Category: Blog

Outlander: Season 4

January 29, 2019
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Outlander Season Four chronicles a dramatic journey: from the bustling streets of colonial era Wilmington, across vast stretches of Appalachian wilderness, to Cherokee and Mohawk lands. This journey leaps from the modernity of the 1960’s to the simmering pre-Revolutionary tension of eighteenth-century America. These settings present a challenge for a composer, because each era, culture, and geographical location offers potential musical influences for the score. My goal was to assimilate all these ideas into a score that helps the audience follow the various narrative threads and still supports the drama. Oh, and I wanted to use banjos now too!

BAGPIPES AND BANJOS

My work began as I set out to rearrange a new version of “The Skye Boat Song” for the season’s Main Title. Changing a series’ Main Title is relatively rare in television, and yet this marks the sixth, arguably seventh, iteration of the beloved folk song I have produced for Outlander. (The previous were Season 1’s original, Season 2’s “French” and “Jacobite” versions, and Season 3’s “After Culloden” and “Caribbean” versions. I also produced an “Extended” version for the Season 1 Volume 2 soundtrack album, though it was never used in the series itself.)

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Welcome Home

January 16, 2019
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“Welcome Home,” the new erotic thriller starring Aaron Paul, Emily Ratajkowski, and Riccardo Scamarcio, gave me the opportunity to compose a sinister, lyrical, and melodic score. In the film, Bryan (Paul) and Cassie (Ratajkowski) vacation at a rental home in the Italian countryside, and gradually suspect their neighbor, Federico (Scamarcio), might be a threat. Their strained relationship buckles under pressure as their paranoia ratchets up. My score crescendos, powered by a war between a viola da gamba and an upright bass!

LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD: While the film is anchored by intense performances from the three leads, it was actually the cinematography and location that first fueled my musical imagination. My initial creative conversation with director George Ratliff took place over Skype while he was still on location in Italy, finishing principal photography. Even at that early stage, it was clear the titular “Home” was one of the most important characters in the film. The way Ratliff and DP Shelly Johnson glided the camera through the old building’s candlelit stone halls gave the entire house a strange sense of being alive, as if it were watching the drama unfold. (Spoiler: it is!)

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I Still See You

October 18, 2018
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What would a score sound like if it were a collaboration between late-70’s John Williams, late-80’s Danny Elfman, and late-90’s Björk? This question ran through my mind as I composed a moody, thematic score for “I Still See You,” a new supernatural thriller starring Bella Thorne that is available now on VOD and in a limited theatrical run. While my work inevitably falls very short of the greatness of my heroes, I like to think that soundtrack fans can pick up on my influences.

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Hell Fest

October 8, 2018
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I have always loved Halloween mazes and slasher horror films. I had the opportunity to combine those thrills by scoring the new Lionsgate / CBS Films feature, Hell Fest, which opened theatrically last weekend. For anyone who has been to a Halloween maze, this film’s central premise is quite disturbing. Structured like a classic slasher, the story is about a group of teenagers who go to a traveling Halloween maze, Hell Fest, only to become the latest prey for a masked killer who continually strikes and then disappears into the crowd of costumed freaks. 

Hell Fest allowed me to work again with several of my favorite creative partners, including director Gregory Plotkin, with whom I collaborated as the editor on last year’s phenomenal Happy Death Day, and Gale Anne Hurd, the inspiring producer who brought me on board The Walking Dead nearly a decade ago.

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Summer 2018 Catch Up – Aurora, Tau, and Ryze

September 20, 2018
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2018 has blasted by in a flash! The last few months have been a whirlwind, and I realize I’ve fallen a bit behind with my blog. With this update, I plan on catching up on a few of the projects I’ve scored that have come out this summer, and I will look ahead at what is over the horizon for the rest of the year.

AURORA – QUEENDOM COME

First up, I was thrilled to collaborate with singer-songwriter AURORA to produce a Celtic-inspired version of her track “Queendom Come.” The single was used by Electronic Arts for the official E3 reveal trailer for Unravel Two.

Last spring, I got a call from my friend Steve Schnur at EA who said that the marketing team really loved this particular AURORA song, but wished it had a more acoustic, even Celtic, sound. Somehow, Steve thought of me as someone who might enjoy doing music in this style! I listened to her song and fell in love with it immediately. The harmonic progression was satisfying, the melody and vocals were haunting, and the lyrics were nostalgic and moving. I knew right away I would have a blast working on the track.

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