Ah, it's that time of the year again... Time for joyous carols, stuffed turkeys, decorative lights that some people feel really need to be seen from outer space, family feuds at the dinner table, movies starring either Santa Claus, elfs or Macauley Culkin and, of course Christmas songs!To tell you the truth, I'm really a sucker for Christmas hits, though I admit that some of them really make you thank God that Christmas only comes once a year. So, are you sick of Bing Crosby still dreaming of a white Christmas or do you want Chris Rea to hit a friggin' tree while driving home for Christmas for the umpteenth time? Well, you're in bad luck, 'cause recently I cowrote a frivolous new Christmas song for the recently founded ad-agency tpo studios, called 'People, Passion, Harmony' (more or less the agency's motto).
The cheerful music was written by Erik Pleijsier, while I was responsible for the melody line and highly clichéd lyrics. Mirjam Nohlmans was kind enough to lend her voice to the song. You can listen to it here (and watch a clip starring Mirjam made by Dietert Bleijs). Enjoy and have yourself a wonderful Christmas!
Listen to (tracks from) the Tenants score!
2 Comments Published by Steven Friedman on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 at 12:16 PM.
As I've mentioned before, I like to score! By which I mean of course: compose music for moving images. The tagline under my name even says 'script, score and more', so every now and then, I think the 'score'-part should get the attention it so deserves. Last week, I finished the score for The Tenants. Took some blood, sweat and tears, but in all modesty, I think the end result is well worth the effort.Scoring a horror film is tricky business. The persistent action and tension offer a lot of possible music-cues - and while less will always be more, the temptation of putting a loud string-attack over a jump-scare always lures around the corner. And while that in itself is pretty impossible to avoid, I've still tried to find an original and unique musical 'tone'.
My main influences for this score were Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and (in no particular order) Howard Shore, Béla Bartók, György Ligeti and the weirdass - but brilliant - Croatian music project Kerovnian (check it out if you haven't already).
Of course, the music works best when it accompanies the images it was composed for, but I firmly believe that good film music should always tell its own story (rather than just underscore every single event in the movie), so it is with great pleasure that I hereby present several tracks from the score, for you to listen to.
Mind you, these are rendered straight out of my sequencer and aren't mixed down and finalized in any way, shape or form. With that out of the way, enjoy the tracks!
Opening Credits and Drive to the House
Daniel & Sarah
We Have to Go
They Cut the Power
No Way Out
Driving Away and End Credits
Raiders of the Lost Package online!!!
0 Comments Published by Steven Friedman on Wednesday, December 06, 2006 at 11:56 AM.
Whether you like it or not, the sparklin' new Dutch-spoken comedy series Game+31 has premiered and the first two episodes are now available for your enjoyment (well, enjoyment... that's kind of up to you to decide isn't it?, but I digress).If you're one of those lucky bastards with an HD-ready screen (720p horizontal resolution at least) and an Xbox 360, you can watch the HD-version (720p) of the first two episodes on the Xbox 360 marketplace. IPod and PSP owners can look forward to high quality resized versions of the eps for their nifty handheld devices.
In case you don't understand any word of that crazy language we call Dutch, you'll probably laugh even less than if you do speak the language. Still, startup-problems aside, I honestly think this thing has the potential to be something really cool. Keep in mind that the entire pilot-series was plotted, written, produced and finalized in a matter of about three weeks. Anyway, have fun watching and remember: it will get better along the way.
