RIP James Horner (1953 - 2015)

/

The news of James Horner’s death has hit me harder than I ever saw coming. It was his music that inspired me to want to pursue a career in film scoring. Not John William’s music as so many other composers say. I love John William’s of course, but for me, it was James Horner. As a young Junior High school kid my three favorite scores were Willow, Krull and The Rocketeer. At the time…I did not even really pay attention to who scored them. But one day I paid special attention to the composer and it was James Horner. I instantly thought…I must like his music. I began collecting everything I could get my hands on from his catalogue of work on any media bootleg or not. I had to have it. I studied it. It was all I would listen to. I found hard to find recordings. Captain EO’s score from the Disneyland attraction…Battle Beyond The Stars…anything and everything. He essentially scored my childhood. I hear his themes today and they instantly take me back to a time when movies still had that Hollywood magic. 

In the Fall of 2009, I was invited by a friend of mine who worked for James to attend the Avatar orchestral scoring sessions at the 20th Century Fox Scoring stage.  Seeing Horner take command of the podium was nothing other than masterful.  The musicians loved playing for him...you could see it, hear it and feel it.  He used mostly the same musicians on every score he recorded in Los Angeles over his entered career.  Being there hearing Avatar come to life through its music is an experience I will never forget.  

Ironically, some of Horner's best cues were attributed to his musical interpretations of flying. Last year he had the world premiere of a concert work performed by the Pacific Symphony here in SoCal that was taken from a piece of music he composed for the Flying Horseman Aerial Acrobatics team. He scored their live stunt plane show. It made sense. He was a pilot as well. He loved to fly. So writing music for them was scoring an experience that only the few who fly can truly understand. But his music evokes the sensation of flying perfectly. It is a tragic bit of irony that his death was from piloting his plane. He loved to fly. He understood it so well. He tried to leave with us that feeling though his music. The video linked here below is so hard to watch now but you should take 7 minutes and watch it.  It is such an appropriate glimpse into his love for flying and his amazing music and so ever ironic given these events. 

I will miss not being able to hear anything new from you James. But your gift of music to us will live on forever. You inspired me more than you will ever know. And there is not a melody or theme that I write that will not have been influenced by your work. It is part of the fabric of what I hear in my head. And for that I am forever grateful. May you rest in peace and may your soul take flight.

 

To further understand what a fundamental loss this is to both Hollywood and the world in general, please take time to watch this video as well.  It is a compilation of a small sampling of just some of the beautiful and memorable music and themes James Horner wrote over the incredible course of his career.  

In the studio mixing a new soundtrack score release...

/

In the studio this week with the amazing ears of my mix engineer Adam Schmidt working on the tracks to a new soundtrack CD release that I can not wait to share with everyone.  Adam and I have worked together on many projects now.  He mixed Crooked Arrows and my Private Dancer score.  Adam use to work over at Hans Zimmer's Remote Control under Alan Meyerson lending his talents to films like Christopher Nolan's Batman films and Zack Snyder's Man of Steel.  Especially in creating new samples and instruments that were used in those scores.  These Cues are sounding great.  More release info to come soon...

SCORECAST PODCAST SHOW #51

/

SCORECAST PODCAST SHOW #51

The as-promised Q&A episode. Your SCOREcaster questions answered. Deane Ogden and I have TONS of fun in this episode and provide a grip of useful info for anyone scoring pictures or working in the film music biz. Plus, a few goodies about the future of SCOREcast and the podcast show. Also, Dean visits with the Output boys about SIGNAL - which is pretty damned cool!

http://www.scorecastonline.com/2015/05/27/scorecast-051-ask-us-anything/

AWAKEN is the opening night film at new Artemis Film Festival...

/

AWAKEN is the opening night film at the new Artemis Film Festival celebrating Women in Action films at the Pasadena Laemmle Playhouse 7 on Friday April 24th. The red carpet gala starts at 6:30p. And the opening night screening after the red carpet starts with AWAKEN...then the evening ends with Terminator 3. If you want to see AWAKEN on the big screen...this is the next opportunity in LA. Artemis Festival honorees this year include Linda Hamilton (Terminator 1 & 2), Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3) and Gina Torres (Firefly, Serenity).

Tickets can be purchased at this link here: 
https://embed.showclix.com/event/ArtemisFilmFestival

AWAKEN is part of the opening night Red Carpet Gala Double Feature block and is $30. 

 

Pictures from the AWAKEN Red Carpet Premiere at NoHo Cinefest.

/ Laemmle NoHo 7/

AWAKEN premiere and festival screenings coming up...

/

AWAKEN is about to have its World premiere as it begins its festival run.  Very happy how this one turned out.  It looks and sounds great!  Collaborating on the score with my good friend Kays Al-Atrakchi was such a great experience.  This was our second collaboration together.  We had worked together previously with the AWAKEN director Mark Atkins on the "SyFy Original" film Battle of Los Angeles.  So bringing the same team together to tackle the score on this film was a natural progression.  

The AWAKEN world premiere will be at the North Hollywood CineFest on Saturday April 11th @ 9:30pm at the Laemmle NoHo 7 (5240 Lankershim Blvd).  AWAKEN is up for Best Feature film at the festival.   I will be attending the red carpet there.  

Other festival screenings coming up include:

  • Buffalo Film Festival BIFF it will be screened their on April 17 at 9:30pm
  • Artemis Film Festival 2015 (Celebrating Women in Action Films)
  • Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena located at 673 E Colorado Blvd Pasadena, CA 91101 6:15pm red carpet, April 24
  • Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, April 25,26
  • Sunscreen Film Festival in St. Petersburg, Florida May 2! 
  • 18th edition of Dances With Films taking place between May 28th - June 7th 2015 at Hollywood’s famed TCL Chinese Theatres. 
  • Women's International Film & Arts Festival* Miami on June 4 
  • The "Other Venice Festival"  in June 2015.

Another great Crooked Arrows Soundtrack Review

/

The Film Soundtrack Center has a great review of the Crooked Arrows soundtrack I had not seen before.  Very honored by what they said.  

“Brian Ralston’s soundtrack for the film Crooked Arrows is quite intriguing from the earliest notes...There is a modern feel to the way the music was approached, but there’s also something about it that emanates an almost ‘ancient’ quality.....One part of it is almost like The Mentalist by Blake Neely meets James Horner’s Field of Dreams.”

Awaken Trailer

/

It is always fun scoring a genre of film you have not really done before. It is good to stretch the compositional style chops. Here is the trailer to the action/thriller film AWAKEN I scored, starring Daryl Hannah, Natalie Burn, Robert Davi, Jason London, Edward Furlong, and Vinnie Jones.

Awaken, directed by Mark Atkins, is about a random group of people who wake up on an Island where they are being hunted down in a sinister plot to harvest their organs.  Coming later this year.


Guest at University of Miami Frost School of Music

/

I recently had the privilege to be a guest speaker in the University of Miami Frost School of Music, Music in Media class to discuss with the students about my composing, the entertainment industry, my work on SCOREcast and some philosophies about the business.  It was a great time.  The Frost school of music is one of the top music schools in the country and to be included in their lecture forum series was an honor.  I want to thank Carlos Rafael Rivera for the invitation.  Carlos teaches the course there and is also the composer of the recently released Liam Neeson film, A Walk Among Tombstones, which you should all check out.