well as such TV themes as The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives. His work with Tim Burton on films like Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Big Fish and Beetlejuice are among his most acclaimed. Elfman and Burton's instant film chemistry led them to a 25-year, 13-film collaboration when Elfman was pulled from his band Oingo Boingo to scorePee-Wee's Big Adventure in 1985. The magic formula most recently struck gold again with the release of the blockbuster Alice in Wonderland.
Join us in The Clive Davis Theater for a rare discussion and audience Q & A with the renowned composer. Moderated by GRAMMY Foundation Vice President Scott Goldman, Elfman will be discussing the release of the new box set:The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box.
Klik di sini.
The best word to describe Restless truly is "quaint" - strange, peculiar, or unusual in a pleasing or amusing way. It can sometimes be a bit depressing, but Danny Elfman's score and Mia Wasikowska's unending charm brings some lightness to the otherwise heavy plot. I enjoyed it and found myself entertained and invested in the characters, at least the two leads. The performances aren't flawless and were a bit too reserved at times, but that didn't detract too much from the film and story overall. It may not have a lot of style, but it's the wonderful story at its heart that makes it such a great film. Van Sant seems to continue growing on me with every new film, and this is one that I know I won't soon be forgetting. Worth watching if you get the chance.
Baca lengkapnya di sini. Kebanyakan mencela tapi, rating di Rotten Tomatoes sampai saat ini adalah 33% (rotten).
