Changes, disc ten: film music composed by Trevor Rabin promo

 

(With eternal thanks to Dearest Friend of the blog Cee for visual assistance with the physical media.  And also many thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word about my coverage of Trevor.  I truly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read the blog and also provide engagement via links and other comments on social media.)

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Now that we've come to the end of this series, I'd like to once again thank my readers around the world for their interest, as it was both challenging and enjoyable to research and compose these essays, even as some of the work had already been accomplished in previous years.

And that applies to the last disc, as I had published an entry on this release in its' original form as part of my Collector's Corner series in 2015.

http://rabinesque.blogspot.com/2015/11/collectors-corner-just-big-softy.html

I would definitely name this disc as one of the collector's holy grails given its' previously rare status (and, reflecting that, high price) and so its' inclusion in the boxset is a nice gesture to fans.  Admittedly, I was gratified to be able to discuss my analysis of the promo's raison d'être with Trevor (who, for the record, didn't disagree with my comments) because it is a very interesting artifact of his scoring career in my estimation.

And as it stands, this may be the only curated compilation of Trevor's scoring work we will be able to own and enjoy.  I hope that is not the case, but one never knows.

                                        * ~ * ~ *

As I asserted in the original essay, this promo has a specific purpose to it but also is representative of the early years of Trevor's career as a film scorer in Hollywood, specifically 1997-2002; and so in a way it makes sense that beyond the inciting events I mentioned, this disc was envisioned to provide Trevor further coverage as regards the potential of his overall career.  After seven years (if we say Trevor took that path beginning in 1995) and 17 films (on which he was the principle composer or co-composer) there was still time not to be entirely typecast within the industry.

As has been noted in previous fandom discussion, the disc itself is rather short, but the purpose of a promo is to provide an introduction to a scorer's work, either from a general viewpoint or related to work on a particular film.  So this compilation gave those in the industry making the decisions a chance to hear a different aspect of Trevor's talent, just enough to potentially influence their decisions if the selections as a whole achieved the goal.

And we would have to presume from the way "Aftermath" is labeled that it was already happening to an extent - it's all about context.  So as with the previous entry regarding the Jack Frost promo, I want to discuss these themes/cues in the context of emotive, lyrical pieces of music - do they portray Trevor the composer in a more sensitive light?

I would also reiterate as Trevor was the one selecting the material, he did himself a disservice in not including "Frostbite" or anything from Whispers: An Elephant's Tale, although that might not have been possible for whatever reason.

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My annotations on each track are the result of a couple years of research, as by that point (circa 2013) I had collected many of the score promos/DVD rips of Trevor's music (as regards those scores not officially released) as well as official releases, although in the case of The Banger Sisters I had to watch the film a few times to determine the source of those inclusions in this promo.

"Remember The Titans"

Remember the Titans (2000)

The score for this film contains a fair amount of stirring music as well as more reflective selections, and this piece would fall into the latter category, but it's quite lyrical.  It does quote "Titans Spirit" just a bit as well.  If anything the selections from the film on this disc make a good case for the score to finally receive a physical/digital release by a boutique label.

"Grace" 

(an edit of "Harry and Grace Make Peace" with additional elements from the film's suite)

Armageddon (1998)

I consider "Harry and Grace Make Peace" to be one of those beautiful themes I've mentioned in other essays.  This edit is delicately emotional and majestic.

 
"Banger Sisters" 

(an edit of the main themes)

The Banger Sisters (2002)

The primary motif of the main theme is really compelling even as it's quite simple.  There's a really interesting use of percussion and guitar in this score, although the film has a lot of licensed music in it as well.  But including two pieces from this score is another "proof of concept" kind of decision overall.

"Prague" 

(a promotional mix which combines the theme "Prague Main Titles" with elements of "Welcome To Prague")

Bad Company (2002)

"Prague" is absolutely one of Trevor's best themes ever - so gorgeous!  This is an interesting edit, really evocative, and in its' own way as affecting as "BMBBO."  I didn't mention this in the YMP podcast episode, but Bad Company is also one of my favorites of Trevor's scores.

"A Beautiful Mind Trailer" 

(aka "Aftermath")

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

I like to think that "Aftermath" and "Titans Spirit" were the themes which really got Trevor noticed in the film world itself; when you write a theme which can be applied to more than one visual then you know you've done it right.  You may have only meant for your music to accompany a specific moment, but universality is indicative of a particular creative power.

"Remembrance" 

(aka "Trisha")

Con Air (1997)

The oldest of the material included here, and it really is an emotional moment in a film full of obnoxious over-the-top bluster (not music-wise though).  Trevor's playing is understated but evocative.

"Friendship" 

(an edit of two separate cues)

The Banger Sisters (2002)

I really love the particular tones Trevor used on this score.  Given its' subject it made sense that it was a tad more guitar-heavy.

"Sunrise" 

(aka "First Kiss")

American Outlaws (2001)

Trevor scored two Westerns (released the same year), and I would say this score is somewhat more lighter in tone overall (especially as it shifts idioms throughout) with some reflective moments.  It's actually a rather underrated score, in my estimation.

"Gettysburg" 

Remember the Titans (2000)

I like the grandeur this particular cue exhibits, it would foreshadow his work on such films as The Great Raid and The Guardian.

Onto the booklet now...which is of course totally different from the one included in the original promo, save Trevor's quote which originally appeared on the back cover.  I would take issue with a few points in the liner notes (which I assume were written by Rob Ayling), as I don't believe all the details are necessarily correct.  With all the images included it would lead one to believe that this is a more inclusive compilation when in fact it only represents one particular period.  I think it would have been a better idea to just include one-sheet images from those films actually represented in the selections.  The list of career credits is basically a cut-and-paste from Wikipedia (Fair Game should have been omitted as Trevor was not the principle composer on that film) and sure, at least one era-appropriate photo was included but again - with that ghastly red filter!  Also, including the one-sheet for A Beautiful Mind is somewhat disingenuous, because although "Aftermath" was used in the trailer, none of Trevor's music is actually in the film itself.  But these kinds of things are only revealed through research, and it's clear that was not a consideration in the overall assemblage of this box set.

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Beyond the point in time which film music composed by Trevor Rabin represents, Trevor would continue to have a very successful career by most people's standards - eventually being selected as one of Variety's Billion Dollar Composers and the recipient of ASCAP's Henry Mancini Award (previously the Golden Soundtrack Award), given to composers for outstanding achievements and contributions to the world of film and television music.  Other awards and accolades would also be bestowed.  A piece of his scoring music provided the soundtrack for a moment of cultural zeitgeist which is still talked about to this day.  2006 could be considered his most successful year overall, with five films in release bearing his compositional credit.  He worked in film and television as well as advertising and theme parks.  In terms of longevity, relevance and opportunity I do believe anyone could make an argument for Trevor's overall performance in Hollywood.  But taken in a larger historical context, this promo does hint at the possibility that success came at a particular price: populist but never quite serious, widely-known but never quite diverse, the guy writing music for bombastic popcorn flicks, even if it might have been the best popcorn ever.

And yet here we have evidence that Trevor was capable of passion and gravitas, it was always there even if perhaps it was never particularly desired on the part of those who employed him.  It could be said that such a conundrum seems indicative of the external expectations regarding Trevor as an artist and a musician throughout his career.  But this compilation does indeed contain music which is emotionally affecting and lyrical, as well as some of the best music of his scoring career overall. 

 

There's an entire generation, at least, of fans who know Trevor Rabin as a film scorer and only later discovered that he had a prior career in rock music.  Those fans deserve a more comprehensive score compilation, but also, if this particular part of Trevor's history is to be considered equally important as any other, then I would hope it is further illuminated in the future.

Media Watch: Yes Music Podcast episode 460

This week's episode of Yes Music Podcast is part 18b of their What did they do next? career retrospective series for Trevor, regarding his move into Hollywood film scoring with The Glimmer Man.  Better still, as I referenced in the previous entry, co-host Kevin Mulryne kindly invited me to come on and offer my perspective on this career change.  As always, I have lots of things to say and hope I provided added entertainment value to their previously well-established efforts.

Many thanks indeed to Kevin and Mark for an interesting conversation and for providing the blog a moment of recognition in the greater world of Yes-related fanworks.

Links to listen:

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/17157671/tdest_id/1120238

https://yesmusicpodcast.com/what-did-they-do-next-part-18b-trevor-rabin-plus-arc-of-life-460/

Changes, disc nine: Jack Frost score promo

(With eternal thanks to Dearest Friend of the blog Cee for visual assistance with the physical media.  And also many thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word about my coverage of Trevor.  I truly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read the blog and also provide engagement via links and other comments on social media.)

* ~ * ~ *

The holiday season is upon us, so what better time to review the only score of Trevor's which can conceivably double as Christmas music?   Back in 2013 I wrote a Knowing The Score entry about Jack Frost, originally released in 1998, which I will link below.  For long-time die-hard fans it's a film which is definitely in our collections because Trevor appears it in as well, as the lead guitar player in the titular character's rock band.  So one could reasonably assume that's a reason why this score in particular was selected for the boxset.

https://rabinesque.blogspot.com/2013/12/knowing-score-jack-frost.html

But it's also a score promo which has been available on the grey market for many years, that's how I originally obtained a copy of my own way back when.  I tend to wonder how the selection was truly considered; I will assert that this promo was not licensed from Warner Bros.  I could be wrong, but nothing else in this boxset was licensed outside of the existing arrangement between Trevor and Rob Ayling to distribute his back catalog and archival releases.  As anyone who collects such items is aware, score promos are circulated within the industry for a variety of reasons - for example, to voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for consideration when it's time to select a slate for Best Original Score in a particular year.  But also copies will be sent to production companies to enable those responsible to adjudge a composer's work if they are considering that person for a project.  And of course it's not unheard of for those promos to then make their way into the hands of collectors and used record stores and grey market "distributors."  Those who offer promos online for trading are perhaps the least culpable in the sense that they're not charging for something which is not to be sold in the first place.

During my recent exchange with Trevor he decried those in the grey market profiting off his work, and I fully sympathize with that stance.  Especially given what many of these people charge per disc.  On the other hand, Trevor doesn't necessarily stand to profit again off his own work either, as he does not own the rights to any of his scoring work as it stands.  So the inclusion of a score promo in an archival boxset and also for individual sale is cutting it very fine, I would say, as regards the legality of such a selection; as I don't believe that even enough time has elapsed for the rights to the Jack Frost score to potentially revert to Trevor.

But Jack Frost has been consigned to history as a box office bust and therefore could be considered a property that The Powers That Be are likely not too fussed about being used in this fashion, perhaps?  The movie tends to be rather more a curiosity than a holiday classic for a few reasons: Michael Keaton as a reincarnated snowman?  Really?  Also Henry Rollins as the most intensely intense hockey coach (I think his performance is hilarious).  In addition to Trevor and Lou's debut, this movie also features cameos by three of the Zappa kids (before the infamous years-long feud over their dad Frank's estate): Moon Unit as a schoolteacher, Dweezil as an A&R rep, and Ahmet as the town snowplow driver.  But when I try to imagine one of Trevor's true great "lost" scores being included in this fashion - say, Remember the Titans or Whispers: An Elephant's Tale - well, I tend to believe that litigation would surely follow in the wake of such a decision.  So while I think it's a nice gesture as regards the concept (making a previously unreleased score recording available to fans), the execution is yet another example of whatever can be gotten away with and I find that notion suspect as a philosophy.

If actual licensing could have been involved in the process, for example, then a nice bonus would have been the inclusion of those tracks which the Jack Frost Band "plays" in the film and were included on the original soundtrack release - a cover of "Frosty the Snowman" and "Don't Lose Your Faith" (aka "Have A Little Faith") which Trevor appears on.

The accompanying booklet contains stills from the film, one of which is a screencap from the opening scene with the Jack Frost Band (which is obvious because you can see part of a credit in the image).  There is actually an existing production still featuring Keaton as Jack singing and you can see Trevor in the background, but that wouldn't have been as interesting to use.

I'll opine that it's not as good as my screencaps just in terms of appreciating Trevor's presence (I mean, look how grainy it is!), but after all, mine have that pesky Photobucket watermark all over them now.  I will interject here with a bit of trivia: there was a Jack Frost Band mini-reunion when Trevor appeared on stage with Lili Haydn at the Concert on the Bluffs in 2016, which perhaps is one of those things only Rabid Rabinites would appreciate.

One way in which I think this booklet should have taken its' cue from the promo release was to credit those people on Trevor's team, such as Paul Linford, Gordon Goodwin, Don Harper and Steve Kempster.  But in all this is rather a slapdash affair; at the very least I think a short paragraph from Trevor should have been provided to elevate this above the level of a grey market release.

Now onto the music, which I do believe is a wonderful thing to have in your possession even as a score promo does not reflect all of the music actually composed for a film.  However, as Jack Frost relies heavily on licensed music there is less score than there would normally be in such an instance.  In my previous essay I do opine on the music but I'm approaching this from the perspective of listening to the score rather than marrying the music with the movie so specifically.

Frostbite

Trevor could always be counted upon to write a strong memorable main theme, and "Frostbite" certainly achieves that objective.  From those opening chords which are so lovely and delicate and evoke the appropriate emotions associated with love and loss, then progressing through layers of synth voicing to conjure a crystalline landscape of wonder, accented with the warmth of guitar.  As I've stated numerous times before, this theme is one of the most beautiful pieces of music Trevor has ever written.  As it recurs throughout the film I can understand placing it at the beginning of the running order on the promo, but I tend to believe it works better at the end in terms of the listening experience.

The Snowball Fight

I think this is fun in terms of how it contrasts orchestral and rock elements, something which Trevor would become known for throughout his scoring career.

It's Snowing

This could have been an actual song, the theme contains a delightfully propulsive riff and the harmonica and dobro lines provide an intriguing melody; it's easy to imagine it going on for another 2-3 minutes.

Magic Harmonica

I love the wistful mood of the piano on this one, how it leads into the "Frostbite" motif from another realm.

Miss Him Too

Woodwinds are always instruments of longing and regret and express that mood to me in this particular cue.

The Cabin

This has a definite Christmas vibe to me, it's easy to imagine the very place it is named for, a cozy cabin surrounded by snow, once again leading into the main theme.

Goodbye

As a cue, I appreciate how majestic and cinematic this one sounds, which is fitting for where it is placed in the film.

The J Shot

This theme moves through several different moods before resolving into "human highlight reel" music, which Trevor became known for (and in demand to produce).  I really love his dobro playing on this one, which is such a lovely coloring against the strings.

Frost in Medford

I appreciate this as an elegant cue, either this or "Frostbite" really should have been included on the film music composed by Trevor Rabin promo to illustrate his abilities for more lighthearted fare.

Charlie Boy

I believe this cue should have been sequenced with "Goodbye" as they resolve one into the other.

Knowing The Score: Whispers: An Elephant's Tale

One of a continuing series regarding Trevor's career as a film scorer.


Author's note: much of the content of this entry originated between 2009-2011, by way of private composition, brainstorming with an individual who prefers not to be named, and posting on the Yesfans discussion forum.  This process enabled me to discover and share with fandom that Trevor had made vocal contributions to this score.  The original title of my essay was:
“Where did you come from?”

Examining origins in Whispers: An Elephant’s Tale

*~*~*

“Oh, you know, there's actually a lot of them that I'm real happy with, and I'm not talking about even just for a movie, I'm talking about when I'm done and gone, the things that I hope my son will listen to, will be Whispers, which is a movie that was barely released.”

- Trevor Rabin, 2002

Trevor Rabin’s eighth full scoring project since the advent of his film music composition career was one close to his heart as well as his homeland, the Walt Disney Pictures live action family film Whispers: An Elephant’s Tale, released in 2000.  The footage of wild animals, forming the tale of a baby elephant separated from his mother and bonding with another misfit in order to find her, was filmed in Botswana and voiced by a cast of well-known actors, most notably Anne Archer as Whispers’ mother Gentle Heart, and Angela Bassett as Groove, the rogue alpha female elephant who serves as a surrogate mother to the titular character.

The film itself didn’t prove to be wholly successful for a few reasons, but the soundtrack is primary among those elements which did appeal to viewers of all ages.  And part of that appeal lies within the synergy between the composer and the choice of music, as logically dictated by the nature of the film itself.  A native of South Africa, Trevor was an apt choice for a score which blended the music of the continent with orchestral grandeur and percussive tension.

But the score itself never received its fair due, as the recording issued was strictly promotional, meaning available only to those in the industry, and so another chance – as with Remember The Titans – for its' composer to receive further coverage and validation as a master of varying styles and moods within the scoring community was missed.  But thanks to the “gray” market in promo-only recordings I am able to fully comment on one of Trevor’s greatest scores, by his own admission as well as critical consensus.

Trevor had already established a relationship with Disney through his partnership with producer Jerry Bruckheimer on several scores – including what is still likely his most well-known to this day, Armageddon – for projects released under the Touchstone imprint, but the majority of those films were action-based, which suited Trevor’s dynamic style as he used his rock n’roll instincts and orchestral training to create compelling dramatic scores, even as he was looking to expand and move forward with different styles of music, which has always been a hallmark of his ambition and career trajectory.  The first progression beyond action/drama film scoring was with the family film Jack Frost in which he had a distinctly personal involvement – appearing in two of the opening scenes as the lead guitarist of the title character’s rock band – and the score contained very moving and melodic orchestral themes, as well as one of Trevor’s most beautiful compositions, “Frostbite.”  Once this forward momentum had begun, future projects reflected further diversity, as the next score was for the horror film Deep Blue Sea, which contained a full orchestra and choir to supremely dramatic effect.

Whispers: An Elephant’s Tale was as far removed from Trevor’s previous projects as any on his CV, and yet is entirely suited to his compositional style in regards to memorable melodies and orchestral power.  But for the first time in his scoring career Trevor was able to incorporate world music and furthermore offer a score of African musical stylings as a tribute to his own origins.  The music of South Africa holds enormous variety as an aspect of its diverse populace, but the style most associated with the region is called Mbube, a choral mode of singing.  The score also incorporates elements of what is known as Mbaqanga, with intricate percussive motifs and challenging polyrhythms.  Native percussion and wind instruments feature prominently in the score, as well as vocals sung both in English and in Zulu, the predominant language of the Mbube genre.  Because this is a film about animals, many of the sonic textures are suggestive of wildlife calls and vocalizations.

Writing in this idiom was not new to Trevor, as previous instrumental compositions such as “The Cape” and “Where Will You Be” as well as the second single from his solo album Can’t Look Away – a track entitled “Sorrow (Your Heart)” – were written with the same stylistic aim, but this project enabled him to compose upon a broader canvas, to evoke with music the film’s immense panorama of the African landscape.

The central conflict of the narrative – the struggle for survival of a baby elephant separated from the herd in the beautiful yet harsh milieu of the African savannah – provides a great opportunity for the full range of emotional themes and cues in tribute to the characters and the landscape as well as the movement of the story.

The film was created by Dereck and Beverly Joubert, the South African husband-and-wife author/filmmaking team; they wrote the story which was the basis of the script and Dereck co-wrote the screenplay.  The footage was shot in their characteristic fashion of becoming part of the landscape, to the extent where the animals living in situ do not acknowledge their presence.  As conservationists the Jouberts have the highest respect for the environment in which the animals reside, and they capture every aspect of the daily existence of the wildlife of Botswana. The advertising tagline - The True-life Adventure of a Big Little Hero – refers to the footage of actual animals in the wild.  No CGI for the Jouberts, although reportedly publicity for the film stated the two main characters, Whispers and Groove, were trained elephants.  It’s possible the scenes with the poachers in the second half of the film were staged, but the footage of wildlife was otherwise strictly observational.

Whispers was the only narrative-based commercial film the Jouberts were involved with, as all their other works are documentaries, each one focusing on one particular breed in the African savannah.  Their process takes many years, and Whispers likely began as a documentary on poaching, following their 1994 award-winning documentary Reflections on Elephants.  The Jouberts live among the animals they document, capturing moments most human eyes will never witness.  Their mission is to create a greater awareness of the interconnectedness of all life, the life-and-death struggles of their subjects, and how all species should be allowed to co-exist in their native habitats and respected as an equal part of the diversity of our planet.

Trevor has stated in prior interviews he holds similar beliefs as the Jouberts (and the lyrics to “Miracle of Life” are indicative of his stance), and therefore this project likely appealed to him as an opportunity to pay tribute to the music of his homeland, to work with fellow natives in support of a film which possesses a shared philosophy - illustrating the sacred beauty and majesty of a land vast and varied - both visually and musically.  In a sense it was a homecoming: music created as a homage to the place which shaped his creative consciousness as thoroughly as any other external influence; as well as a literal one in which he returned to South Africa in search of familiar voices with which to populate his compositions.

And so such an authentic pedigree (right down to a song from fellow ZA musician Johnny Clegg being commissioned for the end credits) does well to ensure the atmosphere and action of the film is fully represented.  Yet Whispers was admittedly not successful for Disney, despite offering a feast of sight and sound…though not as far as the dubbing was concerned.  Reviews were not kind, such as Lawrence Van Gelder of the New York Times referring to the film’s “cloying anthropomorphism,” and Charles Isherwood of Variety going so far as to label the script “crude.”  A common complaint seemed to be that the subjects by virtue of their species were incapable of nuance and much of the dialog was considered corny.  One does wonder what the film would have been like without the dub in regards to the appreciation of it, and I would have to assert that the dubbing detracts from the overall viewing experience.  In my most recent conversation with Trevor he indicated much the same, opining that perhaps the film should have been released without the dubbing, and I was in total agreement.

But as a very special and beautiful part of the oeuvre of Trevor Rabin, the score for Whispers: An Elephant’s Tale is a wonderful experience, which grows more enjoyable over time with repeated listening.

There are many unique moments in the score and not the least of them is the opportunity to hear Trevor singing in Zulu on a few of the themes, a solo vocal from his original stems interwoven with the African choir utilized for the recording, for which the featured vocalists were Faith Kekana and Lange Dube.  Although Trevor has sampled and processed his own voice as textural elements for other scores, this is the only one in which he actually sings (although he did record a song for use in the film The Banger Sisters – a cover of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” – which was included on the soundtrack release).

The Main Titles theme (featuring what I refer to as the "Wake Up Africa" motif) is one of Trevor's most memorable overall in terms of melody and progression: uplifting and atmospheric, immediately establishing the overall mood and ambiance of the film, and features both the choir and Trevor on vocals.  Other great themes include "Whispers," "The Longest Night," "Place of Takers," "A Brave Deed" and "We Have To Find Her" as well as "The Stand" which reprises many of the thematic elements featured throughout the score.  Those who own the DVD will recognize "The New Baby" as the music which plays on the menu loop, and it features a bit of a Township Jive take on the main motif of the score.

As a recommendation for adding this film to your collection if you are so inclined, beyond the value of experiencing this score as it was meant to be, watching Whispers reveals a world of wonder in its' cinematography.  The most compelling footage involves those shots featuring the diversity of wildlife - often shot at dawn or dusk - wherein the sky and the land reveal a particular beauty thus adorned by its inhabitants.  The true aesthetic power of the film lies in these moments as we are made appreciative of a place most do not see.

Knowing The Score: favorite themes part two

An ongoing series in which I wax enthusiastic regarding Trevor's best themes from his film scoring work.

Yesterday IGN (among other outlets) posted an article regarding progress on the third installment in Disney's National Treasure franchise, though the details are rather vague at the moment.  So in honor of that news, which can be read here:
https://www.ign.com/articles/national-treasure-3-in-development-at-disney-writer-attached
I thought I would post my next "favorite themes" entry which examines one of the pieces from Book of Secrets.  It reflects information reported last year regarding the status of another film, and I'm going to leave that part as is since we have a new update.

****

I get asked various things regarding Trevor and I would state, if asked, that the three scores Trevor is most known for are the following:
Armageddon
Remember the Titans
National Treasure
...and all three of those movies possess scores which are memorable and thrilling for certain, and in different ways.  The potential popularity and visibility of a movie shouldn't necessarily have any bearing on the skill involved in composition, but it does seem like Trevor brought a little extra-special something to these big movies, and so in support of this assertion, my second installment in this series is a theme from National Treasure: Book of Secrets, the sequel in the only would-be franchise Trevor was involved with.  I say "would-be" since it only consists of two films, and it is not definitely known if there will ever be a third movie continuing the adventures of Benjamin Gates; although once again Disney chairman/CEO Bob Iger brought up the possibility at the company's annual shareholders' meeting.

"So!" is a relatively short theme (1:46), but it is so upbeat and catchy, it immediately makes me happy to hear it.  As well I swear I can hear elements of "Prague" from Bad Company which is one of my very favorites of Trevor's beautiful themes - just a particular chord sequence which reminds me of that one.  I've always thought that the first 37 seconds of "So!" would make a great theme for a television program, succinct and yet well-developed.  It then takes a turn for the reflective, continuing on with the same motif but at a more stately pace.  It then concludes with a big orchestral flourish, and is, to my mind, one of the best examples of what Trevor can accomplish with a shorter theme.

Knowing The Score: favorite themes part one

An ongoing series in which I wax enthusiastic regarding Trevor's best themes from his film scoring work.

As part of my Knowing The Score series, I'm opining on some of my favorite themes in Trevor's scores.  I'm going to begin with Race To Witch Mountain from 2009.

This score is actually one of my favorites in terms of blending orchestral, rock and electronica elements, but not in the same way as we've experienced in other scores doing the same thing, such as Gone In 60 Seconds or Bad Company.  Race has a more analog - for want of a better term - feel to it, and I believe part of that comes from the story itself, as it involves extraterrestrials.  The themes and cues involving the Siphon, an alien assassin, use vintage synth samples to evoke a definite sense of sci-fi menace.

But the score for Race To Witch Mountain was an online-only release.  I am thankful Disney saw fit to release it at all, but it's still a bit disheartening that one of Trevor's best contemporary scores (i.e. from the last decade) was given such a seemingly ephemeral distribution.

The theme which plays behind the opening credits - "Unidentified Main Titles" - (see, I told y'all Trevor has a sense of humor) is one of his very best, though it appears in a movie which was likely not seen by the sort of people who pay close attention to scoring.  "UMT" really displays his Bernard Herrmann influence in my opinion, combining a very complex time signature and momentum-driven motif with touches of guitar riffing, percussion and bass-bomb dissonance interwoven with strings which are pure ostinati, supported by the brass, piano and choir voicings.  It's as heavy a thing as Trevor has ever written for rock n'roll, which only goes to support his contention that the weight of, say, a 40-piece orchestra can rival any rock band for sheer power.  Trevor's sense of rhythm and melody allows him a perspective which someone working from a wholly classical orientation may not be able to utilize.

The theme returns at a few points, such as in "Tracking The E.B.E.s" and "Meet The Press" and is entirely compelling each time - it basically dominates the entire score, much as "Aftermath" did for Deep Blue Sea - and that is the hallmark of a truly memorable and compelling theme: no matter how many times you may hear it, you enjoy it fully every time it comes around.

Knowing The Score: 12 Monkeys S2 E1 "Year Of The Monkey"

Content warning: contains SPOILERS! for S2 E1 of 12 Monkeys.

First things first: I don't wanna freak you out or nothin' but I'm loving this viral video which has a great Ringu kind of mood to it.  It is rather creepy, though, for those of you sensitive to such things.

The Witness has spoken. #WhoIsTheWitness #12Monkeys https://t.co/bTpYUM9s7O

— 12 Monkeys (@12MonkeysSyfy) April 22, 2016

Now onto the show, as they say...

Given that we fortunate viewers were afforded SyFy's largesse of a two-week lead for viewing the season premiere, I thought perhaps I could then take my time in studying it and render my impressions. But any snark is affectionate because I do like this show, overall.

PREVIOUSLY ON 12 MONKEYS:
Boy from the future - where everything is terrible - is sent back in time to attempt to avert total disaster.
Boy eats a lot of cheeseburgers and meets the Girl of his dreams.
Girl spends one year thinking she's crazy because this hot Boy from the future disappears before her eyes (like all men eventually do).
Boy returns from the future and they enact a hurt/comfort scenario.
This goes on pretty much all season.
Cole and Ramse's Epic Bromance is broken, Jennifer finds a way to make her unique worldview a corporate mandate, people in the shadows attempt to treat history like a game of chess (like they always do), and everyone has lost something which they may find again in either a dead future or a tragic past.

The great and wise Philip Larkin once wrote:
This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.
The implacable nature of Time renders it a faceless, formless force and yet we all have a relationship with it which is strictly our own...to rage and to rejoice, to treasure and to mourn.

Why am I being philosophical? Well, because time travel stories are at least in part about our personal relationships with time and causality. And that will prove a sticking point in Season Two, I believe.

So we begin with a beautifully-edited dreamlike montage recap narrated by Madeline Stowe, who played Dr. Kathryn Railly in the original film. And it does sum up most of the major concerns of Season One, though with little of the actual nuance. But that's okay, because you can always return to that story in our archival streaming television-on-demand culture.  We then find ourselves in Budapest upon the Széchenyi Chain bridge serenaded by the original version of "Time Is On My Side" which is one of the classiest uses of licensed music that I've ever heard, I gotta say. Kai Winding, ladies and gentleman, whose trombone manages to sound a bit like a police siren in this particular scene whereupon Ramse is making a dash from The Usual Villainy through narrow streets and dark alleys, but alas they have him cutoff mid-span on that confounded bridge. Then all the sound is sucked out of the world as Olivia comes tap-tap-tapping onto the bridge like Three Billy Goats Gruff, black-clad and smirking. They have an exchange and we see that It's a trap! while Ramse bides for time, asking, "Why y'all tryin' to punch my clock?" He is calmly informed that his services are no longer required and just as the hit squad is ready to take aim he does that modern action movie thing: NOW WOULD A GOOD TIME TO SAVE MY ASS, JUST SAYIN.'

KABOOM!

It seems there's a lot more violence in this one episode than I remember seeing all last season, but maybe that's just me. Cole comes strolling into frame, his theme playing - pounding drums and sprightly strings - and it's so action hero, but not in a bad way - we can see that he is not the same desperate haunted man as he was in Season One. The three plot points interact, with Cole and Ramse bantering even as they deny their relationship, "Us? Naw, we ain't together." And that was one of the things which made me so mad last season, when the bromance became a casualty of the narrative superstructure. I realize it had to be done, but it hurt me bad. Olivia kinda has this Trent Reznor in 1999 thing going on, as she calmly announces their inherent doom, and sure enough there's a brigade of mad bikers bearing down on that confounded bridge. A hail of bullets, they cower on the struts, and c'mon, it's a bridge, Ramse, you can say Don't do that! all you want but what are ya gonna do? So it's into the Danube for our bromance (yeah I know, but it's still a bromance if I want it to be, damnit!). Seriously though, they have tried to kill Ramse at least three times now and they keep failing...the Army of the 12 Monkeys has terrible logistical management, I'd say.

And...title card! I really love the title theme, it's all about the metallophones, or glockenspiel, or whatever that chiming accent is.

In the present, Olivia is dealing with some of those aforementioned logistical problems, and we are treated to a daytime overhead shot of that lovely city straddling the Danube (accompanied by a very majestic sort of cue), meanwhile Cole and Ramse scuttle like cockroaches to their underground hidey-hole (during which we see Trevor and Paul's leading credit). A meta-esque discussion follows which takes care of both exposition and bromance banter and I tend to think I really do care about them more when they're together than when they're apart - Aaron and Kirk have such great chemistry. Cole is adamant about his I AM HERE TO SAVE THE FUTURE agenda which of course Ramse has to puncture with his EXCEPT FOR MY SON rejoinder. Ramse says, "You believe in the past, I believe in the future.  It is what it is."  Or is it what it will be?  But anyway, who cares about the present is what I want to know.  Cole suggests that they split up once they've managed to ditch their creepy stalkers - wait, what?  Break up the bromance again?!  He has a Ah-ha! moment when he realizes the Army keeps finding them no matter where they run...except the one place where they never surfaced. It's not about their prognostication, it's about hardware. Specifically whatever they put into Ramse to track him.

The theme playing in this scene reminds me a bit of the second half of "Cole On The Move" but with a lighter touch.

Meanwhile, in the era of Everything Is Terrible (aka 2043), Cassie is reliving her brainwashing and its' subsequent effects and outcomes until she wakes up to find herself with Dr. Jones, who I'm convinced at this point just wants someone to mother, but is still at the ready with her gallows humor quips. There were no scenes showing Katerina smoking in this episode, so I wonder if they've cut that out of the show bible now. Cassie's all, "So I've been here in the future for four days now and it really SUCKS." She tells Katerina about Ramse's turncoat behavior and Katerina notes of Cole: "When it comes to Mr. Ramse his judgement has always been - (dramatic pause) - unreliable."

(See, clearly a bromance! You always want the one who is bad for you.)

A bit more exposition and then Deacon comes swaggering into the room just as Jones is shooting herself up with the Splinter serum and Cassie recites its' purpose, finally understanding what Cole told her in the past. You can immediately tell by the way Cassie and Deacon look at each other that there will be UST between them. I think that's a little too obvious, although I don't necessarily object to the subtext.  Deacon refers to Katerina as "Dr. Grimm" - whoa dude, harsh!  I'm pretty sure that's just her resting bitchface.

So the Messengers - like any post-apocalyptic cult worth their salt - give their time-traveling cannon fodder...uh...acolytes a pep talk full of grandiose metaphors and motivatiional psychobabble and "We will meet again," which never fails to make me think of Vera Lynn.  Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?  

(Whoops, wrong fandom, never mind.)

And dude is dressed like this is Carrousel from Logan's Run as he climbs into the chair (which showrunner Terry Matalas has already called dibs on when the show ends).  But...the good doctor has thrown a monkeywrench into their plan and the Messengers will not be meeting this guy again, as the splintering process basically liquified him.

I like the percussion elements in this scene, very compelling.

She's laughing (See what I mean by gallows humor?) but Messengers don't play,   Katerina basically taunts them to kill her, but as any effective terrorist knows, it's all about exploiting weaknesses.  And then they go off on a tangent of causality and...destiny?  I mean, that's how I interpret "If something is meant to Be, it shall Be."  But there's already a flaw in that logic because Ramse wasn't killed in the past.  Anyway, just as Cassie is about to be sacrificed to their pissing match, the Messengers' IT Support guy (seriously, dude could work for the Geek Squad) manages to bypass Jones' sabotage.

Now the guy they tried to send to whenever looked normal, then one of their hooded own is sent instead and she's not gonna pass for normal in any time, I'm thinking, but as it turns out she cleans up okay.  So yeah, they cover themselves in ashes as part of their aesthetic regimen, apparently.  That's not creepy at all!  (Spoiler: it is.)

Cut to the present and a screed against bioengineering courtesy of Ramse's former colleague Dr. Benjamin Kalman - who, I observe, seems far more interested in hitting on students than teaching them - but Cole enters and interrupts to seek his assistance.  Kalman blathers more of his Mother Jones rhetoric before they finally negotiate and then he makes what I feel is a way-too-perceptive comment about Cassie, but I did like Cole's line "She made me better."

(Awwwww!)

Cut to: said healer, who is still stuck in the Year of Wretchedness and being led away by Deacon.  Cassie immediately diagnoses him with Wilson's Disease and attempts to bargain with her usefulness but as we know from Season One, Deacon is a guy who is not exactly the easiest to get along with.  And he's all, "You are adorable."

(Oh he's gonna pay for that little bon mot at some point, you can bet.)

Cassie is, like, "Dude, this apocalyptic shithole you call your world?  They're the ones to blame."  He shuts her down and shuts her in.  But Cassie is plucky, even as she's cussing in frustration.

(I'm showing my age but I will never get over the realization that people can now say shit on TV.)

Back to the present, where Dr. Kalman is performing a less painful form of trackerectomy than Ahnuld had go through in Total Recall.  He's too enamoured of the sound of his own voice - typical professor.  His speechifying has another purpose, though...he's actually hatching his master plan of deceit right under their noses and dropping hints at the same time.  Blah blah blah, betrayal and exposition.   Guess what: it really IS the Year of the Monkey!  (No seriously, it actually is.  Now that is some next-level marketing strategy shit.)  Because he figures Ramse will be dead soon, he tells him the master plan.  And Kalman obvs has no idea that Cole is a wiley kind of guy because he's all, "Stand still so I can kill you, mmmkay?"  There's some nice ambiance in this scene which I'm going to say is Paul's doing, just to heighten the tension a bit.  And Cole is, like, "Your narrative of redemption means nothing!" before he shoots Kalman in the head.  Because apparently he feels the same about his own arc at this point: simply heroically nihilistic.

(That could absolutely be a thing, y'all!  Greater good and so forth.)

In their expository aftermath, Ramse chooses not to share said Master Plan with Cole.

In 2043, Deacon has grown a mite desperate, since Cassie informed him he was going to die without treatment and he's all, "So this is a legit thing?"  And she's all, "Totally."  And that "make me better" thing comes back around...do you see where this is going, people?  Now I don't like it, not one bit.  But anyway, he is the vehicle of her possible escape, needs must.  So he says, "We're gonna take this goon out, but mostly you 'cause you gotta stab him in the neck."  And she's all, "Seriously?"  But Deacon says it's not enough to overpower these creeps, they must die in order to be neutralized as a threat.  Cassie equivocates...oh now she equivocates?  Because she told Katerina it wasn't hard at all to shoot Ramse.  And Deacon informs her that "Do No Harm died 30 years ago" which I'm assuming is a reference to the plague.  So they go out to take care of her guard and after the deed is done Deacon quips "Welcome to the future, Dr. Railly...WHERE YOU TOTALLY KILL PEOPLE."

Deacon's crew is at the back door, and hey, there's Whitley!  Who is surprised to see the woman he only knew from research in a future where she is supposed to already be dead.

Meanwhile, it's a fond farewell to Budapest and each other...and maybe it's because Cole calls him "brother" but...Ramse decides to tell Cole what's what.  Cole seems a bit confused at Jennifer's involvement (remember, she's the one who called you Otter Eyes!) and Ramse reveals that he still cares.

(Awwwww!)

People, this is what I need from 12 Monkeys.  For me, it's all about the bromance.

As they walk away from that confounded bridge they reminscise about old times, it's adorable.

Cut to: Thee Beeg Apple, where we catch up with Riot Grrrl on sensory overload (and clearly off her meds), we get to eavesdrop on all that noise in her head...yeah, I feel for her.  But I'm not liking that version of "White Rabbit" so much.  Anyway, this is a setup for the most hilarious use of the speed dating meme I've ever seen.  Terry and Travis, I give you an A+ just for that scene alone.  Especially how it's a rather brutal indictment of male entitlement...because after 15 seconds I would have said: "Can you please stop the words coming out of your mouth before I dose you with this plague I happen to be carrying, OKAY?!"  You ask me, Jennifer was downright tolerant of that smarmy asshole.  But her speech is both funny and disturbing and I have a feeling Our Showrunners are going to walk that line throughout the entire season.

(Seriously though, dogfighting is a perfectly legitimate reason to usher in Armageddon.)

Okay so what is it with everyone asking to be killed?  Although I kind of get Jennifer's request because she is so incredibly fragmented.  But that self-involved nitwit wusses out and calls 9-1-1 instead, which will prove to be significant later on.

Meanwhile in the era of Everything Is Terrible, the calvary, such as it is, is going to attempt to Take Back the Machine (yeah my slogans are a little mixed, I know).  They enact a cunning plan, and Cassie frantically warns Jones to OMG DUCK! when suddenly...

KABOOM!

(There are a lot of echoes in this episode, have you noticed?)

The Messengers problem is dealt with, but at what cost?  Well I'll tell ya: the future ain't what it used to be because the machine is officially broken.  Again.  As Jones gives her WAG as to how long it's going to take to fix it, Cassie has a look of OH SHIT I REALLY AM STUCK HERE, and I totally sympathize, because as we know from Season One there are no bacon cheeseburgers in 2043.  This is what plague has rendered unto civilization.  But Katerina - like all the female roles in this show - is a plucky gal.  WE CAN REBUILD, she proclaims.

In the present it's now February 8th, Chinese New Year, and Cole and Ramse are playing Spot the Jennifer in Chinatown...in a city of, what, 8.5 million people (and two million rats), how hard can it be?!

Ramse still believes it's a fool's errand, but they split up, wandering amongst the revelers.  Cole sees someone he thinks is Jennifer, but he's mistaken and then he sees a sign which reminds him of the Army of the 12 Monkeys insignia, and then...

Jennifer seems conflicted, not wanting to encounter her Otter Eyes when she's ready to unleash Hell and all, so she runs.  They end up on the roof of some random building, and she's waving the Four Tiny Horseman and humming "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" for some reason.

(Well she is crazy, right?)

Anyway, she's now clearly relieved that Cole is going to stop her.  All she wanted was someone to stop (her) madness.  And here it is: the moment of truth, the moment that Cole has been traveling back-and-forth in time and all around the world for, and she's asking nicely and everything.  But...

Well c'mon, seriously, we knew he wasn't actually going to kill her, so to me the moment is rather leeched of its' intended narrative tension.  Even the Stabbing Violins of Significance cue is played for laughs.  But then those aforementioned pesky meddlers show up to remind her of the mission.  Cultists, what a buzzkill, am I right?!  And who is really the Witness anyway then, if not Ramse?

Speaking of: he's walking down an alley when suddenly WHAM!  The man has really taken a beating this episode, you know?  Is the Army of the 12 Monkeys going to ineffectually attempt to kill him again?!

Back on the roof, Cassie the Killer splinters from The Year of Continuing Wretchedness 2044 and makes short work of everyone save Cole and Jennifer.

I have returned from the Future, my friends, and I want a goddamn cheeseburger!

Their reunion is bittersweet once Cole realizes Cassie means to assassinate Jennifer because Cassie and Katerina figured out she was Vector Zero, so to speak.  But Cole knows there are greater forces at work - if Jennifer dies without freeing her Tiny Horseman, the Army will just find some other way to spread the virus.  

Thus we end in a standoff with Cole lecturing about choices again...my former boss used to say: "We all have choices."  I really hated that guy, btw.

"So what's it gonna be?"

Well lemme tell ya, Cole: while you two are bickering, Jennifer is gonna drop that vial right over the edge, is what.  Duh!

Whew!  Huzzah, I made it through another recap (after thinking I was officially burnt out on writing them for life) and I continue to give props to those who recap for a living - or just for the love of a show on a weekly basis - because it's a lot of work.  It was a fairly propulsive episode, not overly burdened with exposition.  Although there were a few cues I enjoyed I would say that overall the music was rather expected, but in an episode which tonally was meant to just keep moving along, I can understand why that was a better choice from a production standpoint.

So here we are, in the Year of the Monkey, and from most preview reactions I've read, this season is going to be weird, wild and wacky.  Count me in!

Knowing The Score: chronology check

Not that I would willingly afford any space on the blog to Twitter spam clickbait tweets (because as a cultural curator I strive for a particular level of quality in what I present to my readers), but links to this particular site have been showing up for a few months now, and this one keeps catching my eye.

Well, unbeknownst to everybody, I did a movie when I was 19.... #TrevorRabin #citations https://t.co/XITsPCYcTQ

— RussoRussel (@RussoRussel) March 17, 2016

The quote is from a 1998 interview, when it wasn't as widely-known that Trevor's scoring career began in South Africa rather than America.  As I've noted previously, although the usual cited year of release for Death of a Snowman is 1978, my research indicates it was first released in South Africa in 1976.  1978 was the year it was released worldwide under the name Black Trash.  A couple years before the recent official DVD release under the movie's original title, I obtained a gray market copy of Black Trash, the name obviously chosen to appeal to the Blaxplotation market even though Death of a Snowman, strictly speaking, is not that kind of film.  I remarked to Trevor that, in my opinion, Death of a Snowman wasn't any better or worse, in terms of the plot and acting, than The Glimmer Man - providing one of those career ironies in regard to his full-time return to film scoring twenty years after an obscure debut in the field.

This is not to imply that he couldn't have written a score at 19, because Trevor was definitely a wunderkind: discovered at age 14 by Patric van Blerk, playing on recording sessions as a teenager, experiencing unprecedented nationwide success by his early 20s.  But there are several indicators to illustrate the Maestro's chronology is a bit off when it comes to this particular project.  Trevor was 19 in 1973, which was the year he and Ronnie Friedman participated in Freedom's Children.  Trevor did perform session work during this period, and it's possible he was still studying at university that year as well, but I do not believe he would have had the appropriate amount of time available to compose a film score the old-fashioned way, as he has chronicled in various interviews.

My assertion: Trevor was 21 - rather than 19 - when he wrote his first score, in 1975.

The centerpiece of Trevor's career at that time, Rabbitt, provides some reference points.  One of the tracks on their 1975 release Boys Will Be Boys! is "Death of Tulio," which is under 30 seconds, qualifying it as something a bit less than an instrumental interlude.  It wasn't until I actually watched Death of a Snowman that I realized "Death of Tulio" was a cue from the movie, as Tulio is the name of one of the henchmen working for the titular Snowman character.  However, it is not the cue used for that (spoiler alert) scene in the movie.  I originally thought it was an unused cue which Trevor decided to include on the album because they (Rabbitt) had played on it, but it is actually used in another part of the movie and does refer to a death - for a scene which shows newspapers delivered with a headline declaring War On Crime (the Snowman's nom de guerre) has eliminated another rival.  Given that much of the score for the film is rock/soul rather than orchestral, it's an entirely logical supposition to assign the performance credits to Trevor, Neil and Ronnie.

Rabbitt's hit single "Charlie" is used in a scene featuring reporter Steve Chaka's girlfriend (who is also named Charlie) and I would imagine the song was not recorded before 1975.  When I told Trevor that "Charlie" can be heard in the movie, he ruefully did not approve of his younger self's decision to include it, which I would assume - as the musical director - he would have made, or at least agreed to.

Another detail is the cameo by vocalist Margaret Singana, who mimes along to "I Feel So Strong" (from 1974's Love Is The Power) as well as "Open Your Mind" (co-written by Trevor, from Stand By Your Man, released in 1975).  As we know, Trevor was involved with her career at that time and I believe he and Patric van Blerk had something to do with her appearance in the movie, but either way the choice of songs also indicates the applicable time period.

This clip provides a true example of the type of scoring which Trevor provided for this film.

I would not recommend any but the most dedicated of completists add this movie to their collection (but if you're an Amazon Prime member you can watch a decent-quality copy of Black Trash for free), although if nothing else it offers a glimpse of the Johannesburg environs in that particular era, including a shot of landmark Hillbrow Tower in one scene.  But it is an example of just how dedicated and ambitious Trevor was at that very young age to take on whatever project he thought was interesting, challenging, and something new in his overall development and experience.  Whatever the outcome, a hallmark of Trevor's musical journey is to be adventurous, and we fans appreciate and admire his eternal resolve.

Knowing The Score: 12 Monkeys season one (SyFy)

Originally I was planning to at least write about the first episode of the show but then...well, I was lacking in spoons to undertake the task of recapping.  So now that the score album is out I thought I would chronicle my impressions regarding those themes and cues which were chosen for the album, and their resonance within the series.

Here is the way in which Trevor described the score in the attendant press release:

“The 12 Monkeys score, which I’m doing with my long time assistant and collaborator Paul Linford, is a hybrid score of ethnic sounds, orchestra, and electronic, with a strong theme base,” said Rabin.

This particular formula is something which can be said to describe two other genre films which Trevor and Paul worked on: The 6th Day and The One.  In the scoring commentary track Trevor provided for The 6th Day home video release he makes special note of some of the percussive elements.  In another quote from the press release, stating that he and Paul played most of the instrumentation, he noted that his long-time friend and collaborator Lou Molino III also contributed percussion (as he has on other scoring work previously) and that the choice of such instruments "gives the music a far more organic feel."

Utilizing what can be considered more "primitive" technology is an easy way to evoke retro-futurism; for example, the use of vintage synth samples in Race to Witch Mountain is evocative of the alien plot point.  12 Monkeys uses this construct in regards to the future portrayed in the show, as much of humanity has fallen victim to a global pandemic and therefore centers of civilization and technology have devolved to chaos and ruin and now there are clusters and cults remaining rather than communities and cities.  Although the show means to replicate the span and scale of the original film, they can't, and it shows.  This doesn't mean it doesn't try, however, and one of the ways in which they did was by hiring Trevor and Paul because they have a specific cinematic sensibility which can make a show seem larger than it really is.  This same strategy was applied to Zero Hour, although I think a better use of scoring is part of what makes 12 Monkeys successful where the former was not (but, naturally, having a show with decent performances and production values and scripts, and a distinct lack of wackiness is also helpful).

To begin with the main theme, "I Am The Clock," it embodies the sense of urgency inherent in the main storyline, a sense of time and movement, a sense of dramatic tension but is also just a damn catchy tune.  But then it segues into a more stately reflective movement before returning to that same percussive sequence, to acknowledge that the movement of the narrative is also dynamic.  But it's not overly dramatic for the sake of being dramatic.  This track also functions as the score suite, so it contains elements of other themes from the entire season.  Trevor, ever a friend to melody, knows that people don't go home (or change the channel) humming the lights; meaning: it's important to present a melody which - as the main thematic motif - needs to resonate within the audience, as it will be recalled at different times throughout the season (and the series, one imagines) entire.  And every time it does come back it reinforces those primary narrative values.

"Do You Believe in Fate?" combines elements of orchestra, percussion and ambiance to evoke the slippery notion of relationships, to my mind.  One is never quite assured of one's allies and enemies in this show.  In the episode "Splinter" its' use underscores Cole's dissociative state of mind as a man caught between two different timelines.   There is menace and longing in equal measure, especially in the second half of the theme.   The same formula is evident in "Cole On The Move," but more suited to considerations of action.  "The Future Is History" contains more of an electronica chill, and I believe this is Paul's territory, as he contributes many of the more ambient/electronica motifs in Trevor's scores, although most of them are incidental music.  But then a bit of the main theme weaves its' way through along with the persistent "ticking" again meant to remind us that time is the true enemy in this story even as Cole is not a man bound by time, according to Dr. Jones.  The layering of various textural elements is important in this respect as well, to give a sense of a larger construct.

I like the way incidental music is utilized in the episodes as well, it's entirely contextual rather than simply layered over a scene, which in turn preserves the overall mood and resonance of the score when it is used.

There are a number of percussive motifs throughout the score as a whole: some serve to build to a greater climax for action scenes, others provide an underlying sense of urgency, and still others evoke menace or tension or sadness.  A chiming effect - a type of which Trevor used for emotional underscoring in "Rescue" on Jacaranda - provokes any number of reactions in a listener, and therefore is inherently compelling.  "The Monkeys On The Wall" is a great example of the use of the time-bound thematic element, with a transition from percussion to a piano and orchestral movement.  The percussion motif returns at the end to provide a dramatic lift.

It can be posited that nearly every character is a tragic character in one way or another, but the way in which this is expressed in "Katarina (Jones' Theme)," for example, is especially poignant, as viewers learn throughout the season just how much Dr. Jones has sacrificed to make Project Splinter a reality, and possibly humanity's last hope.

The interesting element to consider is that this is not merely a collection of every major theme and cue from two hours of film, but rather thirteen hours of film, the context of television series scoring enables an album of longer themes, as there is likely to be at least one in every episode.  The album contains 23 tracks, so it's a reasonable assumption that the central theme for every episode was included, if applicable.  Very few of the shorter cues were chosen, and of those included, like "Temporal Frustrations" and "Time Is Cruel," are selected because they are interesting and memorable even for their short spans, underscoring what is occurring onscreen.  "Railly Meets Jones," for example, is one of the most interesting in that it takes both character's themes and blends them into one of the more beautiful moments of the score.

What I find interesting about the theme which is used to represent the most menacing character - "The Pallid Man" - it is not wholly frightening, there is a deeper sense of drama as well as echoes of other themes.  I appreciate that even the character cues are somewhat ambiguous in their sonic portrayals.  The use of sonic space in this theme is interesting, because the character is meant to be a cipher, and the sense of blankness and absence-in-presence is portrayed effectively.

At some point I would like to write about what I consider the best episode of season one -"The Keys" - and "It Was The Keys" resonates with all its inherent emotional power not only as a part of that narrative continuum, but also the way in which that specific episode portrays considerations of time, memory and distance.  It is the emotional heart of this score as a whole, in my opinion.  Another episode-related theme, "Atari," portrays the specific tensions of the world of the narrative, and how they impact Cole and Ramse, with an almost Arabic classical music influence.

"Goodbye Cole" is particularly special because it features a bit of guitar but also it has a very evocative melody, a portrayal of what Cole's traveling through time does not only to himself, but the people he leaves behind.  "Spearhead" is an interesting take on the main theme, also recalling elements of "The Future Is History."  "Jennifer Takeover" features a great voicing of its melody, I appreciate the touches of woodwinds among the electronica and percussive elements.  There's also a great bass motif which comes out in the second half of the cue.  The use of the violin and piano in "The Night Room" is classic Trevor to my mind, it's almost out of Armageddon.

Interesting textures of all kinds also dominate "The Cycle Is Complete," tying together many of the motifs offered throughout the series, which is what a good closing theme should do of course.  That Rabin-esque sense of grandeur is also apparent in the way the orchestral and voice elements lift the theme to a more triumphant air.  The track as a whole is simply gorgeous, and the primary reason why I love Trevor's scoring so much.

As I noted, the score for this series is used to memorable effect, it provides emotional resonance and support for the plot and characters, and it is certainly a credit to Trevor and Paul that they managed to maintain consistent and compelling quality over an entire season, and I'm looking forward to the further development of all of these elements in season two.

Knowing The Score: Deep Blue Sea

Author's note: I've been working on this entry for a looooong time, and originally meant to post it during Shark Week but then decided since DBS is ostensibly a horror film, it would make for an appropriate Halloween observance.  So on with the skewing...err...reviewing.

Content warning: this essay contains excessive amounts of shark snark and SPOILERS! for Deep Blue Sea.  Also, I didn't include images this time because this is a rather long piece; I hope that won't diminish your reading experience, but if it does I offer my apologies.


Although I'm a bit late in my observation of Shark Week, recently horror media site Bloody Disgusting published an editorial on five extremely underrated horror film scores and one of the selections was Trevor's score for Deep Blue Sea, released in 1999.
http://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3342934/underrated-horror-movie-score/2/

I would be apt to agree from the perspective of noting that it resides in the trend of Trevor composing excellent scores for movies which really don't deserve them.  While I feel this might be considered a controversial opinion, I will say Trevor appeared to agree with it when I stated it to him during our interview exchange back in 2012.

Those of you who overall don't particularly care for the oeuvre of Trevor's film scoring and don't bother to see the movies or collect them on DVD/Blu-ray, I will say that you should own a copy of DBS because it contains, within the Behind The Scenes documentary ("When Sharks Attack!" - the section on the score begins at 12:20 in the documentary), comments from Trevor and footage of him working with Renny and the orchestra during a spotting session.  Renny and Trevor have a great friendship - which in part explains why they've collaborated on four films - and as this was their first project together, it's interesting to note their camaraderie even then.

What is significant to me regarding Trevor's score for DBS is it contains one of his most beautiful and haunting themes, "Aftermath," which was later used in the trailer for the film A Beautiful Mind.  With piano and strings, it is wholly illustrative of Trevor's abilities at marrying emotion and elegance, it is sparse but then builds to a grandeur which is wonderfully melodic, and then transitions to an acoustic guitar part which is also simple but beautiful before the orchestra and choir return for the finish.  The theme is reprised in the cue "Doctor's Orders" and the theme "Susan Softens."

As to the film, I have gone on record as stating that I don't particularly care for the films of Renny Harlin, so my impressions of this film are going to be colored by my overall stylistic distaste but this was back when Hollywood was giving Renny money and opportunity to be an action movie Golden Boy so as ridiculous as it might be, DBS has some charm to it, and part of that charm is centered in Trevor's score.  This was the first horror film he had ever scored, and as he always looked to any genre he encountered as a challenge, he did his best to take it on to the fullest extent as a composer.

Sharks, as the implacable, unassailable and enigmatic predators of the sea, make good villains.  But in any ensemble-cast horror movie, we know ultimately that humans are their own worst enemies due to their ignorance and their arrogance.  In some ways this is a haunted house movie, given the isolation of the scientific facility and the stress of the situation even without the threat of bio-engineered sharks.  But the tagline of this movie is Bigger. Smarter. Faster. Meaner. and...hell, why not add Scarier. (?)  But that would be too obvious, right?  (Spoiler: they're really not.)

Harlan notes in his director's commentary that the opening scene of the film is an homage to Jaws, and I think the audience gets that but....it doesn't even come close to invoking the dread which its ancestor presented to our atavistic imaginations.  There is another visual nod to the film somewhat later on, which, if you've watched Jaws enough times, you will spot immediately.  We see two couples getting their drunken groping on offshore and then a little red wine is spilled into the water which seems to suddenly draw a shark which bursts through the bottom of the sailboat.  Chaos ensues but the party is rescued by a well-placed harpoon capture thanks to one of those iron-jawed ruggedly handsome kind of guys who are just patrolling the oceans waiting for disaster, am I right?  Yeah, so...like I said, ridiculous.

Cut to: the red sunset haze of Los Angeles wherein Dr. Frankenshark is so incensed at the media fallout of her escaped shark snafu she has come to yell at her exorbitantly wealthy boss, Samuel L. Jackson (who could give any shark a run for its money in the charisma department, of course).  The name of his corporation is Chimera, which is an anvilicious sort of reference, oy vey.  Suddenly they're on a sea plane, headed to said facility, Aquatica Research.  The doctor is not only a brilliant genetic researcher, she's licensed to fly a seaplane!  I appreciate giving women agency in narrative, of course, but this comes off a little Mary Sue-ish for my tastes.

Oooh look, it's the iron-jawed hunter!  Thomas Jane is a damn fine-looking man, I gotta say, and he's perfect for the role of The Shark Whisperer.  But Dr. Frankenshark is immune to his charms, even soaking wet.  She's All Science, All The Time.

In a clearly Hitchcockian nod, Renny appears in his own movie - and he could have actually played a minor character, such is his lanky long-haired surfer dude persona.

In the director's commentary, Samuel L. Jackson notes that Stellan Skarsgard is "probably slumming" in this movie, and boy he ain't kidding!  But such is the wackiness of this ensemble, really, in terms of casting, with a mix of serious and comedic characters and acting therein.  Intense people are intense, goofy people are goofy (even when the shark hits the fan, as it were).  Michael Rapaport is great comic relief, and his chemistry with LL Cool J provides moments in which the audience can relax.  It's interesting to see how big Rapaport plays in comparison to Jane's terse circumscription, for example.  It's textbook, and that's one of my complaints with the film in general.  There's no subtlety at all.

A squall is on the way, and all non-essential personnel have vacated, leaving the rest in what could also be considered a locked-room kind of narrative...except that we know Whodunit?  What we don't know is how the shark got out...but wait, oh yeah, because reasons: of super intelligence.

We see Dr. Frankenshark continuing with her Success At All Costs, But At What Price? research efforts, her true agenda a secret from her colleagues as well as her boss, and there is also an directorial agenda (stated by Harlin in his commentary) to make her the real villain.  I appreciate that she is a villain by virtue of her intelligence and although she is just another mad scientist, at least she is the one, because you see very few women occupying this trope.

This is followed by some dick-waving between Jackson and Jane, with Jane giving a Soul Surfer kind of vibe to The Shark Whisperer.  Then we're in the kitchen with LL Cool J and he and that parrot are the heart of this story, thank you Jesus.  That parrot, y'all, best thing in this movie.  Everyone keeps staring at the portholes in an ominous fashion, which is telegraphing so hard you don't even need the music to do it.

We learn the bio-engineered sharks are much like the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park: fast, smart, vicious and they hunt in a pack.  These sequences are the most obvious kind of CGI, and even with the advances they had at their disposal it's not entirely successful.  Harlin notes in his commentary it was a composite of live action, animatronic and CGI elements in order to look seamless, but the problem is we can see the seams and that detracts from whatever scariness we're meant to experience.

Night falls on Aquatica...and the crew throws a surprise birthday party for Dr. Frankenshark, which is the payoff of the cake we saw earlier.  Thank goodness, because I would have spent the entire movie worrying about whether anyone was able to eat the cake.  It's important.

Cut to: Dr. Frankenshark and The Shark Whisperer having a moment, which is intercut with various exposition, and ultimately they are on opposite sides of whatever argument they're having, which again, there is no subtlety in this kind of trope.  You're either for the sharks or you're exploiting the hell out of them For Science.  And that's just so eye-rollingly obvious.  Even with the consideration that Dr. Frankenshark is dealing with the pain of personal loss by said exploitation, Saffron Burrows' performance is little more than a cardboard cut-out...Harlin speaks of walking a fine line with the portrayals but I want to know what movie he's watching, because I don't think it's Deep Blue Sea.

Day two of The Isolation and most everyone gathers in the Wet Lab for the shark-and-shark show - mind you, this is a little over 20 minutes into the movie.  The storm is closing in so there's another element of (expected) tension...this could be a Gothic romance, almost, just replace whatever supernatural beings with sharks.  Seriously though, that swim by The Shark Whisperer through the murky lengths of the underwater cage?  Pure Gothic terror right there.  The sharks attempt to corner him in one section, again displaying a pack behavior which isn't supposed to be existent instinct.  And then...they take out the surveillance cameras.

OH SH(ARK)!

The Shark Whisperer has one of those Don't Go In The Basement moments wherein he decides go outside the cage to check the cameras.  Mind you, the other sharks ate the one he made friends with earlier, so this is the level of genius that the Aquatica braintrust exhibits on the whole.  Most of the facility is underwater as well so...we already know how this is gonna go, right?  Right.  But then...FAKE OUT!  The Shark Whisperer has fooled the super-smart shark stalking him and manages to tranquilize and bring it into the lab.  Harlin notes that he went with a sort of Retro-Futurism look for the lab so it would be relatable to the audience.  He states it is an "unusual" design, but...does no one know that nothing has been original since Alien, twenty years its' senior?  And also again, nowhere near the dread factor of that movie.

There's an effective jump-scare in the examination sequence, but that's nothing compared to the OH SH(ARK)! moment when the sedated shark was only pretending to be sedated...and...Stellan Skarsgard's arm is the first casualty.  Now, this causes The Shark Whisperer to attempt to go medieval on its amphibious ass, err, fin, but Dr. Frankenshark is having none of that - that's her prized lab shark which is going to cure Alzheimers with its super-smart brain fluid, so she sets it free.  Something tells me she's gonna live to regret that decision...or not live, as the case may be.

So now they're attempting to Medivac the injured Stellan outta there stat, but when they get to the surface, HOLY STORM FRONT!  Like I said, this might as well be a Gothic novel.  And soon enough, the rest of him follows his arm as the first course.  You know what they say: once it gets a taste for human flesh...and then both the Medivac helicopter and Brenda the Radio Gal are toast.  The first time I saw this movie, I turned to my friend and said: "Whatcha wanna bet the fat chick gets it first?"  I was pretty close, wouldn't you say?  The fat chick is never the Final Girl, thank you sexist Hollywood filmmakers.

Everything just blows the fuck up, people fall over, chaos and panic ensue, we are now a little over half an hour into the movie.  Not that we need any story when we can have explosions and mayhem by Harlin's logic, but seriously, we don't even know these characters, why should we feel sorry for any of them?  Despite Renny's insistence that the pacing be fast because what matters is the shark, I disagree.  The horror would be far more horrific if we were actually invested in the story and characters at all.  Well okay, I care about the parrot, but that is it.

Meanwhile, literally everything blows the fuck up, and LL Cool J finds the cooking sherry miraculously spared, so he swigs it down.  Drink up my man, because the shark has hit the fan for sure.

In the Wet Lab, everything is terrible, and they are all transfixed by something approaching the ginormous observation window...you know how on SNL they had that Candygram skit and it was always a landshark?

Yeah.

SPECIAL DELIVERY, HUMANS!  THE SHARKS ARE 5000% DONE WITH YOUR SHIT.

The truly horrible thing is that Stellan is alive when the shark throws him into the observation window like a rabid UPS driver delivering a box of priceless bone china.  Smash!  And they're all just standing there, like, WHA?!, and Samuel L. Jackson calmly says, "Okay people, let's move," like it's a planned fire drill, but they don't move fast enough, of course, and the ocean seeks its natural level, as the ocean tends to do.

So everything is terrible and everyone is truly in a world of sunken shit.  LL Cool J's character is having a conversation with his God, and the parrot is like, "Dude, do you know how to swim?"  Meanwhile, Rapaport has informed everyone that there is no way out of this retrofitted submarine refueling depot death trap.  Thomas Jane action-heros a map of the facility, and then LL Cool J makes it to one of the stairwells.  But his parrot is the smartest animal in this movie because it flies the fuck out of there, y'all.  Because we're all yelling DON'T GO UP THOSE STAIRS and he does it anyway.  Just like the Itsy-Bitsy Spider he gets washed the hell out, tout de suite.

The Ocean is all LET ME IN and everyone else is all LET ME OUT and they make it to a maintenance shaft as the Implacable Tide of Water besieges them.  Outside everything is terrible and terribly on fire - in the middle of a storm (yeah whatever) - and as Renny proclaims in his commentary: "You can swim, but you can't hide" (from the super-smart sharks who are comin' to getcha).  Meanwhile, LL Cool J is looking for The Smartest Animal and The Best Character In This Movie, which doesn't appear to have an actual name.  But Renny says it was two parrots from Mexico City, so I'm going to call the character Esteban.  He's swim-walking through a hallway, and Esteban is mocking him, like, "Dude, follow the sound of my voice and you might possibly survive this clusterfuck."

There are parallel narrative tracks here, if you can call them that.  The remainder of the Aquatica crew being all tense and fraught with peril and not wanting to drown or be eaten by sharks, and, LL Cool J and Esteban also trying not to drown or be eaten by sharks.  I don't think this really works, exactly.  Anyway, so Jackson and Jane are dick-waving again, and slowly coming to the realization that maybe the sharks are 5000% done with their shit, but The Shark Whisperer cannot abandon his empathy just yet, but A Significant Glance from Dr. Frankenshark tells us that the sharks are at least smart enough to kill them all eventually.  Because humans will panic and turn on each other and be stupid, generally.  And then Samuel L. Jackson turns on his pet researcher and demands to know what Dr. Frankenshark did because he's had it with these motherfucking sharks in this motherfucking ocean and...oh wait.  Sorry, never mind.  She tells him that she gave the sharks bigger brains to get more of the protein she needed so of course they're smarter.  And when a super-smart shark is threatened, well...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happens after that.  When you piss off a predator, super-smart or not, somebody's gonna get et.

There's tears and disbelief and frustration, and Samuel L. Jackson is thinking, "I did not fund you massive amounts of money to make me into Shark Chow!"  And she's, like, "But we can save humanity with my valuable but ethically questionable research!"  But everyone else is, like, "Nope."  Dr. Frankenshark and The Shark Whisperer have another face off and he's all, "You know we're all gonna die, right?"  Samuel L. Jackson tries to Think Tank a solution but no one cares.  And they all walk away from Dr. Frankenshark, like, "So done with your shit too, missy."

Meanwhile, LL Cool J's search for Esteban continues.  He's well on his way to a bad case of hypothermia (and that's not method acting, because the water in those tanks they shot in was cold), when he realizes he's on the menu (Get it, get it?!  The cook is on the menu!).  We cut back to the rest of the crew and I don't care about these people, seriously.  They reach the Mini-Sub bay and, like their fate, it's pretty much fucked.  We return to LL Cool J being Stalked By A Shark, already in progress.  But my man shows some initiative and grabs an axe.  He climbs up onto an equipment rack just as his nemesis catches up to him.  Esteban startles him from the top shelf, and Harlin notes in his commentary that it is the classic "cat in the alleyway" horror movie jump-scare.  Esteban lands on a floating pot and LL is all, this damn bird is gonna be the death of me, and tries to coax Esteban back onto his shoulder, or whatever.  And...The Inevitable Thing happens.

RIP, Esteban.  I hope you gave that shark severe indigestion.

But Renny Harlin pissed me off by saying in the commentary, "Thank goodness we got rid of that parrot, finally."  Look man, that parrot was the best thing in your entire lame-ass movie, alright?!  Everyone else can just die already, as far as I'm concerned.  But no, that's not gonna happen...yet.  So we've got the sub bay and the kitchen, and everyone's trying not to drown or get eaten by a shark.  Samuel L.Jackson proclaims that they're all "going to have to swim out of here" and at this point I'm saying "Vaya con dios, y'all."

LL Cool J escapes a Hansel-and-Gretel fate by hacking his way out of an oven and trying to outswim a shark.  Oh honey, seriously?  But the shark turned on the oven and the gas is now filling the kitchen and LL busts out his waterproof Zippo...KABOOM!  Now that's some MacGyver shit right there.

LL Cool J: 1  Sharks: 2

At this point in his commentary, Harlin admits that he is also cribbing from Alien in his choice of casting one big star and then some lesser-known actors.  See?  I told you guys, nothing is new at this point in the horror game.  Or at least in this movie.

So now Samuel L. Jackson has his actual "I've had it with these motherfucking sharks in this motherfucking ocean" moment.   LOL no, not really, but he's giving his "I have seen some shit, y'all, and I have done some things" speech, and then...

LL Cool J: 1  Sharks: 3

Sharks...still 5000% done with your shit.  They ravenously chow down on Sam since Esteban wasn't even a snack, apparently.  Everyone is reeling in horror, and...okay, I didn't really want Samuel L. Jackson to die.  And I don't want LL Cool J to die.  But everyone else?  *rings dinner bell*

Speaking of everyone else, they decide to climb the elevator shaft and thereby flood the entire facility, which is already sinking and crumbling around them.  Plus, the top of the shaft is on fire and burning debris is falling down into it.  And I still don't care about them.  One of the super-smart sharks goes right to the access hatch and rams into it.

Knock knock!  Who's there?  THE SHARKS, motherfuckers!

It gets in, of course, and Thomas Jane action-heros another solution, so everyone else is climbing towards the burning surface while he attempts to access one of the lower levels.  I like that the score piece playing in this section is one of Trevor's "I'm going to save everyone" kind of themes.  The man can write some Human Highlight Reel music, this we know.  So the water is rising in the shaft, which means the shark is rising too.  In other words, everything is terrible.

Then Renny admits that he ripped off his own movie in the next sequence, where the ladder falls down and The Shark Whisperer attempts to rescue The Other Researcher Whose Name I Can't Be Bothered To Remember, but she's blonde and cute.  He says it's "a reenactment of the opening of Cliffhanger" and as such, the same fate awaits the girl.

LL Cool J: 1  Sharks: 4

There's only one girl left, I don't think there's gonna be a Final Girl in this movie, frankly.  Everyone is upset - again - and I'm looking at Dr. Frankenshark, thinking: "Oh stop with your crocodile tears, lady.  Nature finds a way, you know what I'm saying?"  Things are increasingly more terrible, and it's at this point our Final Guy (well, I think he is) appears on a ledge and salutes then all, like, "Greetings my fellow menu items!"  And they better respect, because my man killed a shark, which is more than they've done in the whole damn movie.  They raid one of the rooms for anything they can use, and there's some levity and some emotion but as Harlin again notes, they don't go too deep because that's not what this movie is about.  It's about super-smart sharks and the cardboard cut-out characters they eat.  (Well no wonder they're always hungry!)

(Also, I kinda wanna go and watch all of Renny's movies to see if I can spot the Finnish flag he appears to place somewhere in each of them.  Then again...maybe not.)

Renny has Rapaport and LL Cool J hug to attempt to inject some "human warmth" and...dude, seriously, that is not character development.  We don't care because you didn't give us time to care.  The characters have to split up again and at this point in his commentary Renny is discussing the sound design and scoring and he notes that Trevor spent a lot of time developing the theme for the sharks and purposely making it dissimilar to John Williams' theme for Bruce (the shark from Jaws).  He says "I like the music of the film" and that is the only time he mentions Trevor in the commentary.  For me, the cuts between the peril and the comic relief don't work in my estimation because it feels like the tension is being drawn out for too long.

There's a brief moment of triumph for Rapaport and then...

LL Cool J: 1  Sharks: 5

Renny says that the main impetus of the shark attacks is they want to destroy the facility and obtain their freedom.  But since the whole place is falling down around them, and one of them had managed to escape already, they all would have been able to.  So I call bullshit on that.  They are 5000% done with your shit and they want revenge, it's just that simple.

Dr. Frankenshark is tip-toeing through the flooded corridor to get to her quarters, because she's got to retrieve her Results At All Costs, But At What Price? research, and the guys are back in the elevator shaft and realize she's missing and LL rather meta-esquely declares: "Aww, I'm done!  Brothers never make it out of situations like this, not ever!"

(Hang on my man, I think you're gonna be the Final Guy.)

She gets jump-scared by her fake shark (which we see in an earlier scene) and then one of the real sharks appears and she's all, "Look, I made you super-smart!  You should be thanking me!"  And the shark is, like, "Nope, 'cause nobody like needles in their brain."  After a prolonged game of doctor-and-shark...

Humans: 2  Sharks: 5

There's a lot of conventions at work is this movie: action thriller, haunted house story, locked-room mystery, slasher film, Gothic novel, science experiment gone awry...and it's kinda like a stew when you think it will be better if you keep adding stuff to it, but in the end it doesn't taste like anything at all.  But maybe the worst is Harlin's admission that Saffron Burrows was required to strip down to bra-and-panties to kill the shark (supposedly with the excuse she was grounding herself by standing on her wetsuit when she electrocuted it) in a gesture which is displayed in almost every horror movie: women are punished for their sexuality.  In this case, however, she's not being punished for enacting sexuality so much as just acknowledging the archetype of the maiden being menaced by the monster.  As I said, I do appreciate that she has agency, but that was just blatantly exploitative.

And in the end her research is destroyed, so in essence nobody won.  Unless you want to call surviving this disaster winning, but somehow I think she's ambivalent about that.  She continues to look conflicted for the rest of the movie, unless that's her resting bitchface, so to speak.

The final escape plan is to flood one of the outer hatches then blow the door and ascend to the surface with life jackets and air tanks serving as decoys for the sharks, but I'm thinking if they've been underwater lower than, say, 30 feet they're going to risk the bends if they rise too fast.  However, I know logic has no place in this movie.  LL gets gnawed on a bit - in another homage to Jaws - but I told you, my man is a Final Guy.

On the surface, day three of The Isolation finds our protagonists upon the flaming ruins of Aquatica Research.  The storm has passed, and they exposition about the sharks' master plan.  Dr. Frankenshark insists, "It's her or us," and The Shark Whisperer is all, "WELL DUH."  So they are loaded for bear, err, shark, because as we all know from Jaws, nothing works quite so well as BLOWING SH(ARK) UP.  But there's a logistical snafu and so Dr. Frankenshark decides to sacrifice herself for the good of BLOWING SH(ARK) UP by chumming the water with her own blood and the remaining shark scents it, thinking, "Hey wait a minute, is that the blood of the woman who has performed bizarre and unnecessary experiments upon me and my kind?"  And when she does get the attention of said shark, the good doctor wigs out and starts swimming for safety but then...

Humans: 2  Sharks: 6

But like I said, she seemed highly ambivalent about surviving, so perhaps it was for the best.  The Shark Whisperer dove in after with some Quixotic notion in mind, and manages, with his shark whispering skills, not to get et.  Meanwhile. LL Cool J has figured out the BLOWING SH(ARK) UP gambit and is ready to bite back, as it were.  Plus, he has to do it for great justice to avenge the bromance which ended tragically.  In a last-ditch attempt to create some suspense he manages to harpoon Jane (who is caught on the fence and does not get blown up, huzzah, because he's just too iron-jawed to die).  Everyone who had the weekend off, apparently, is now on the way back...to find out they'll all unemployed.

THEE END.

So a bit about the score...the official score album contains the main themes, there's only one actual cue.  It's short but I think it's fully worth picking up if you do enjoy Trevor's scoring work.  There's a grey-market DVD-rip containing all the cues and themes which you can find if you're of a mind to and know where to look.  But one of the interesting things to me is the "Deepest Bluest" song by LL Cool J - even if you're not a fan of Hip Hop I would recommend giving it a listen because it's co-produced by Trevor and it contains elements of the score as well as a guitar part played by Trevor.  I seem to recall there's an instrumental version too.  There's also a seven-minute suite which isn't on the score album or in the end credits, but you can probably find it on YouTube.

What I like about the score overall is the use of piano and woodwinds to create that icy feeling of dread, but there's also a sense of space which fits with the milieu of the movie, taking place largely underwater.  There's the orchestral grandeur and big dramatic passages which Trevor is most well-known for, as well as evocative guitar accents and swells of choir - it's all the elements which imbue his best work, and, quite frankly, gilds the lily a bit.  But DBS needs that, it needs all the help it can get.  It's a much more beautiful score than the movie deserves.  And it lends a humanity to the movie which Harlin was attempting to create but he never quite gets there.  Trevor's score reminds you to feel the things which the characters should be feeling, and underscores all the appropriate emotional cues, which is what a score needs to do.   "Journey" has some interesting vocal/synth and percussive textures among the orchestral elements, and the "Main" track features the eerie theme he created for the sharks.  "Hunting In Packs" contains a sort of whale song element to create an aquatic ambiance.  "Shark Side" also has very interesting percussion textures which then flow into lovely orchestral passages.

Now this is not the first time I've mocked a movie of Renny's - those of you who have read some of my posts at Yesfans know I generally have this kind of attitude about his work.  But I did want to suffer through this movie again if only because Trevor's score deserves recognition and appreciation...so buy the DVD, but only watch the documentary.  Buy the CD, and enjoy Trevor's beautiful compositions.  Don't go in the water...unless you know sharks have nothing against you.  Because unless you remind them of a sea lion, they probably don't!