Pictures from the AWAKEN Red Carpet Premiere at NoHo Cinefest.

/ Laemmle NoHo 7/

AWAKEN premiere and festival screenings coming up...

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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

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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

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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

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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.  

Brian scores the action / thriller film AWAKEN

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I recently completed scoring the film AWAKEN along with co-composer Kays Al-Atrakchi.  Kays and I had previously scored a SyFy channel film together and once again united to work with director Mark Atkins.  

In AWAKEN, a random group of people wake up on an island where they are being hunted down in a sinister plot to harvest their organs.  The film stars Natalie Burn (Expendables 3), Daryl Hannah (Bladerunner, Splash), Edward Furlong (Terminator 2), Robert Davi (Die Hard), Jason London (Dazed and Confused) and Vinnie Jones (Snatch).  Kays and I brought an exciting, action / thriller score with a slight horror touch.  Look for the film starting later in 2014 and into 2015, especially in foreign markets.  

Online seminar class on director-composer relationship

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I have been asked to take part in a wonderful 2-part teleconference /online seminar with Bob Degus - Director & Producer the evenings of Tues June 24th and Tuesday July 1st. Bob was an executive and producer at New Line Cinema for many years overseeing Austin Powers and Pleasantville. He is also an active AMPAS member on the board of his branch. Bob and I have also worked together on many projects he has directed and produced. He is conducting a seminar series as the "Hollywood Film Coach" and this is the first…Orchestrating The Composer - The Director-Producer Relationship. Info on the course is at the link below and a PDF of the topics covered you can download and check out. The target audience for this seminar is composers getting into the industry BUT…he has asked me to participate in a second more "advanced" seminar down the road where the target audience is directors and producers wanting to know more about working with a composer. Bob has MANY great stories from his years in the industry that are so educational to learn from.

There is a $99 cost…but he guarantees you will get out of it many things of value and be happy or he will give your money back. THAT is huge….you have nothing to lose. 

Please pass along if you would be so kind to help me get the word out to any folks you may think may want to take this course. Bob is a wealth of information that any young composer out there normally does not have access to. I am humbled by his invitation to me to join him in this conversation. And I look forward to seeing you at the tleconference/online chatroom on the 24th.  

http://thehollywoodfilmcoach.com/blog/orchestrating-composer-director-relationship/

Los Angeles area school performs Crooked Arrows suite in concert.

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First Avenue Middle school in Arcadia, CA has a monster music program where 500 of the 800 kids in the school are involved in the music program in one way or another.  Since I am a graduate of the Arcadia school system from many years ago, First Avenue Middle School music director Mike Danielson approached me about wanting to perform a suite of music from my Crooked Arrows score at their end of the year movie music concert.  I immediately loved the idea and thought is was an extra special opportunity due to the fact that Lacrosse (the sport depicted in Crooked Arrows) is the fastest growing sport in America and the age group driving that growth is young teenagers.  To have an orchestra of talented young teenagers beyond their years in musical ability perform this music and bring it to life on stage seemed appropriate.  

On the evening of Monday, May 19, 2014 the suite was reformed in front of a live audience of over 1200 people at the beautiful new performing arts center in Arcadia, CA.  It was a joy to be able to conduct this extremely talented musical group.  The concert went extremely well.  I have to keep reminding myself that these were 6th - 8th graders performing music well beyond their years.  If it is any indication of the future of music in Los Angeles, the future is bright.  


Private Dancer SDTK review (NY Examiner)

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Danny Gonzalez of the NY Film Examiner recently reviewed the Private Dancer soundtrack CD on Perseverance Records, giving it positive reviews and a thumbs up.

“A Solid noir suite is a great reason to get this album showcasing the talents of Brian Ralston.”
“Perseverance’s album is very interesting and unique much like the label is and it mostly is a showcase for Brian Ralston’s talents which is a great thing because he’s really becoming a composer to watch out for and if “Negotiating Identities” was a full blooded score for a major film, we’d be talking about a breakout score and one day, we probably will see that. This album will definitely be the inspiration for it without a doubt and for the time being, you can enjoy it on its’ own merits...As a whole, it is a very intriguing album that truly displays the talents of its’ composer who really has a solid career ahead. A positive experience and (mainly) because of “Negotiating Identities.”

Brian's film music played on WWSN radio in UK

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scorezone.jpg

WWSN radio in the UK has a show (you can stream online)…called The Score Zone with Darren Power where they play nothing but music for film, television and video games. On tonight's show (Jan 28th, 2014)…they will be playing some of my film music from various films and projects. Tune in to check it out…or if you re reading this after the fact, you can download and stream the show from their archives as well. It is always great to see shows like this that support the music we create. Thank you Darren for that support of what we do!

The live show is at: 
03:00 GMT
22:00 EST (10pm)
19:00 PST (7pm)

Show's webpage with show links:
http://wwsnradio.com/djprofile.aspx?DJID=3c2f7955-4375-4fbc-b925-d6f3147930e1

Show's Facebook group page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheScoreZone/

On the Facebook group you will find play lists under the files tab.