Soundtrax: Episode 2012-1

Kolom Soundtrax: Episode 2012-1 tanggal 30 Januari 2012 dari Randall Larson berisi wawancara dengan Paul Haslinger mengenai salah satunya The Wolfman dan juga review untuk Real Steel, berikut kutipannya:

WOLFMAN was one of those Hollywood projects where there are a lot of people involved in a process and they can't agree on a shared vision. When I joined the fray the movie had already been in postproduction for, I think, two years, so I was at the very end of this whole process at which point the various parties hadn’t been able to find one way of finishing this movie. I don't want to go too much into details about it but I was chosen by one of the parties to create a score for the movie that would make it more attractive to younger audiences. That's what I did and then apparently the decision was made that they wanted to be more of a classic movie rather than one directed toward younger audiences and that's what was eventually released. For me, it was a job like any other. There was some good music that will never see the light of day that was produced for it but that's how it goes. As long you get compensated for your work, I don't mind that that's part of this inexact process that happens in any creative sphere when you try things out. Ultimately somebody will have to make a decision and say this is how we’re positioning this movie, and that's what they decided for this one.

Berikut ini kutipan untuk Real Steel:

Elfman’s score is able to shoulder its way through a bunch of rap and rock songs (which are available on a separate songtrack album from Interscope) to really embellish the story’s warm heart with an engaging score. The action/battle moments are occupied by fairly typical slams of rockem, sockem percussive/brass/synth, but through it all Elfman’s subtler, humanistic melodies are woven, which personifies the human element behind the battling cyberbots and exemplifies the heartening father-son relationship that is restored through the competitive robot boxing process. Aside from the brass and electronically-infused percussion, Elfman employs acoustic guitar runs (“It’s Your Choice,” “Safe With Me,”), gentle female voice (“Why We’re Here,”) or both (“Bonding,” “Parkway Motel”), and a lovely string-and-piano wistful family theme (“Safe With Me,” “You Deserve Better”) to underscore the father-son reunion which is the film’s real story (as well as the developing romance between Hugh Jackman and Evangeline Lilly’s characters, as well as the film’s underlying Americana vibe. The score’s main hero theme (“Charlie Trains Atom,” “Atom Versus Twin Cities,” the second half of “You Deserve Better”) reflects both the restored sparring robot Atom and the young lad who restores both Atom and his ex-boxer father’s dignity. The configuration of the main theme’s first six notes recall the opening tune of Neil Diamond’s song “Shiloh,” which is initially a slight distraction and certainly coincidental, but Elfman takes the melody elsewhere after that and formulates it into an energetic, cheer-inducing victory anthem as underbot Atom wins round after round against the bullybots, culminating in the happy triumph of “People’s Champion.” It’s also arranged into a variation for acoustic guitar, set among the family theme and voice melodies, in the poignant “Taking A Beating.” I found REAL STEEL to be an unexpectedly very good movie with terrific action, effects, and a true heart. Danny Elfman’s score augments its dignity and emotional grounding with a fine score that honestly conveys its sense of family affinity and celebration.

Baca lengkapnya di sini.

Things That Go Boom In The Night

Film Music Magazine mewawancarai Ron Aston, berikut kutipannya:

I know you were working on one of Danny Elfman’s projects recently and he is one of the most ‘A’ level of ‘A’ level composers so I would assume he can get a fair amount of time.
He probably could, but the funny thing is, it doesn’t always happen as you would think. I worked on his “The Wolfman” score that he did for Universal and that was an interesting, as well as technically challenging project for me. Danny had already completed the score when it was decided that it needed more ‘energy’. I wasn’t involved with the movie at this point so I’m only repeating what was told to me by others who were involved at the time.

It was decided that a new, more contemporary sounding score should be done by a different composer, keeping in mind that Danny gave them exactly what they asked for. But then they (Universal) thought the new composer’s score might’ve gone too far the other way, and about 8 music editors later, a music editor that I know named Jay Duerr became involved and suggested they they use Danny’s original score and maybe add some additional percussion to it. He presented a temp to the producers that he put together using Danny’s cues, but Jay added some temp percussion and low drum elements of his own, just to get the idea across and that was enough for them to say “OK, well let’s try that.”

At that point I was brought in to add some active drum-percussion programming with an emphasis on big low drums. I also added a number of eerie FX here and there, as well as some sound design in a few spots. As I mentioned earlier, Danny did exactly what they wanted him to do in the beginning. Then they changed their minds and it went through a lot of evolutions. I should also mention that at the time I was brought in, Conrad Pope was also brought in to write new compositional material to bridge together the cues where basically the music editor took bits and pieces of Danny’s score and reworked new cues to accommodate more recent picture changes, whether the music was written for these scene or not. Jay did as he saw fit and Universal was happy with the final product which included additional music by Conrad Pope as well. Conrad, Jay Duerr and myself worked as a team. We spotted a lot of the movie together and I added my elements where they felt that they were needed throughout the score.

Because most of the final score was created from editing together various parts of Danny’s original score, the most challenging part of this project was that there was written music for me, no tempos, no meter maps, no anything so what I had to do first was take the picture and guide tracks that I requested and create a Pro Tools session for each reel. I normally try and get picture and guides if possible because I find it very helpful to actually see what’s happening on the screen as I come up with my sounds and parts. This was particularly a technical challenge because I had to go through and create tempo and meter maps, beat by beat in Pro Tools for each cue of the live orchestra tracks and it really got challenging where there were tempo changes. Not to mention that there were a lot of mixed meters as well. After that process was done, I just went through each reel and did my programming, cue by cue.

Baca lengkapnya di sini.

2010 Year in Review

Situs Music on Film membahas tahun 2010 di podcast. Musik film yang dibahas antara lain Inception, Tron: Legacy, How to Train Your Dragon, Predators, Krull, Star Trek III dan lain-lain dan yang tidak disebut di situsnya adalah tentang Danny Elfman terutama The Wolfman dan sampelnya. Pembahasannya cukup panjang selama delapan menit dimulai dari menit 15:52.

Berikut kutipannya:

Let’s face it: 2010 was a lousy year at the movies. Aside from a few gems, Hollywood seemingly left creative storytelling and original ideas at the door for lots of stupid in glorious 3-D.

New film music didn’t fare much better, which made it especially hard to do our annual year end best-of episode. So we cheated. Instead of a top ten list, we decided to open up the conversation and let the chips fall where they may. That means we discuss not only some of our favorite new releases of the year, but also the mountain of expanded editions and older scores released for the first time on the boutique labels.

Joining us for this episode (and hopefully more in the future) is special guest Mike Joffe, a producer at BSX Records and a respected member of the soundtrack community. Mike really adds some great insights that you’ll not want to miss.

Podcast-nya bisa diakses di situsnya di sini.

At 77, Original Score Is Oscar's Smallest Field

Berita tanggal 29 Desember 2010 ni, tentang film-film yang memenuhi syarat untuk mendapat nominasi Oscar. Memenuhi syarat antara lain kebanyakan menggunakan musik lama, kebanyakan lagu dan termasuk juga bahwa score-nya di-submit ke juri AMPAS. Patoet diperhatikan bahwa ada dua dari tiga score Danny Elfman yang masuk ke dalam daftar ini yaitu Alice in Wonderland dan The Next Three Days. Score Danny Elfman yang tidak masuk adalah The Wolfman which I think is the best from the three, what a shame..

Eniweis, berikut kutipannya:

Last week came news that the musical scores for "True Grit," "Black Swan," "The Kids Are All Right" and "The Fighter" had been ruled ineligible by the Academy's music branch, either for using too much pre-existing music or for relying too heavily on songs.

Now that Academy voters have received the list of scores that did qualify, we can add "Toy Story 3" to the list of high-profile scores that aren't in the running – not because the branch ruled it ineligible, but because composer Randy Newman opted not to submit it.

Notable composers whose work isn't on the Oscar list: Harry Gregson-Williams for "Unstoppable," Desplat for "Tamara Drewe" and Dario Marianelli for "Agora."

Baca lengkapnya di sini.

Wawancara Collider dengan Danny Elfman

Tanggal 3 Maret 2010, situs Collider.com mem-publish wawancara Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub dengan Danny Elfman mengenai Alice in Wonderland, The Wolfman, Hulk dan film terbaru Gus Van Sant berjudul Restless. Baca wawancaranya di sini.


Danny Elfman telah bekerja sama dengan Tim Burton sebanyak 13 kali, dengan Sam Raimi lima kali dan dengan Gus Van Sant empat kali yaitu To Die For, Good Will Hunting, Psycho (remake) dan yang terbaru Milk. 


Karena ribut-ribut antara Elfman dengan Sam Raimi di Spider-Man 2, kemungkinan jumlah film hasil kerja sama antara Elfman dengan Sam Raimi belum akan nambah sementara dengan Gus Van Sant akan menjadi lima kali, kalau jadi..