Oscar Watch: Academy Award-Winning Composer Lightens Up for Secret Life of Pets

Nominated for eight Academy Awards over the past decade, French composer Alexandre Desplat has a gift for infusing somber period pieces incuding The Imitation Game, Philomena and The King's Speech with majestic scores. But Desplat also has a playful side. For animated hit The Secret Life of Pets, which opened in July, Desplat shifted gears from his Oscar-winning Grand Budapest Hotel music to score the New York City misadventures of runaway dog Max (voiced by Louis C.K.) and rebel pet leader Snowball the Bunny (Kevin Hart).

Composer Joby Talbot on the Many Musical Influences in Sing

With stars like Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, and Scarlett Johansson lending their voices, Sing is sure to be the must see family movie this Christmas (the official release date is December 21). The anthropomorphic animation about following your dreams features music by composer Joby Talbot. In a movie about a singing competition, the music becomes a character all its own. Talbot’s task was to weave together a score amidst a story featuring over 100 songs made popular by artists from Aerosmith to Sir Mix-A-Lot.

Composer Michael Levine on Scoring Landfill Harmonic

Few people would have the creative vision to construct an entire orchestra from a mountain of trash, but such is the story of the Paraguayan town featured in Landfill Harmonic. Nearly ten years ago, the community came together to build instruments from the garbage flooding their home. The recycled music makers gave local students an opportunity to learn to play symphonies and propelled them to international acclaim. 

The story was so transcendent that it attracted the attention of eight-time ASCAP award winner,

Manchester by the Sea‘s Composer on Scoring Kenneth Lonergan’s Masterpiece

Ever since screenings at the Sundance, Telluride and Toronto film festivals, and now just this past weekend at the Middleburg Film Festival in Virginia, writer/director Kenneth Lonergan’s haunting Manchester by the Sea has been generating awards season buzz not just for Lonergan and the solid cast headed by Casey Affleck, but also for composer Lesley Barber.

Barber, who lives in Toronto, has earned international acclaim over the past two decades for her film scores,

Talking to Composer Abel Korzeniowski About Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals

When I interviewed Abel Korzeniowski in August of 2015, it was to discuss his work on the small screen, specifically Penny Dreadful. Yet what had drawn me to his work, long before I ever knew I’d be speaking with him, was his score for Tom Ford’s A Single Man. Lush, at turns haunting and, from beginning to end, totally gorgeous, Korzeniowski's A Single Man score became a major part of my listening rotation.

Darren Fung on Scoring The Great Human Odyssey

Composer Darren Fung’s sweeping score for PBS’ The Great Human Odyssey earned him a Canadian Screen Award for best music, but he almost didn’t take the project on. When anthropologist Dr. Niobe Thompson first approached Fung about the job, the response was unsure. “In all honesty, I kind of thought when Niobe had his vision of what the music was going to be, he couldn’t afford it,” Fung remembered.

Chatting with Jessica Jones’ Emmy-Nominated Composer Sean Callery

If you couldn’t stop your pulse from pounding while watching Jack Bauer’s clock tick down (24) or you held your breath as Carrie Mathison navigated terrorist plots in the CIA (Homeland), Sean Callery is likely to blame. His music has driven viewers to the edge of their seats in some of TV’s most pulse-pounding thrillers and earned him a stunning 16 Emmy nominations.

Chatting With X-Men: Apocalypse‘s Composer, Editor & Co-Producer John Ottman

John Ottman is a very busy guy.  He was composer, editor, and co-producer of X-Men: Apocalypse, which he describes as “running the store.”  But that’s not all – he also composed the score for another film opening this month, The Nice Guys, starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling and written and directed by Shane Black.  Somehow, he managed to find a few minutes to chat about both projects.

Knight of Cups Composer Hanan Townshend on Scoring for Terrence Malick

Composer Hanan Townshend reunited with director Terrence Malick on his latest enigmatic offering Knight of Cups, starring Christian Bale. We talk to the US-based New Zealander about collaborating with Malick, his experimental process and creating an adaptable score. 

How do you approach your composing work? What would be a starting point for you with something like Knight of Cups?

Knight of Cups is a little bit more specific to more of a collaboration that I've had with Terrence Malick over the years.

Oscars 2016: Spotlight Surprises With Best Picture Win

A genuinely surprising Oscars wrapped with Tom McCarthy's Spotlight winning Best Picture over equally likely contenders The Revenant and The Big Short. Mad Max: Fury Road cleaned up the technical awards, which wasn't surprising, but Mark Rylance beating out Sylvester Stallone for Best Supporting Actor sure was. Despite five nominations, Star Wars: The Force Awakens didn't pick up a single award (but droids C-3PO,

World Renown Composer Emilio Kauderer on Scoring Animation in Underdogs

Emilio Kauderer is a Los Angeles-based Argentine composer who scored the film El Secreto de Sus Ojos, which won the 2009 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Kauderer was then brought on to score last year’s English language remake Secret in Their Eyes, which starred Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman. We discuss the unusual experience of working on different versions of the same film,

Composer Paul Englishby on What Luther and Queen Elizabeth Have in Common

If you haven't watched BBC America series Luther, we recommend you put that on your watch list. The show stars a sensational Idris Elba as the titular detective, a near-genuis whose skill at solving crimes is almost undone by his violent passion. The show's a potent mixture of brains and brawn, which Elba carries with ease. We recently had the chance to chat with the artist responsible for the cult series’ hauntingly edgy score, Paul Englishby.

Composer Keegan DeWitt on Blythe Danner’s Magic in I’ll See You in My Dreams

We spoke with composer Keegan DeWitt, whose work has influenced a slew of very well respected films in recent years, including two very fine features by writer/director Alex Ross Perry; Listen Up, Phillip (one of 2014's surprise comedies) and Queen of Earth. DeWitt's latest work was on Brett Haley's I'll See You In My Dreams, a critically acclaimed film centered on a widow and former songstress (a great Blythe Danner) who re-embraces the world,

Your Full List of Golden Globe Winners

That's a wrap for the Golden Globes. We'll be taking a look at the highlights from the show, but for now, here's a list of every winner in every category. 

Best Motion Picture, Drama

Winner: The Revenant

Carol

Mad Max: Fury Road

Room

Spotlight

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Winner: The Martian

The Big Short

Joy

Spy

Trainwreck

Best Director,

Your Golden Globes Nominees Announcements LIVE

You can still catch the live broadcast of the Golden Globe nominations here. Below's the list thus far. 

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Series, Limited Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television

Idris Elba, Luther
Oscar Isaac, Show Me a Hero
David Oyelowo, Nightingale
Mark Rylance, Wolf Hall
Patrick Wilson, 

Composing Christmas: Talking the Score of Christmas Eve With Christian Davis

With Thanksgiving neatly in the rearview mirror, the holiday season is officially upon us as it becomes time for holiday cheer and the year’s newest crop of Christmas films. Among them is Mitch Davis’ Christmas Eve, a witty dramedy following the stories of six different groups of strangers trapped inside elevators during a power outage on Christmas Eve. Starring Patrick Stewart, Jon Heder, James Roday and Julianna Guill, Christmas Eve looks to be a funny and cathartic look at life through the lens of the cheery but often stressful holiday season.

Creed Composer Ludwig Göransson Finds the Beat in Boxing

Ludwig Göransson is a Swedish composer who has scored television series, including New Girl and Community.  We spoke with Göransson about using real-life boxing sounds in his score for the new Rocky movie, Creed, co-written and directed by Ryan Coogler, and a whole lot more.

The movie is about an ambitious young boxer who is the son of Rocky’s opponent-turned friend,

The Art of More Composer Talks Scoring Sony Crackle’s First Hour-Long Drama

Sony Crackle’s first hour-long original drama The Art of More, set in the high stakes world of a fine art auction house, stars Dennis Quaid, Christian Cooke and Kate Bosworth. We talk to Canadian composer Mario Sevigny about the advantages of being a self-taught musician and the joys of scoring a character’s double life.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MunDKTnEoH0

You're a self-taught musician. How does that affect the way you approach scoring work?

Composer Kerry Muzzey on Scoring Intimate Doc The Seer

The upcoming documentary The Seer: A Conversation With Wendell Berry– directed by Laura Dunn with executive producers Terrence Malick and Robert Redford- tells the story of small generational farmers in Kentucky through the eyes of the poet, writer, activist and farmer Wendell Berry. We talk to the composer Kerry Muzzey about scoring the film and how he got over his initial fears.

You’ve said that you felt like the score for this documentary needed to be Americana,

The Sound of Fear: Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson on Scoring Sicario

Scoring Denis Villeneuve’s latest film Sicario, about the brutal battle against Mexico’s drug cartels, required quite a tonal shift for composer Jóhann Jóhannsson from his work on last year’s The Theory of Everything. He talks to The Credits about how he gravitates towards darker worlds and the challenge of scoring action sequences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XLQ1bkSLDo

Sicario is a very tense film. Creating that mood is obviously a big part of your job when you’re scoring.