Daily Film Music News
The nominations for the 54th Grammy Awards have been announced. Here are the nominations in the film music related categories:
Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media
Clint Mansell has written the music for a new spot promoting Sony’s new 3D television. The spot, entitled Two Worlds, is directed by Arev Manoukian and features the poem “That’s What I Heard You Say”, written and read by Leonard Cohen. Mansell recorded his music for the project at Air Studios in London. Watch the 2D version of a stereo 3D cinema spot after the jump and also check out a making of featurette, which features footage from the recording sessions.
Three new movies are opening nationwide and this weekend:
The comic book adaptation Thor directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Ray Stevenson, Kat Dennings, Rene Russo and Stellan Skarsgaard is expected to top the weekend box office. Patrick Doyle has composed the score for the film and a soundtrack has been released on Buena Vista Records. Check out our announcement for details on the album and audio clips. Also visit Film Music Magazine for a short interview with Doyle on his first comic book/superhero score.
Also opening wide is the comedy Jumping the Broom directed by Salim Akil and starring Angela Bassett, Paula Patton, Laz Alonso, Loretta Devine, Mike Epps and Julie Bowen. Edward Shearmur composed the film’s score and a soundtrack with both score and songs from the film has been released earlier this week by Madison Gate Records. For more information on the album and the film, visit our soundtrack announcement.
Black Records has released a soundtrack album for the BBC drama United. The album includes Clint Mansell’s original score from the TV movie. To listen to audio clips and download the soundtrack, visit iTunes. United is directed by James Strong and stars David Tennant, Sam Claflin, Jack O’Donnell and Dougray Scott. The film is based on the true story of soccer team Manchester United’s legendary “Busby Babes”, the youngest side ever to win the Football League and the 1958 Munich air crash that claimed eight of the their number. United premieres tonight in the UK. No word yet on a release of the movie in the States.
Darren Aronofsky recently directed an ad for the Yves Saint Laurent men’s fragrance La Nuit de L’Homme. His regular composer Clint Mansell has written the music for the commercial, which has now surfaced online. Aronofsky has worked with other previous collaborators on the project, including actor Vincent Cassel (Black Swan) and writers Ari Handel (The Fountain) and Mark Heyman (Black Swan, The Wrestler). The ad campaign for the product has been launched in Europe and is set to hit the US in a couple of months. To check out the two minute- commercial, which Aronofsky shot in Paris, watch the video after the jump.
Clint Mansell is currently scoring the upcoming BBC drama United. The film is based on the true story of soccer team Manchester United’s legendary “Busby Babes”, the youngest side ever to win the Football League and the 1958 Munich air crash that claimed eight of the their number. The made-for-television movie is directed by James Strong and stars David Tennant, Sam Claflin, Jack O’Donnell and Dougray Scott. The project marks Mansell’s first scoring assignment for BBC and his first TV movie credit of his career. No release date has been set for the film.
While we don’t usually report video game scoring assignments, we will make exceptions for assignments by high profile film composer. According to a recent interview with Clint Mansell at The Quietus, the composer will score the upcoming game Mass Effect 3, which marks his first video game scoring assignment. The game developed by Bioware is scheduled to come out at the end of this year (watch the debut trailer below). In the interview, Mansell also talks about his work methods, his experience leading his band Pop Will Eat Itself and his collaboration with Darren Aronofsky including his scores for Black Swan, The Wrestler and Requiem for a Dream.
According to Variety, the scores for Black Swan by composer Clint Mansell and True Grit by Carter Burwell have been disqualified from Oscar consideration by the Academy music branch. Both scores were deemed ineligible because they are “diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music”. The Black Swan score was heavily adapted by Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” and much of the True Grit score was based on 19th century hymns.
Also disqualified are the scores for The Fighter composed by Michael Brook and The Kids Are All Right by Carter Burwell, because they are being considered “diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs”. Alexandre Desplat’s score for The King’s Speech, which has been discussed as being potentially disqualified for its use of classical music in some key scenes was ruled eligible for Oscar consideration by the music branch committee.
According to director Duncan Jones, Chris Bacon has replaced Clint Mansell as the composer on the upcoming sci-fi movie Source Code. Mansell had been working on the score for the film as reported here back in October, but according to Jones, scheduling conflicts kept the composer from completing the soundtrack. Chris Bacon, whose previous feature credits include this year’s Love Ranch and Alpha and Omega, as well as numerous credits on James Newton Howard’s scores, has taken over scoring duties. The score is being recorded with a 70 piece orchestra this week. Source Code stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan and Vera Farmiga.
Only one movie opens wide this weekend:
The Warrior’s Way starring Dong-gun Jang, Danny Huston, Geoffrey Rush and Kate Bosworth features a score by Javier Navarrete. In the movie, a warrior-assassin is forced to hide in a small town in the American Badlands after refusing a mission. No soundtrack release has been announced so far. To find out more about the movie, check out the official movie webpage.