Save up your pennies, dweebs, because there’s a full slate of Fall films, each with it’s own score to make you swoon as the leaves take a dive and you dig out that over-sized, stretched and stained cable-knit sweater you wear to your soul-robbing IT job. All dates refer to North American film release. Subject to change..

August 28:
Halloween 2, Composer: Tyler Bates
The Final Destination, Composer: Brian Tyler
Taking Woodstock, Composer: Danny Elfman

September 4:
All About Steve, Composer: Christophe Beck
Black Dynamite, Composer: Adrian Younge
Extract, Composer: George S. Clinton
Gamer, Composers: Robb Williamson, Geoff Zanelli

September 9:
9, Composer: Deborah Lurie
Read more…

Composing: a collaborative process
Divergent methods employed to make poignant scores
By Matt Hurwitz

Some composers work in isolation, while some lead teams of writers and orchestrators who help complete their vision. Whether they’re scoring huge Hollywood features or smaller indie films, they all have their own methods of working with their production teams. Each has the same goal — to put the final storytelling stamp on a film.

“The musicians are the last actors on a movie,” says Hans Zimmer, veteran composer of such blockbusters as the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and Batman Begins as well as the upcoming Sherlock Holmes.

Continue reading more from Hans Zimmer, Andrew Hollander and Michael Giacchino on their music teams at Variety.com

Ask any group of die-hard film score nerds who the world’s most popular film composer is, and they’ll probably tell you it’s their favorite film composer. Which means you never ask a die-hard film score nerd to answer global questions like that. They almost always possess a myopic view of music in general (i.e., “rap” sucks — ooh, good one).

With a website like Last.fm, which when using their their software “scrobbles” (counts) what you play in iTunes and on your iPod, you get a more comprehensive picture of what composers and soundtracks people all over the world are listening to — or at the very least, a list of composers who have the broadest appeal and public profile. Let me throw some numbers* at you:

Read more…

Tyler Bates returns with more of the night he came home… and unlike his effort for Rob Zombies miserable re-imagining of John Carpenter’s classic Halloween, this time Bates’s tunes will be commercially released on his own label, Abattoir Recordings. Can’t wait for the remake of The Curse of Michael Myers next year. Here’s the official press release:

Composer Tyler Bates joins Rob Zombie once again in the re-imagining of John Carpenter’s Halloween II. Following the success of Rob Zombie’s Halloween, which premiered number one at the box office – breaking all Labor Day Weekend records, is the sequel, Halloween II, hitting theatres nationwide on August 28, 2009 from Dimension Films. Halloween II picks up where Halloween left off, and focuses on the struggles of Laurie Strode (played by Scout Taylor-Compton) and killer Michael Myers (played by Tyler Mane). The film also stars Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif, and Danielle Harris.

Tyler Bates once again puts his creative stamp on this classic movie, sharply distinguishing it from its 1978 predecessor. Bates score takes Halloween to a new level of hellish terror, imbued with the gritty texture of Zombie’s realistic depiction of the horrors spilled onscreen by Michael Myers.

The Halloween II Score album is the inaugural release on Bates’ new label imprint, Abattoir Recordings, digitally distributed August 28, 2009 by E1 Music. A physical CD release with previously unreleased music will follow with the DVD release of the film. E1 Music will release additional projects from Bates’ Abattoir Recordings in 2010.

Read more…

That sound you hear is not a blaster beam, but the collective nerd boner being sprung over Film Score Monthly’s expanded release of James Horner’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The score is what many believe to be the composer’s career highpoint (those would be the people who love to stick it to him, considering at the time he was still a young lad from England Southern California.)

The new release adds an additional 30 minutes of material not heard on the GNP/Crescendo CD, and has been completely remastered from well-preserved three-track stereo mixes. Read more…

La-La Land Records will re-issue Trevor Jones’ long out-of-print thriller Runaway Train (3000 copies). The label will also celebrate their 100th release with a two-disc set of music by Bear McCreary’s for Battlestar Galactica’s fourth season. A limited (1200 copies) release of Michael Linn’s Allan Quartermain and The Lost City of Gold (which allegedly references Jerry Goldsmith’s theme from King Solomon’s Mines, naturally, because it was a sequel, right?)

With the burgeoning success of online (and legal) TV & movie-watching sites like Hulu, access to entertainment has never been easier. However a disparity in royalty payments is starting to get a rise from creative contributors like our beloved film and television composers.

The Hollywood Reporter has picked up a Reuters story about the issue, and include a quote from composer Nathan Barr (Hostel, True Blood) who has been left asking where’s the cheddar?

“True Blood is my first big show for TV, and it’s definitely going to see a lot of play on the Internet. It’s a big issue for me,” Barr told Reuters. “I don’t understand why composers don’t get paid if someone downloads it.”

More: hollywoodreporter.com

Walt Disney Records have released Michael Giacchino’s original score for Up exclusively to digital download sites iTunes and Amazon.com MP3.

On iTunes (256kbps AAC / DRM-free for $9.99), the disc runs just over 60 minutes, and includes three bonus sound effects tracks, a 25 page digital booklet (in .pdf) and a seven-plus-minute featurette on the music for the film (“Composing For Characters”), featuring Giacchino and the filmmakers. The same contents, minus the video and booklet, are available from Amazon.com’s MP3 store for $8.99. There are no reported plans to release the score on CD. Deal with it!

Rather than scaring film composers with your persnickety online persona, here’s your change (L.A. area nerds only) to get up close and uncomfortable with some of your favorite film composers, thanks to La-La Land Records and Dark Delicacies. Read on for the full Circus of the Film Score Stars roster:

La-La Land Records presents a special composer signing event.

When: May 31st, 2009, 2pm
Where: Dark Delicacies – 4213 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505
Read more…

Is the economic downturn seriously hampering your filmmusic fun? Need some good music, fast and most of all, cheap? Composer Chris Tilton (Fringe, Mercenaries 2, Black) has heard your cries, and has released his latest videogame score, Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian, for free on his website. Performed by the sizeable Slovak National Orchestra, Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian evokes the large-scale fantasy-adventure scores of that genre’s 1980s golden age — minus the contemporary pop loops and patches. Grab it.

More: christilton.com