An ongoing series wherein I comment on Trevor's recent publicity.
I wanted to wish all my readers around the world a very Happy Holidays, whatever tradition you may observe. I know we're all looking forward to more new music from Trevor in 2016, and especially (hopefully) the new vocal album!
As a special fandom treat, recently I discovered...well...let's call it a "rough" transcript of an interview which Trevor gave to journalist Mick Wall back in 2011 which was posted on Wall's blog in June 2014. They discuss details of Trevor's London-era career, specifically the recording of Wolf, and the rather shocking revelation that the multitracks of Wolf no longer exist because they were later recorded over! Trevor also recounts the development deal with Geffen and the beginnings of YesWest, as well as a mention of his ongoing work on Jacaranda.
http://mickwall.com/?p=269
For those unfamiliar with Wall's work, he has authored a number of books on various rock bands as well as his own adventures in UK music journalism as a writer for Sounds and Kerrang! among other publications. As he notes in the transcript, Mick first met Trevor in London back in 1980.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Agent X's mission is terminated.
Remember how I noted in my last entry that we didn't know if Agent X had been renewed yet? Yeah, well, about that...turns out the news was released after I'd written my entry that the show hit the chopping block.
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/legends-cancelled-season-2-tnt-1201638881/
I'm not surprised, really. It's a fun show in its' way but it is a bit ridiculous, although it was reportedly doing okay ratings-wise compared to the other shows which were cancelled, but these days even a million viewers isn't enough, it seems. The last three episodes have been scheduled thus: tonight the show will air in its' normal timeslot, and two episodes will be shown back-to-back on the 27th.
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/legends-cancelled-season-2-tnt-1201638881/
I'm not surprised, really. It's a fun show in its' way but it is a bit ridiculous, although it was reportedly doing okay ratings-wise compared to the other shows which were cancelled, but these days even a million viewers isn't enough, it seems. The last three episodes have been scheduled thus: tonight the show will air in its' normal timeslot, and two episodes will be shown back-to-back on the 27th.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
props from the boss
Agent X series creator William Blake Herron gave Trevor and Paul a nice shoutout on Twitter during the airing of the latest episode "Long Walk Home."
Admittedly I found some of the cues for episode six, "Sacrifice," to be a bit too expected, but they fit the suspenseful tone as needed. Sometimes you need to blend in, after all. But I can see why Herron made this tweet - beyond an overall appreciation for this scoring team, that is. The narrative arc has turned quite solemn and serious over the past three episodes and Trevor and Paul made some studied choices in "Long Walk Home" to underscore the tension in a compelling fashion. It feels big - cinematic - and as I've stated previously they know how to do this so well. The central conflict of the series is not about whatever bad guys John Case has to take on for flag and country, but the dark side of his mission and his profession, the cost of warring in the shadows, what it does to a man, and specifically, what it has done to his predecessors. I have a feeling the final three episodes are going to implode not only the Presidency but the Brotherhood, the implications of which will be far-reaching. Now whether we get to move on from that is still up in the air (as we don't yet know if Agent X will be renewed for a second season), but the stakes are high, and the scoring reflects that.
What interested me most was almost a throwaway - a jazz tune heard in the hotel bar scene with Case and Marks/Volker. Incidental music choices are akin to wallpaper, of a sort, or they should be. Any scene with incidental music which calls attention to itself is always a poor choice, in my opinion, because it takes the viewer out of the story, if only for a moment. But this was quite well-made or chosen in that it's the kind of music you would expect to hear in that milieu, and that's a testament to good scoring - even for a 30-second cue, you make it seamless, a part of the world of the story.
I found the most important thing in this episode is that it is tonally allied - nothing is played for laughs, and even the action sequences have a touch of gravitas to them. This episode is exposition-heavy, and that can be death to a viewer's attention span, so the score has to engage the viewer's emotional spectrum, to let them know that revelation is as important as action. There's a great deal of emotional resonance throughout this episode because so much is at stake. Even though some of the action is little more than illustrated exposition - such as when John and Malcolm are in the Ops Room getting ready to knock out all the systems - and the camera circles like a shark, the music builds, but it's all manipulation, and it works well to distract us from the fact that there's really not much going on in that moment. The rest of the episode - save the shock of the very last scene - is fairly predictable, but remains propulsive and interesting.
Killer score? Yeah well, that remains to be seen but it is excellent scoring indeed.
Huge thx to Trevor Rabin and Paul Linford for the killer score this week! #AgentX @HEPHNERJEFF @PeterOFallon1
— William Blake Herron (@HERRONBLAKE) December 14, 2015
Admittedly I found some of the cues for episode six, "Sacrifice," to be a bit too expected, but they fit the suspenseful tone as needed. Sometimes you need to blend in, after all. But I can see why Herron made this tweet - beyond an overall appreciation for this scoring team, that is. The narrative arc has turned quite solemn and serious over the past three episodes and Trevor and Paul made some studied choices in "Long Walk Home" to underscore the tension in a compelling fashion. It feels big - cinematic - and as I've stated previously they know how to do this so well. The central conflict of the series is not about whatever bad guys John Case has to take on for flag and country, but the dark side of his mission and his profession, the cost of warring in the shadows, what it does to a man, and specifically, what it has done to his predecessors. I have a feeling the final three episodes are going to implode not only the Presidency but the Brotherhood, the implications of which will be far-reaching. Now whether we get to move on from that is still up in the air (as we don't yet know if Agent X will be renewed for a second season), but the stakes are high, and the scoring reflects that.
What interested me most was almost a throwaway - a jazz tune heard in the hotel bar scene with Case and Marks/Volker. Incidental music choices are akin to wallpaper, of a sort, or they should be. Any scene with incidental music which calls attention to itself is always a poor choice, in my opinion, because it takes the viewer out of the story, if only for a moment. But this was quite well-made or chosen in that it's the kind of music you would expect to hear in that milieu, and that's a testament to good scoring - even for a 30-second cue, you make it seamless, a part of the world of the story.
I found the most important thing in this episode is that it is tonally allied - nothing is played for laughs, and even the action sequences have a touch of gravitas to them. This episode is exposition-heavy, and that can be death to a viewer's attention span, so the score has to engage the viewer's emotional spectrum, to let them know that revelation is as important as action. There's a great deal of emotional resonance throughout this episode because so much is at stake. Even though some of the action is little more than illustrated exposition - such as when John and Malcolm are in the Ops Room getting ready to knock out all the systems - and the camera circles like a shark, the music builds, but it's all manipulation, and it works well to distract us from the fact that there's really not much going on in that moment. The rest of the episode - save the shock of the very last scene - is fairly predictable, but remains propulsive and interesting.
Killer score? Yeah well, that remains to be seen but it is excellent scoring indeed.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Happy (to be a Rabinite)
As your humble narrator I readily (and without shame or pretense) identify myself as a Rabinite and so I always enjoy learning when other musicians are fans of Trevor's...though I'm not sure whose good taste is being validated: mine or theirs. One extremely talented person whom I believe I can make a conclusive case for is indie singer/songwriter Happy Rhodes; two of her 90s-era albums feature elements which point to specific citations of Trevor's work, the kind which only a fan would make.
As an artist Happy was truly one-of-a-kind: with an extraordinary range, an adept sense of musicianship, and a timeless sense of presentation, very much in the mode of the ageless troubadour. Her style brings to mind other originators such as Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush. I use the past tense because it appears Happy has retired from recording and performance, her last album was released in 2007.
On her 1995 album The Keep - a compendium of acoustic and rare tracks - Happy included something she called "The Yes Medley" and yet with the exception of one of the songs they all have one thing in common: they were written/co-written by Trevor. The inclusion of Rabbitt's "I Sleep Alone" tells me this is really a Trevor Medley, and that gets a big seal of approval from me. For South Africans, fans of Rabbitt may remain fans of Trevor, but as far as the rest of the world, it normally works in reverse; and not all Trevor fans are Rabbitt fans (I consider this a terrible tragedy). Of the YesWest songs Happy chose, those lyrics she includes are the ones Trevor sings on the original recordings. There's a madrigal feel to her versions which I believe fit in nicely with the Maestro's tradition of classical instincts.
On the 1998 release Many Worlds Are Born Tonight, there's a great trip-hop flavored track called "Proof" which features a sample of Trevor's voice - specifically the comically-panicked "Aaah!" from the second verse of "Something To Hold On To." Who else but a fan would desire to include something so obscure and yet so recognizable to other Rabinites (so much so, during live performances of the song Trevor allowed the audience to provide the sound, and they never missed their cue)? It's fan service, a literal shoutout, which equates to an aural wink and upon finding it I was wholly squeeful (in the lingua franca of the Internet).
As an artist Happy was truly one-of-a-kind: with an extraordinary range, an adept sense of musicianship, and a timeless sense of presentation, very much in the mode of the ageless troubadour. Her style brings to mind other originators such as Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush. I use the past tense because it appears Happy has retired from recording and performance, her last album was released in 2007.
On her 1995 album The Keep - a compendium of acoustic and rare tracks - Happy included something she called "The Yes Medley" and yet with the exception of one of the songs they all have one thing in common: they were written/co-written by Trevor. The inclusion of Rabbitt's "I Sleep Alone" tells me this is really a Trevor Medley, and that gets a big seal of approval from me. For South Africans, fans of Rabbitt may remain fans of Trevor, but as far as the rest of the world, it normally works in reverse; and not all Trevor fans are Rabbitt fans (I consider this a terrible tragedy). Of the YesWest songs Happy chose, those lyrics she includes are the ones Trevor sings on the original recordings. There's a madrigal feel to her versions which I believe fit in nicely with the Maestro's tradition of classical instincts.
"The Yes Medley"
On the 1998 release Many Worlds Are Born Tonight, there's a great trip-hop flavored track called "Proof" which features a sample of Trevor's voice - specifically the comically-panicked "Aaah!" from the second verse of "Something To Hold On To." Who else but a fan would desire to include something so obscure and yet so recognizable to other Rabinites (so much so, during live performances of the song Trevor allowed the audience to provide the sound, and they never missed their cue)? It's fan service, a literal shoutout, which equates to an aural wink and upon finding it I was wholly squeeful (in the lingua franca of the Internet).
"Proof"
As a relentless and obsessed researcher into the greater realm of Trevor's cultural relevance I'm always on the lookout for moments like these...in the overall scheme of things it may only be important to me, but I believe Trevor wholly deserves numerous citations and acknowledgement from any and all manner of sources.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Media Watch: Trevor to appear in upcoming film scoring documentary
An ongoing series wherein I comment on Trevor's recent publicity.
SCORE: A Film Music Documentary, an upcoming release which is the first to focus on film scoring, is an independent production financed through the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo. This documentary features dozens of interviews with noted film composers, directors, producers, critics and agents. On October 23rd it was announced via their official Facebook page that Trevor would be one of their interview subjects, posting a couple stills from his segment.
As of today, the film is available to pre-order on DVD, Blu-ray or digital download as a perk for donating to their post-production campaign on IndieGoGo:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/score-a-film-music-documentary#/
You can also view a preview trailer and read details about the production.
SCORE: A Film Music Documentary, an upcoming release which is the first to focus on film scoring, is an independent production financed through the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo. This documentary features dozens of interviews with noted film composers, directors, producers, critics and agents. On October 23rd it was announced via their official Facebook page that Trevor would be one of their interview subjects, posting a couple stills from his segment.
Trevor interviewed in The Jacaranda Room.
As of today, the film is available to pre-order on DVD, Blu-ray or digital download as a perk for donating to their post-production campaign on IndieGoGo:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/score-a-film-music-documentary#/
You can also view a preview trailer and read details about the production.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
catching up with Agent X
Having finally purchased my season pass for Agent X I've been sort of binge-watching the episodes which have aired thus far and it's not difficult to imagine series creator William Blake Herron saying to Laura Engel: "So yeah, you know, that show Zero Hour was kooky and all, but I gotta have Trevor Rabin score my ridiculous espionage series too, okay?!"
Trevor and Paul are naturals for this kind of work, they can do it in their sleep. I just wish perhaps that they hadn't done so much of it over the years. A mix of orchestral grandeur, tense electronica, some interesting guitar, percussion, and synth textures and a bit of ambient and chorale wash here and there, it's everything we expect for this kind of narrative; which is not a bad thing, certainly. If anything I find the scoring a bit more like the National Treasure films than the score for Zero Hour, which I felt was supposed to be taken seriously no matter what was happening onscreen (Spoiler Alert: it was usually ridiculous). There's more of a playful quality, an almost ironic commentary on what action scores are supposed to do - but my impressions may be the result of having experienced Trevor using the score as the Straight Man in a number of films, such as Get Smart and G-Force.
The show? It's okay, I guess. It's got good casting and production values (although I'm sorry, you can't pass off Canada, or California, as Russia - the roads are too well-maintained). There's plenty of action: fight scenes, shoot-em-ups, daring stunts, cat-and-mouse strategies, verbal snark...it's meant to be escapist fun and it works on that level. It would be fun to riff and snark on it, and I may do that at some point, though it doesn't quite work as well on that level because this show knows you can't take it seriously, whereas with Zero Hour they thought they were being serious, at least. There are some scenes in Agent X which are high camp, and that's a refreshing change which hearkens back to the days of Bond (if anyone knows camp, it's the Brits). It's a little bit too by-the-numbers in terms of how each difficulty resolves itself, but again, it's supposed to be fun, so that's to be expected. It appears the trades agree with me, Variety weighs in thus: And wonder of wonders, it mostly works, at least initially, combining a sense of playfulness with bountiful action and, less successfully, a sweeping conspiracy. But c'mon, who wouldn't want a pet black ops field agent who you can use however you desire in order to defeat the bad guys. You'd think, though, that nothing good ever comes of plausible deniability (both historically and in Tom Clancy novels) so I don't know how well that actually works as a plot device except as wish fulfillment. Plus a butler who addresses you as "Madame Vice President." Sign me up!
The show does, however, serve to underscore that privacy is pretty much a nonexistent concept in the modern world, because although the Super Secret Agent is supposed to be a ghost, he is continually tracked through his series of adventures all over the world. We are all voyeurs - and this includes his boss Madame Vice President and her Jeeves - witnessing Case's escapades in real time because there is surveillance everywhere.
It is nice to hear that kind of "Let's go save the world" music which Trevor has been writing since Armageddon - it's so inspiring, like, whenever I have to brave crowds to go shopping, I imagine myself as I walk through the parking lot moving in slow motion set against the building gravitas of an aggressive orchestral motif on the soundtrack. John Case has an appropriately heroic theme, for example. And also the "Some Crazy Spy Shit is Going Down" music, such as we know from Bad Company, for example. Most of it has a really great groove to it - some of it even reminds me of themes from Gone In 60 Seconds - I consider that sort of thing to be more Paul's forte - as he's written some good cues of that type, like "The Throb" (Gone In 60 Seconds) and "Agent 23" (Get Smart). I'm assuming Herron's main directive to Trevor was: "Uh...you just do you, you know? I want people to know they're in an action movie because they would pretty much have to be if there's one of your scores playing." It's what I believe Gordon Goodwin once referred to as "that Trevor Rabin thing." As usual, the quality of Trevor and Paul's work elevates the material beyond its limitations and failings, and that is one of the true aspects of their marquee value: if they're on your project, it's going to sound like a blockbuster for sure.
There is a humorous use of Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" from The Nutcracker in episode three, "Back In Your Arms," - scoring a rather clumsy and brutal fight scene - and I appreciate that sort of nod, given Trevor's love of classical music. But it's rather an old joke, strictly speaking.
I do like the title/end credits theme, it's brash and crunchy.
Trevor and Paul are naturals for this kind of work, they can do it in their sleep. I just wish perhaps that they hadn't done so much of it over the years. A mix of orchestral grandeur, tense electronica, some interesting guitar, percussion, and synth textures and a bit of ambient and chorale wash here and there, it's everything we expect for this kind of narrative; which is not a bad thing, certainly. If anything I find the scoring a bit more like the National Treasure films than the score for Zero Hour, which I felt was supposed to be taken seriously no matter what was happening onscreen (Spoiler Alert: it was usually ridiculous). There's more of a playful quality, an almost ironic commentary on what action scores are supposed to do - but my impressions may be the result of having experienced Trevor using the score as the Straight Man in a number of films, such as Get Smart and G-Force.
The show? It's okay, I guess. It's got good casting and production values (although I'm sorry, you can't pass off Canada, or California, as Russia - the roads are too well-maintained). There's plenty of action: fight scenes, shoot-em-ups, daring stunts, cat-and-mouse strategies, verbal snark...it's meant to be escapist fun and it works on that level. It would be fun to riff and snark on it, and I may do that at some point, though it doesn't quite work as well on that level because this show knows you can't take it seriously, whereas with Zero Hour they thought they were being serious, at least. There are some scenes in Agent X which are high camp, and that's a refreshing change which hearkens back to the days of Bond (if anyone knows camp, it's the Brits). It's a little bit too by-the-numbers in terms of how each difficulty resolves itself, but again, it's supposed to be fun, so that's to be expected. It appears the trades agree with me, Variety weighs in thus: And wonder of wonders, it mostly works, at least initially, combining a sense of playfulness with bountiful action and, less successfully, a sweeping conspiracy. But c'mon, who wouldn't want a pet black ops field agent who you can use however you desire in order to defeat the bad guys. You'd think, though, that nothing good ever comes of plausible deniability (both historically and in Tom Clancy novels) so I don't know how well that actually works as a plot device except as wish fulfillment. Plus a butler who addresses you as "Madame Vice President." Sign me up!
The show does, however, serve to underscore that privacy is pretty much a nonexistent concept in the modern world, because although the Super Secret Agent is supposed to be a ghost, he is continually tracked through his series of adventures all over the world. We are all voyeurs - and this includes his boss Madame Vice President and her Jeeves - witnessing Case's escapades in real time because there is surveillance everywhere.
It is nice to hear that kind of "Let's go save the world" music which Trevor has been writing since Armageddon - it's so inspiring, like, whenever I have to brave crowds to go shopping, I imagine myself as I walk through the parking lot moving in slow motion set against the building gravitas of an aggressive orchestral motif on the soundtrack. John Case has an appropriately heroic theme, for example. And also the "Some Crazy Spy Shit is Going Down" music, such as we know from Bad Company, for example. Most of it has a really great groove to it - some of it even reminds me of themes from Gone In 60 Seconds - I consider that sort of thing to be more Paul's forte - as he's written some good cues of that type, like "The Throb" (Gone In 60 Seconds) and "Agent 23" (Get Smart). I'm assuming Herron's main directive to Trevor was: "Uh...you just do you, you know? I want people to know they're in an action movie because they would pretty much have to be if there's one of your scores playing." It's what I believe Gordon Goodwin once referred to as "that Trevor Rabin thing." As usual, the quality of Trevor and Paul's work elevates the material beyond its limitations and failings, and that is one of the true aspects of their marquee value: if they're on your project, it's going to sound like a blockbuster for sure.
There is a humorous use of Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" from The Nutcracker in episode three, "Back In Your Arms," - scoring a rather clumsy and brutal fight scene - and I appreciate that sort of nod, given Trevor's love of classical music. But it's rather an old joke, strictly speaking.
I do like the title/end credits theme, it's brash and crunchy.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Spotted at a gig
(With many thanks to Melinda, fellow Rabinite, for the heads-up. :))
On November 20th the Anderson Ponty Band played a show at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills and in attendance were some of Jon's old friends: Trevor, his percussive sidekick Lou Molino, and Billy Sherwood. You can see a few candid shots on the APB Fans Facebook page, like this one of Trevor:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207347736158977&set=pcb.786315038181855&type=3&theater
The tour for the ensemble's debut album Better Late Than Never wrapped in Scottsdale on the 22nd, but here's hoping there's more music and touring to come!
On November 20th the Anderson Ponty Band played a show at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills and in attendance were some of Jon's old friends: Trevor, his percussive sidekick Lou Molino, and Billy Sherwood. You can see a few candid shots on the APB Fans Facebook page, like this one of Trevor:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207347736158977&set=pcb.786315038181855&type=3&theater
The tour for the ensemble's debut album Better Late Than Never wrapped in Scottsdale on the 22nd, but here's hoping there's more music and touring to come!
Monday, November 23, 2015
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.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Collector's Corner: just a big softy.
A continuing series wherein I share my obsession with and collection of Trevor memorabilia.
A bit over four years ago I acquired one of my most-desired collectibles; it took me a very long time because I didn't want to pay what I call crazy money for it, so it was just a matter of waiting till I found a vendor selling their copy for what I considered a reasonable price, even though, as a promo, legally you can't sell it at all.
This is film music composed by Trevor Rabin, a promo CD released by Trevor's management company back in 2003, when they still went by Blue Focus Management.
A bit over four years ago I acquired one of my most-desired collectibles; it took me a very long time because I didn't want to pay what I call crazy money for it, so it was just a matter of waiting till I found a vendor selling their copy for what I considered a reasonable price, even though, as a promo, legally you can't sell it at all.
This is film music composed by Trevor Rabin, a promo CD released by Trevor's management company back in 2003, when they still went by Blue Focus Management.
I believe the year of release was 2003 because, although the artwork references the logo for The Banger Sisters, the photo of Trevor on the back cover was part of a photo session he did to promote his 2003 Voiceprint CD releases 90124 and Live In L.A. I like to think that the inclusion of purple flowers is a nod to his beloved jacaranda trees.
In the preceding years Trevor was beginning to perhaps garner a reputation beyond the "action movie go-to guy" which was largely the narrative of his scoring career at that point. This promo has a specific purpose in regards to its distribution to production companies: present Trevor in a more sensitive light as a film scorer. And two things had to happen before they could do that:
-1- One of Trevor's themes for Deep Blue Sea, "Aftermath," was used as the music in the trailer for Ron Howard's Oscar-bait biopic A Beautiful Mind.
-2- Trevor scored The Banger Sisters, the first - and only - "chick flick" he's worked on.
In light of these opportunities, this promo was created and it is unique for several reasons, but specifically for how it is described:
Though best known for his outstanding action scores, Trevor Rabin especially shines composing music of an emotional, lyrical nature. As a songwriter and member of Yes, he composed the worldwide hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart." Rabin's unique gift for melody continues throughout his film work. Featuring music from such diverse scores as Remember The Titans, The Banger Sisters, and the trailer for A Beautiful Mind, this CD compilation highlights some of Rabin's personal favorites.
It's marketing, certainly, but it's also an acknowledgement of Trevor's ability to compose anything, given the breadth of genres he had tackled after seven years in the business. By that time he had scored action-adventure, drama, comedy, horror, science-fiction, family, sports and espionage-type films. And within those seven years he had also written three of his most beautiful themes, two of which are included in this compilation. That fact alone speaks volumes in regards to Trevor's talent and abilities.
So onto the tracklist, with my annotations. Based on the period of release, the tracks included could only be from the scores of films released prior to 2003. It took me a while to research this once I figured out that some of the tracks were listed with titles which had perhaps been used prior to final sequencing for their respective films.
"Remember The Titans" from the film of the same name.
"Grace" from Armageddon, which is an edit of "Harry and Grace Make Peace" with additional elements from the film's suite.
"Banger Sisters" from The Banger Sisters, an edit of the main themes of the film.
"Prague" from Bad Company, a promotional mix which combines the theme "Prague Main Titles" with elements of "Welcome To Prague."
"A Beautiful Mind Trailer" which is actually "Aftermath" from Deep Blue Sea.
"Remembrance" which is actually "Trisha" from Con Air.
"Friendship" from The Banger Sisters, an edit of two separate cues.
"Sunrise" which is actually "First Kiss" from American Outlaws.
"Gettysburg" from Remember The Titans.
Back to the beautiful themes, the ones I refer to are "Prague" and "Aftermath" and the one which was not included was "Frostbite" from Jack Frost. I see it as a missed opportunity, but it's possible they weren't able to obtain clearance to use it. It would have been right at home, in my opinion, in terms of the overall emotive mood of this collection.
What primarily makes this release a rarity - besides its' Not For Sale status - is that it contains music from The Banger Sisters, which did not receive a score release, though Trevor's version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" from the film is included in the movie's soundtrack album. The promo mix of "Prague" has also never been officially released - though if you were to obtain a copy of the score promo (because that score was also never released) for Bad Company you would have both tracks - the special mix was created either for this compilation or perhaps the score suite promo, which is often a separate release from a full score promo. You can also hear "Prague" in "BMBBO" from the Bad Company soundtrack, an edit which combines the themes "Prague" and "Chase." All the others are available on their respective score albums, though the selections from Remember The Titans are probably contained within "Titans Spirit" which appears on the film's soundtrack release.
Now we can consider...did this release do the trick? Yes and no, I think. Trevor still harbors a desire to do a "light orchestral" type of score, and has cited Michael Gore's score for Terms of Endearment as the type of work he would like to have a go at himself. But so far he has not been granted that particular opportunity. If anything, I believe Trevor has been given more work based on past credits (I believe he was handed Torque, for example, because of his score for Gone In 60 Seconds), but also films with decidedly more emotional gravitas, such as Flyboys, The Great Raid, and The Guardian - featuring yet another beautiful theme in "Rescuing Fischer." I believe his success was in gaining the trust of directors and producers in regards to creating wonderfully evocative themes and cues for his scoring work. Trevor's gift for melody makes these moments as poignant - sometimes in spite of the film as a whole - as they need to be, always in perfect accompaniment.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Media Watch: human highlight reel go-to guy
An ongoing series wherein I comment on Trevor's recent publicity.
Today's citation comes courtesy of a listicle on Sporting News, a ranking of the top ten inspiring sports movie scores. At number eight is Trevor's score for Remember The Titans. Titans is not a movie I'd actually riff on in this blog, as it is inspiring and uplifting, and its' score is considered one of Trevor's best; though its' true cultural touchstone status was achieved courtesy of our POTUS who used the main theme suite "Titans Spirit" in his 2008 campaign.
As we know, Trevor has composed a number of scores for sports-themed movies, the most recent of which was Grudge Match; besides Titans I'd say the best of them is for Glory Road, the 2006 college basketball drama.
http://www.sportingnews.com/sport-news/4660914-best-sports-movie-soundtracks-scores-music-rudy-rocky-the-natural-miracle-composers-jerry-goldsmith
Today's citation comes courtesy of a listicle on Sporting News, a ranking of the top ten inspiring sports movie scores. At number eight is Trevor's score for Remember The Titans. Titans is not a movie I'd actually riff on in this blog, as it is inspiring and uplifting, and its' score is considered one of Trevor's best; though its' true cultural touchstone status was achieved courtesy of our POTUS who used the main theme suite "Titans Spirit" in his 2008 campaign.
As we know, Trevor has composed a number of scores for sports-themed movies, the most recent of which was Grudge Match; besides Titans I'd say the best of them is for Glory Road, the 2006 college basketball drama.
http://www.sportingnews.com/sport-news/4660914-best-sports-movie-soundtracks-scores-music-rudy-rocky-the-natural-miracle-composers-jerry-goldsmith
Sunday, November 1, 2015
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 itfor 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!
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
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!
Monday, October 26, 2015
Preview of Agent X
I've been looking around for video of the show and thus far this is the best preview which actually contains (I would assume) some of Trevor and Paul's score. As it was posted earlier in the month, interested readers may have already seen it.
And here's the high-concept summation courtesy of the TNT press release:
This fall, TNT will launch Agent X, a spirited action-drama starring Jeff Hephner (Interstellar, Chicago Fire), Golden Globe winner Sharon Stone (Casino) and Gerald McRaney (House of Cards). In times of extreme crisis, when traditional law and government aren't in a position to help, there is an unseen hand that works to protect this country and its citizens from all manner of threats by any means necessary. Hidden from the view of the public - and even from the President - there is a top secret agent who is trained and ready to serve, deployed only at the careful discretion of the Vice President. The agent at the center of Agent X is John Case, played by Hephner. Case is a smooth, athletic, tough and quick-witted operative who can be brutally effective when his duties require it. Stone plays America's first female Vice President, Natalie Maccabee, who pledges to protect the country "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Honoring this vow, however, will force her and her secret operative to tackle not only global threats but also the palaces of intrigue of Washington D.C. With Case handling high-stakes missions that are too sensitive for the FBI and the CIA, Maccabee soon finds herself being drawn into the action.
And here's the high-concept summation courtesy of the TNT press release:
This fall, TNT will launch Agent X, a spirited action-drama starring Jeff Hephner (Interstellar, Chicago Fire), Golden Globe winner Sharon Stone (Casino) and Gerald McRaney (House of Cards). In times of extreme crisis, when traditional law and government aren't in a position to help, there is an unseen hand that works to protect this country and its citizens from all manner of threats by any means necessary. Hidden from the view of the public - and even from the President - there is a top secret agent who is trained and ready to serve, deployed only at the careful discretion of the Vice President. The agent at the center of Agent X is John Case, played by Hephner. Case is a smooth, athletic, tough and quick-witted operative who can be brutally effective when his duties require it. Stone plays America's first female Vice President, Natalie Maccabee, who pledges to protect the country "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Honoring this vow, however, will force her and her secret operative to tackle not only global threats but also the palaces of intrigue of Washington D.C. With Case handling high-stakes missions that are too sensitive for the FBI and the CIA, Maccabee soon finds herself being drawn into the action.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Who *is* scoring Blood and Oil?
I apologize to my readers for falling behind on the promised 12 Monkeys Knowing The Score entry, but the season finale (no, I will not call it a series finale and you can't make me) of Hannibal just destroyed me, so I've been verklempt for a while. But I'm working on it. I will recommend that you buy the score album because it's really good. And I'm not saying that strictly as a Rabid Rabinite.
Originally I noted that Trevor would be scoring the above-mentioned ABC drama which debuts this coming Sunday (September 27th) but then other sources stated it would be Paul Linford alone, which struck me as odd simply because of the ongoing logistics of their partnership, but hey...as it turns out, it's Mark Isham.
http://filmmusicreporter.com/2015/09/23/mark-isham-scoring-abcs-blood-oil/
As I mentioned previously, Agent X, the show which apparently Trevor and Paul really are scoring, premieres on TNT on November 8th at 9pm EST with a two-hour pilot episode. Hopefully I will have further updates to share in the next month.
Originally I noted that Trevor would be scoring the above-mentioned ABC drama which debuts this coming Sunday (September 27th) but then other sources stated it would be Paul Linford alone, which struck me as odd simply because of the ongoing logistics of their partnership, but hey...as it turns out, it's Mark Isham.
http://filmmusicreporter.com/2015/09/23/mark-isham-scoring-abcs-blood-oil/
As I mentioned previously, Agent X, the show which apparently Trevor and Paul really are scoring, premieres on TNT on November 8th at 9pm EST with a two-hour pilot episode. Hopefully I will have further updates to share in the next month.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
we're still cryin'
Today there's an article on the Rolling Stone website which gives Trevor a nice namecheck in regards to that Texas tornado known as SRV on the anniversary of his passing:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/10-great-stevie-ray-vaughan-tributes-20150827
As I noted in a previous entry, Trevor is the featured lead guitarist on a cover of "Tightrope" from the 1996 release Crossfire: A Salute to Stevie Ray which includes Billy Sherwood on bass. But in honor of Stevie Ray, here's one of my favorites of his, a song where he's paying tribute to another legend, and I hope that pantheon is burning it down every night in the great six-string beyond.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/10-great-stevie-ray-vaughan-tributes-20150827
As I noted in a previous entry, Trevor is the featured lead guitarist on a cover of "Tightrope" from the 1996 release Crossfire: A Salute to Stevie Ray which includes Billy Sherwood on bass. But in honor of Stevie Ray, here's one of my favorites of his, a song where he's paying tribute to another legend, and I hope that pantheon is burning it down every night in the great six-string beyond.
Monday, August 24, 2015
All singing, all shredding.
Among the recent comments Trevor has made about the progress of his new solo album, this is probably the most welcome for fans to read...
BTW...Yes it is very much a vocal album
— Trevor Rabin (@Rabin_News) August 24, 2015
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Accept no substitutes!
As I noted two years ago, Trevor is one of those celebrities who is apt to be "spoofed" on social media - such as, by the person who has been impersonating him on Twitter for years - and his latest Facebook post is a reminder that he has only one Facebook account for news and interaction with fans.
The collection of links listed under "Neato Stuff" on the right side of this blog feature all the official sites for Trevor's online presence as well as some fan-based sites and informational pages, but any time you might be unsure as to the real deal, you can always count on Rabin-esque to provide you with the correct information.
The collection of links listed under "Neato Stuff" on the right side of this blog feature all the official sites for Trevor's online presence as well as some fan-based sites and informational pages, but any time you might be unsure as to the real deal, you can always count on Rabin-esque to provide you with the correct information.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Dialogues (with Trevor)
Coming later this year is the (more) affordable paperback version of Jon Kirkman's Time and a Word book, containing interviews with nearly every member - past and present - of Yes, as well as many Yes associates, lavishly illustrated. The new title is Yes Dialogue and you can sign up to be notified of pre-orders/publication via this site:
http://stereo33books.com/yes-dialogues/
The format is somewhat reminiscent of Tim Morse's Yesstories (1996), as that was also a book constructed of interview segments.
Jon has uploaded various interview excerpts to his Soundcloud account and here are three from his interview with Trevor.
https://soundcloud.com/jon-kirkman/trevor-live-album
https://soundcloud.com/jon-kirkman/trevor-rabin-asia
https://soundcloud.com/jon-kirkman/trevor-rabin-unionmp3
http://stereo33books.com/yes-dialogues/
The format is somewhat reminiscent of Tim Morse's Yesstories (1996), as that was also a book constructed of interview segments.
Jon has uploaded various interview excerpts to his Soundcloud account and here are three from his interview with Trevor.
https://soundcloud.com/jon-kirkman/trevor-live-album
https://soundcloud.com/jon-kirkman/trevor-rabin-asia
https://soundcloud.com/jon-kirkman/trevor-rabin-unionmp3
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Media Watch: five questions
An ongoing series wherein I comment on Trevor's recent publicity.
In anticipation of the 12 Monkeys score album release, a new interview was posted on the Varese Sarabande official site.
https://www.varesesarabande.com/blogs/news/43795461-5-questions-with-trevor-rabin
It's brief but I would like to point out that two of the answers are pulled directly from the press release for the album, so it appears that it's more of a canned publicity piece than a genuine exchange.
In anticipation of the 12 Monkeys score album release, a new interview was posted on the Varese Sarabande official site.
https://www.varesesarabande.com/blogs/news/43795461-5-questions-with-trevor-rabin
It's brief but I would like to point out that two of the answers are pulled directly from the press release for the album, so it appears that it's more of a canned publicity piece than a genuine exchange.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
update on new solo album (of sorts)
In response to a fan query on his Facebook page, today Trevor commented regarding the progress on his upcoming rock vocal album (sic):
Admittedly I was a bit worried that the project had been back-burnered for the rest of the year because of existing scoring commitments, so I'm happy to read that is not the case, although work is work in Trevor's world and it's all great music; but this is a project which is so eagerly awaited by all of us Rabid Rabinites that we can't help but be anxious and delirious in equal measure.
"I'm frustrated and excited at the same time. The record is on hold as I have to conclude some film projects. It's going really well and I can't wait to get back to it. I'm behind but will have it done before the end of the year. I won't let it until i'm totally happy."
Admittedly I was a bit worried that the project had been back-burnered for the rest of the year because of existing scoring commitments, so I'm happy to read that is not the case, although work is work in Trevor's world and it's all great music; but this is a project which is so eagerly awaited by all of us Rabid Rabinites that we can't help but be anxious and delirious in equal measure.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
highly recommended
As we know, Trevor now has a relationship with Washburn Guitars and today on social media he recommended another of their line:
Trevor compared it with the Gibsons in his collection, such as his Barney Kessel model which he used on Jacaranda, providing a great jazz mood on several tracks (or "that" kind of thing, as he puts it).
The J7 is a single cutaway jazz guitar in a similar style as the Gibsons and you can learn more about it here:
http://www.washburn.com/products/electric/J7VNK.html
I recently got from Washburn the Washburn J-7. As crazy as it sounds, it is already my preference to the Gibson 400. For anyone with a passion for the 400,...do yourselves a favour and check the Washburn first.
Trevor compared it with the Gibsons in his collection, such as his Barney Kessel model which he used on Jacaranda, providing a great jazz mood on several tracks (or "that" kind of thing, as he puts it).
The J7 is a single cutaway jazz guitar in a similar style as the Gibsons and you can learn more about it here:
http://www.washburn.com/products/electric/J7VNK.html
Thursday, July 16, 2015
fond memories
I imagine most everyone has read Trevor's recent Facebook post, but for those who haven't, here is a link:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1070450016316088&id=426522697375493
As everyone worldwide who is a fan of The Fish finds themselves raising a glass and spinning a record (or CD) and watching a video and sharing memories with fellow fans and friends - I am touched by Trevor's recognition of our shared joy in Chris' life and work, and our shared sorrow at his passing. I was also especially touched by Trevor's use of my current Yesfans avatar (a photo of Chris and Trevor cropped from a 1984 article) as a post on his FB page, as that photo is a great example of their shared sense of humor and camaraderie.
I am raising a toast to: a giant upon the earth whose reverberations will echo long into the stars.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1070450016316088&id=426522697375493
As everyone worldwide who is a fan of The Fish finds themselves raising a glass and spinning a record (or CD) and watching a video and sharing memories with fellow fans and friends - I am touched by Trevor's recognition of our shared joy in Chris' life and work, and our shared sorrow at his passing. I was also especially touched by Trevor's use of my current Yesfans avatar (a photo of Chris and Trevor cropped from a 1984 article) as a post on his FB page, as that photo is a great example of their shared sense of humor and camaraderie.
I am raising a toast to: a giant upon the earth whose reverberations will echo long into the stars.
Friday, July 10, 2015
12 Monkeys score release details
Today, Film Music Reporter posted an article with all applicable details on the release, including the date, which is July 31st.
http://filmmusicreporter.com/2015/07/10/syfys-12-monkeys-soundtrack-details/
For those who are eagerly awaiting Season Two in 2016, here is a trailer featuring interviews with cast members and showrunners regarding the narrative arc of the next season.
http://www.syfy.com/12monkeys/videos/12-monkeys-season-2-preview
http://filmmusicreporter.com/2015/07/10/syfys-12-monkeys-soundtrack-details/
For those who are eagerly awaiting Season Two in 2016, here is a trailer featuring interviews with cast members and showrunners regarding the narrative arc of the next season.
http://www.syfy.com/12monkeys/videos/12-monkeys-season-2-preview
Thursday, July 9, 2015
A toast to the legend.
Another member of the extended Yes family, Billy Sherwood, arranged a local gathering for fellow musicians, friends and collaborators of Chris Squire, and graciously shared a group photo on his Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153085534624141&set=a.10152927497179141.1073741828.752104140&type=1&theater
...featuring Trevor and Paul along with Tony Kaye, Eddie Jobson, Brian Chatten and Richard Davis.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153085534624141&set=a.10152927497179141.1073741828.752104140&type=1&theater
...featuring Trevor and Paul along with Tony Kaye, Eddie Jobson, Brian Chatten and Richard Davis.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Media Watch: Trevor pays tribute to The Fish
An ongoing series wherein I comment on Trevor's recent publicity.
The latest edition of NPR-affiliated radio program Full Disclosure is an interview with Trevor.
https://soundcloud.com/robenfarzad/remembering-the-ceo-of-yes
Trevor and show host Roben Farzad discuss the history of YesWest, the Union album and tour, Trevor's decision to leave Yes in 1995 and his beginnings as a full-time film composer. It is filled with heartwarming humor and candor regarding his dear friend, bandmate and collaborator Chris Squire.
The latest edition of NPR-affiliated radio program Full Disclosure is an interview with Trevor.
https://soundcloud.com/robenfarzad/remembering-the-ceo-of-yes
Trevor and show host Roben Farzad discuss the history of YesWest, the Union album and tour, Trevor's decision to leave Yes in 1995 and his beginnings as a full-time film composer. It is filled with heartwarming humor and candor regarding his dear friend, bandmate and collaborator Chris Squire.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Chris Squire (1948-2015)
It is with great sorrow that I note the passing of the man - taken from us far too soon - who was not only the literal foundation of Yes, but also a dear friend and wonderful collaborator to his bandmates, and especially Trevor - their creative partnership defined the YesWest years as much as any other element of that assemblage of musicians.
Those of us who have loved Yes for much of our lives as music fans, we know Chris was blessed with an incredibly charismatic personality and a musical talent to match, and both the sound and the sight of the band is forever imbued and articulated with his qualities as a musician and a performer. A huge part of what made Yes so beloved and innovative over the whole of their career is attributable to his contributions.
There will never be another like him, nor should there be. The world was lucky to hold just one Fish. My deepest condolences to his family, friends, bandmates and collaborators, and fellow fans.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
12 Monkeys score scheduled for July release
Spotted on Twitter yesterday for #WhatsNewWednesday, Varese Sarabande will be releasing the 12 Monkeys score album in July:
And as a friendly reminder, the score album for Max is now available at all retail outlets. I'm happy to report that there's some really nice guitar textures to be found among the orchestration.
#WhatsNewWednesday: Soundtrack to @12MonkeysSyfy - Music by Trevor Rabin & Paul Linford. Coming in July! #12Monkeys pic.twitter.com/HRhmr1KrV6
— Varèse Sarabande (@VareseSarabande) June 24, 2015
And as a friendly reminder, the score album for Max is now available at all retail outlets. I'm happy to report that there's some really nice guitar textures to be found among the orchestration.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Just one more!
It was a veritable media blitz for Trevor in Variety yesterday - there is one other article focusing on Trevor's collaborations with directors and producers:
http://variety.com/2015/music/features/trevor-rabin-strikes-chord-with-collaborators-1201526116/
Here's a great quote from Jon Turtletaub, with whom Trevor has collaborated on several occasions:
“Trevor manages to take what’s there and show you that it can be better than what you thought. He’s a cheerleader for a movie; makes what you have special rather than trying to change what you have or turn it into something else.”
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Media Watch: new Variety articles
An ongoing series wherein I comment on Trevor's recent publicity.
Today industry publication Variety posted a couple articles on Trevor: one for Boaz Yakin's film Max which focuses specifically on the director's camaraderie with Trevor and why he chose Trevor to score the film:
“He gets a visceral impression. You show him a scene, he goes, ‘Wait, I have an idea,’ he’ll play a few notes, you look at it together with the picture on the screen — and this combination of notes actually does support the image. It’s a beautiful thing to see.”
In another article for the We Are Movie Geeks website, Yakin commented:
“I love Trevor. He’s a real emotional guy, and his scores where he’s asked to do real action-types, he always wants to work on emotional pieces. I knew he was right for this movie – it needed an adventure theme as well as an emotional sound that was genuine. This is the first time we’ve worked together since Titans and I was thrilled that he could do it. We worked very hard on it and I’m proud of it.”
Also posted today was an interview from the June 22nd issue of Variety, with a nice photo of Trevor posing in The Jacaranda Room with his signature TR20 guitar. The article covers a range of subjects, but also raises the discussion of touring once more (though we Rabinites reserve the right to be skeptical until Our Trev actually commits to live performance).
Interestingly the new series mentioned which Trevor is scoring is not Blood and Oil but rather Agent X, a presidential drama starting Sharon Stone set to premiere on TNT in the fall.
Variety articles:
http://variety.com/2015/music/features/trevor-rabin-billion-dollar-composer-1201526098/
http://variety.com/2015/music/news/trevor-rabin-gets-emotional-on-max-score-1201526133/
We Are Movie Geeks article:
http://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2015/06/actor-josh-wiggins-director-boaz-yakin-talk-max-movie/
Today industry publication Variety posted a couple articles on Trevor: one for Boaz Yakin's film Max which focuses specifically on the director's camaraderie with Trevor and why he chose Trevor to score the film:
“He gets a visceral impression. You show him a scene, he goes, ‘Wait, I have an idea,’ he’ll play a few notes, you look at it together with the picture on the screen — and this combination of notes actually does support the image. It’s a beautiful thing to see.”
In another article for the We Are Movie Geeks website, Yakin commented:
“I love Trevor. He’s a real emotional guy, and his scores where he’s asked to do real action-types, he always wants to work on emotional pieces. I knew he was right for this movie – it needed an adventure theme as well as an emotional sound that was genuine. This is the first time we’ve worked together since Titans and I was thrilled that he could do it. We worked very hard on it and I’m proud of it.”
Also posted today was an interview from the June 22nd issue of Variety, with a nice photo of Trevor posing in The Jacaranda Room with his signature TR20 guitar. The article covers a range of subjects, but also raises the discussion of touring once more (though we Rabinites reserve the right to be skeptical until Our Trev actually commits to live performance).
Interestingly the new series mentioned which Trevor is scoring is not Blood and Oil but rather Agent X, a presidential drama starting Sharon Stone set to premiere on TNT in the fall.
Variety articles:
http://variety.com/2015/music/features/trevor-rabin-billion-dollar-composer-1201526098/
http://variety.com/2015/music/news/trevor-rabin-gets-emotional-on-max-score-1201526133/
We Are Movie Geeks article:
http://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2015/06/actor-josh-wiggins-director-boaz-yakin-talk-max-movie/
Monday, June 22, 2015
Trevor at PWAT book launch
Trevor and Shelley lent their support to the Kickstarter campaign for the female-empowering children's book series Princesses With A Twist and Trevor provided a testimonial video during the Los Angeles launch party on July 18th.
https://www.facebook.com/PrincessesWithATwist/videos/vb.835890076489735/853208881424521/?type=2&theater
There are some photos from the launch on the PWAT Facebook page, and you can visit the PWAT website at http://princesseswithatwist.com/ to find out more about the series.
https://www.facebook.com/PrincessesWithATwist/videos/vb.835890076489735/853208881424521/?type=2&theater
There are some photos from the launch on the PWAT Facebook page, and you can visit the PWAT website at http://princesseswithatwist.com/ to find out more about the series.
Friday, June 19, 2015
a bit more of a taste
Earlier this year the Duncan Faure Music channel on YouTube posted an excerpt from a video which we Rabinites and Rabbitt fanatics have seen previously in documentary footage - of the boys performing "Hard Ride" in concert - but this excerpt is far better quality than previously seen (in my opinion), and although there's only a few seconds of Trevor at the beginning, it's an interesting cultural document for fans; to give those who never had the chance to experience it an idea of how the song was performed live. This particular clip is from the ZA Afrikaans-language musical quiz show Noot vir Noot, so one can assume the accompanying question had to do with the band.
At this point, I don't really hold out hope that any of the available footage will ever be released in full, but here's to maintaining optimism...a band which still has die-hard fans over 30 years later is certainly deserving of such a consideration.
At this point, I don't really hold out hope that any of the available footage will ever be released in full, but here's to maintaining optimism...a band which still has die-hard fans over 30 years later is certainly deserving of such a consideration.
Monday, June 15, 2015
In further scoring developments...
Film Music Reporter has revealed that Trevor's next scoring project is the upcoming ABC drama Blood and Oil, premiering on September 27th. The article includes the official trailer, a plot synopsis, and link to the official site for the program.
http://filmmusicreporter.com/2015/06/13/trevor-rabin-scoring-abcs-blood-and-oil/
http://filmmusicreporter.com/2015/06/13/trevor-rabin-scoring-abcs-blood-and-oil/
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
reveal of 12 Monkeys score release
12 Monkeys' showrunner Terry Matalas has provided a preview of an upcoming release...
One might assume this artwork proof means that the actual date will be forthcoming within the month, although Matalas, in response to a fan query, posited an August release date. It's a good year to enjoy Trevor's scoring!
Peek at the upcoming #12MONKEYS soundtrack by @VareseSarabande! Music by Trevor Rabin & Paul Linford @12MonkeysSyfy pic.twitter.com/KieE2GhT98
— Terry Matalas (@TerryMatalas) June 7, 2015
One might assume this artwork proof means that the actual date will be forthcoming within the month, although Matalas, in response to a fan query, posited an August release date. It's a good year to enjoy Trevor's scoring!
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Max score album details
Yesterday, Film Music Reporter posted an article featuring the track listing of the score album for Max, which will be released by Sony Masterworks on June 23rd, three days prior to the release date of the film.
http://filmmusicreporter.com/2015/05/20/max-soundtrack-details/
http://filmmusicreporter.com/2015/05/20/max-soundtrack-details/
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Just keep swimming, Fish.
Today the Yes organization officially announced that founding member and bassist Chris Squire will be unable to join the band's upcoming summer tour due to illness, thus former member Billy Sherwood will be filling in at Chris' personal request. My best wishes follow with those of the Yesfans community for a stable and enduring recovery for Chris, and strength to his family during this difficult time.
Chris' message to the fans is as follows:
This will be the first time since the band formed in 1968 that YES will have performed live without me. But the other guys and myself have agreed that Billy Sherwood will do an excellent job of covering my parts and the show as a whole will deliver the same YES experience that our fans have come to expect over the years.
Chris' message to the fans is as follows:
This will be the first time since the band formed in 1968 that YES will have performed live without me. But the other guys and myself have agreed that Billy Sherwood will do an excellent job of covering my parts and the show as a whole will deliver the same YES experience that our fans have come to expect over the years.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
upcoming score release
This week FilmMusicSite.com announced Trevor's score for the upcoming film Max will feature a score release from Sony Masterworks.
Sony Masterworks will release on June 23rd a soundtrack for 'Max' composed by Trevor Rabin http://t.co/u9d7EkIDHw pic.twitter.com/QL4zEI0R8V
— FilmMusicSite.com (@FilmMusicSite) May 12, 2015
Friday, April 24, 2015
Welcome to the family!
A very joyful congratulations to Hannah Hooper and Christian Zucconi, now expecting their first child, who will be surrounded with love and music, and to new uncles Ryan and Andrew and Daniel.
So damn excited to welcome our newest member of Grouplove this summer @LadyGrouplove #PREGNANT pic.twitter.com/J2duJHZwKT
— GROUPLOVE (@GROUPLOVE) April 15, 2015
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Media Watch: article at PROG online
An ongoing series wherein I comment on Trevor's recent publicity.
Last week an article about "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was featured on the PROG website, part of their "Top of the Progs" series, containing quotes from Trevor which appear to be sourced from previous articles, but still an interesting read for those who may not be familiar with the song's history; especially in the wake of Trevor's own admission last year that Trevor Horn's credit on the song had nothing to do with actual composition or arrangement.
http://prog.teamrock.com/features/2015-04-14/top-of-the-progs-yes-owner-of-a-lonely-heart
Last week an article about "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was featured on the PROG website, part of their "Top of the Progs" series, containing quotes from Trevor which appear to be sourced from previous articles, but still an interesting read for those who may not be familiar with the song's history; especially in the wake of Trevor's own admission last year that Trevor Horn's credit on the song had nothing to do with actual composition or arrangement.
http://prog.teamrock.com/features/2015-04-14/top-of-the-progs-yes-owner-of-a-lonely-heart
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
upcoming Talk reissue on vinyl
For those avid collectors/completists/vinyl enthusiasts, boutique audiophile label Music On Vinyl will be reissuing Talk - Yes' 1994 release produced by Trevor - next month (May 18th), which will include the original unedited version of "The Calling," previously only available on the Japanese version of the CD release. Here's a chance to complete your YesWest vinyl collection (if you have one)!
The catalog listing for the release can be found here at MOV's website:
http://www.musiconvinyl.com/catalog/yes/talk#.VTgD19LBwXB
The catalog listing for the release can be found here at MOV's website:
http://www.musiconvinyl.com/catalog/yes/talk#.VTgD19LBwXB
Monday, April 20, 2015
spotted in "Arms of Mine"
This tweet caught my eye (it was before I had watched the finale):
For those of you watching the show, you saw this nod to the scoring team as well. For those who did not, it comes about ten minutes into the episode:
confused by random "GUITAR MASTERS: TREVOR RABIN" poster in 12 monkeys tv show until i checked and he scores the show
— Atrios (@Atrios) April 11, 2015
For those of you watching the show, you saw this nod to the scoring team as well. For those who did not, it comes about ten minutes into the episode:
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