The Little Red Plane Production Vlog - Part Three

Little Red Plane Production Vlog - Part Three from Dave Dueck on Vimeo.

Let's Think of Something to Do While We're Waiting...

...Like watching these featurettes I've been making about the shooting/production process for me and Peter Baehr's upcoming film, "The Little Red Plane." Enjoy!

Little Red Plane Production Vlog - Part One from Dave Dueck on Vimeo.

The Little Red Plane Production Vlog - Part Two from Dave Dueck on Vimeo.

The Little Red Plane - Website + Trailer!

One of the things that has been absorbing a lot of my free time this entire year is the creation of a movie I co-wrote and directed for my buddy Peter Baehr, who created the story, produced the film, and was Director of Photography. Production began in March and April of 2008, and shooting began in November and December. Editing has been going on since January this year, and now the movie opens to a one-night premier event in Louisiana on August 22! Distribution in theaters and DVD is being speculated, but nothing is certain yet.

It's been tremendously exciting to see this project evolve from ideas in our heads to words on paper to images and sounds on screen. I've never been part of anything quite as exciting, and it really confirms for me my life calling as a film director. It just feels right.

Anyways, once this project is finally finished and has found a home on the DVD shelves of our friends and families, I think I get back on this blog more often. Until then, I shall do my best to pop in every now and again. For now, watch this trailer and visit the film's website. Feedback is very welcome, even coveted. Cheers!

www.littleredplanefilm.com

The Little Red Plane - Trailer from Dave Dueck on Vimeo.

50th Suite101.com article published!

I've been visiting friends outside the country, and then managing a restaurant for 50+ hours a week. Hence my absence. Sorry! Anyways, about my soundtrack review articles...

They’re all here. I tend to write more reviews for Suite101 than I do for this blog because, hey, they pay me to do it! The downside is that, it being a journalistic website, I have to be far more professional. But the money I earn from the gig makes up for that. Kinda.

And now that I’ve written 50 of ‘em, I get a 10% pay increase! I still can’t believe, more than a year after landing this freelance job, that I’m actually getting paid to listen to and write about film soundtracks. Admittedly, the pay is peanuts, but still: I’m getting genuinely published, and getting my writing exposed to a wider audience; and doing it by writing about my favourite hobby! I’ve actually gotten in contact with a couple major composers in the film and videogame industries through publishing on this website, and it will be cool to see where things go from here.

This gig was the first instance in which I ever had to write in a journalistic style (i.e. far less personal and casual than I’m used to being), and the website’s strict formatting/composition rules make it a bit hard to be descriptive and engaging, but I’ve certainly learned a lot about being articulate and concise in my writing: the gig requires conveying an accurate, serviceable overview of my topic with less than 600 words.

Basically, these articles write themselves as long as I’ve had enough time to listen thoroughly to the album I’m reviewing (typically 5 or 6 times through), and as long as I have an hour to devote to typing out my thoughts. The only complicated part is finding good quality pictures of the composers whose music I’m reviewing.

In a nutshell, I’ve learned a lot about acceptable, publishable writing since getting this job, and I only wish I had more time to devote to it.

Plus, this gig has looked really good on my resume. :-D

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Hopefully sometime soon I can post here more regularly. In my list of priorities, this blog has gone done pretty far. Things are starting to finally calm down and get settled for me, though, so I should be back on here fairly often again pretty soon. I haven't forgotten you! Stay tuned!

Video - The Musical Evolution of BATMAN

As a stand-over until my next review post (my life has gotten insanely busy these last two weeks so writing time has suffered), here's a video slideshow I compiled a while back, chronicling the many musical styles in the Batman franchise. Everything from Nelson Riddle to Danny Elfman to Shirley Walker, along with Goldenthal, Zimmer and Howard.


The Musical Evolution of BATMAN from Dave Dueck on Vimeo.

Independence Day (David Arnold)

I've been listening to an incredible amount of sci-fi and fantasy scores lately. Mostly sci-fi, but my commutes and gym excursions have been lightly peppered with the likes of Horner's Willow, Eric Serra's Arthur and the Invisibles, Steve Burke's Kameo: Elements of Power, among others, and I've also revisited Buckley's charming The Forbidden Kingdom; but by and large, lately my music of choice has been from the science fiction realm. Partly because sci-fi, like fantasy, has the wondrous scope and breadth and expansive sense of adventure which can easily result in a fantastic score, but also partly because JJ Abrams' Star Trek reboot is imminent.

I will likely be disappointed in the film (yet am perfectly willing to be surprised), but Giacchino's score for the same is what really has me salivating. So in anticipation of what I fully expect to be a brilliant sci-fi score, I've begun another of my semi-annual Trek score marathons/sprees, and along for the ride has been Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clones, The Matrix trilogy, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Alien 3, Dark City, Wall-E, and a massive host of others. What an infinite pleasure, then, to add to this list one of David Arnold's most beloved and truly mind-blowing scores, his no-holds-barred, all-guns-blazing piece of over-the-top, cinematically patriotic tour-de-force known as Independence Day.

Here in MN as I write this entry, the sun is shining and the temperature is an amiable 55 degrees, almost exactly the same, weather-wise, as the day I bought Independence Day on CD back in 2005. I had biked to the local thrift store in search of bargains, and boy did I find one! Arnold's score was right on top of the stack of CDs for sale, still factory-sealed, and priced at an attractive 80 cents. As you can probably bet, I didn't waste too much more time in the store, but biked back home in the lovely sunshine, thrilled as always to have the chance to explore yet another new score, with this particular instance being infinitely embellished by 1) The easy price, 2) the absolutely tiny size of my collection at the time, which was absolutely begging to be expanded, and 3) my incredible fondness for the only piece of music from the score I'd heard up to that point, which was the nice suite on Telarc's The Big Picture album, featuring Kunzel and his infamous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. My prayer was that the full score would live up to the inspirational, whirlwind heights that I'd experienced in that 6-minute Telarc suite.

I needn't have worried.

(Not that I really DID worry, but YOU know...)

Four years later, my love for the score has only grown. In fact, the only thing that's really changed in any detrimental way regarding my feelings for the score is that I ended up finally seeing the movie... twice. Ugh, ugh ugh... and a little bit of chuckle. Everything about that movie is so overblown and unreserved that I'm truly surpised at the returns it got at the box office. But at least we as film score fans are lucky enough that the movie was made at a time (the '90s, see previous post) when full-on orchestral scores were at the height of their magnificence and glory, and the best part is that David Arnold took the cheesy, overblown, over-the-top dramatics and apocalyptic premise as one heck of an invitation, and the result is an orchestral and choral masterpiece that puts Stargate (see previous post again) to shame. And that in itself is not something which should be possible in this universe.

Of course, all this talk of overbearingly dramatic and cheesy narratives becomes understandable when you realize that we're talking about Roland Emmerich here. Besides making an amazing amount of truly absurd movies (The Patriot probably being the lone exception), this is a director whose sense of heavy-as-lead melodrama and puzzling, questionable national loyalty has traditionally been suited for only one thing: generating fantastic musical scores, of course! (Which is of course a moot point since his breakup with Arnold after the cinematically disastrous but musically delicious Godzilla, and his recent, bizarre partnership with Harold Kloser. Only gosh knows exactly what these guys are still doing in the industry, but let's just say that pairing an incompetent director with an incompetent composer is potential damnation for both careers. I will not discuss Emmerich's apparent fetish for having American landmarks destroyed on camera time... and... AGAIN. Jeez.)

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes... Overblown movies. Yep, once upon a time that meant getting a TERRIFIC score, unabashed in its emotional power and splashy, romantic style. Nowadays it mostly means one of Zimmer's students will play a keyboarded percussion sample for the director and even attempt a simple chord progression or two, but at least ID4 (the weird but accepted abbreviation for the score we're discussing) benefited from both a fantastically old-fashioned action/adventure score and a young composer who was fresh and innovative enough to be bold and blazing, not to mention unique. The result, as I said before and will likely say again before this entry is done, is incredible.

My review of Stargate (how many links can I make to that entry in one article?), light and casual as it was, hopefully conveyed the impression that I consider old-fashioned swashbuckling as insanely attractive. And while I doubt that anyone who has heard Stargate has not heard Independence Day, I will assume for the sake of increasing my word count here that such is the case with you. I hope I don't come across as patronizing.

Take the bombast, adventure and romanticism of Stargate and increase its intensity in all those areas about three or fourfold. Then spread on top of it a layer of brass-blazing, snare-ripping American patriotism, and add an extra helping of the aforementioned Emmerich melodrama, far stronger in this film than in his debut Stargate. Then factor in a series of richly-developed thematic ideas and turn the sound WAY up (it's an HDCD!!). As a bonus, watch this video, an old and probably misguided attempt by me to make a good fireworks display amazing, simply by adding the zest of this score's end title suite. Now tell me that doesn't stir your soul to its very core. No? Oh well, I tried... At least it's better than Emmerich's movie, eh?

It's truly hard to overestimate the sheer fun factor of this score. David Arnold rarely wrote anything quite as stylishly swashbuckling, stirring and adventurous afterwards, unless you count his extremely fortunate attachment to the James Bond franchise. (Which, despite the questionably trippy albums that resulted from The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day, has also produced Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, all of them amazing, and all of which I hope to discuss here shortly.)

Many fans of this score lament the lack of expanded treatment on album: admittedly, there's LOTS of great music missing on CD, there's plenty of room on the current 50-minute album for more score, and there's no sign whatsoever of the score getting officially expanded anytime soon. Speaking for myself, though, the commercial album is still dang-tastic and the reader is encouraged to seek the score out in any form. There are a few different bootlegs out there, I personally never really needed one.. The CD can be purchased for dirt cheap and it's got all the best parts, after all. I mean, I got mine for 80 cents...

And anyways you can hear it on my imeem playlist for free.

Stargate (David Arnold)

Late again! Sorry. Things... came up.

Anyways, now we're on to David Arnold. By rights, if I was strictly following my updated library spreadsheet, I'd be reviewing Craig Armstrong's World Trade Center today instead, but 1) it's actually owned by my younger sister and I just ripped it from CD to iTunes without her knowledge, and 2) I'm dying to review something a bit more stylishly romantic and rip-roaringly FUN than Armstrong's work tends to be. Let's be honest, as powerful and dramatic and moving as The Incredible Hulk and Elizabeth: The Golden Age are (and they are!), they're not exactly FUN. Driving? Inspirational? Invigorating? Pulse-pounding? Oh my yes.

But... "fun?"

I think I'm trying to say that there's a difference between "enjoyable/impressive/admirable" and "fun." Exactly how they are different is of course a topic for you English majors out there (more power to you, I would have likely been one had I attended college), but for now I think it's safe to say that Stargate, David Arnold's bold and brash explosion onto the film score scene, is a heck of a lot more fun in a lighthearted and accessible way than the more heavy-handed Armstrong dirges and elegies we've been discussing hitherto. You know, the same way Hans Zimmer is more "fun" than Michael Kamen. Oh, wait... Yeah, never mind. Disregard that simile.

Anyways, Stargate. This is really one which, like a good many Arnold scores, I needn't even discuss. Any proper, old-fashioned score collector will have learned to love it eons ago, and the only way this obscure blog entry is going to shape anyone's opinion is if they're so new to the hobby that they're just discovering (for whatever insufficient reason) the many merits of John Williams' original Star Wars, or, worse yet, Jaws.

Not that Stargate is very close to those undisputed masterpieces (in a purely technical sense), but it's pretty nearly as classic, wonderful and old-fashioned by the standards of this waning age of the early 2000's. Stargate is an early '90s score, and if you know anything about the 1990s as far as film music is concerned, you know it was a darn fine time to be interested in that field. From Williams' own early-decade masterpieces such as Home Alone, Hook, Jurassic Park, Far and Away and Schindler's List, to James Horner's astounding maturation (and some would say eventual descent into self-plagiarism) with such fantastic classics as Legends of the Fall, Casper, Balto, Apollo 13, Braveheart, and of course Titanic, there were also the newly emerging, immense talents of Elliot Goldenthal, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, and of course, David Arnold.

Granted, it was a ten-year period, but to cast an eye over the many now-classic scores that came out in that decade is to invite amazement and struggle for self-control. And Stargate, for its sheer audacity and scope, is one of the finest large-scale debuts in film score history by any composer (for my money). Up there with Doyle's Henry V, easily.

So what of the music? It'd be a stretch to call it similar to the Hollywood-filtered classical style of John Williams (boy, his name will pop up in this post, won't it??), but it's certainly no stretch to say it's definitely that brassy, purely orchestral strain of sci-fi adventure music which is firmly rooted in the oldest, grandest Hollywood style. This is Korngold-style heroics at it's finest! Think of Debney's CutThroat Island... that stylish throwback vein mixed with a thoroughly modern sonic depth and dramatic flourish. Stargate is to sci-fi and fantasy what CutThroat is to pirate scores. Old-fashioned, swashbuckling and romantic in just the right ways, without sounding a bit out of place. And it's just modern enough to be permitted an incredibly bombastic construction.

The album I have (the original, not the coveted Deluxe Edition) begins with the grand "Overture," which is really just a terrific way to introduce the score. The themes are swelling, the chorus is massive, and the tone transforms from awe-inspiring and massively triumphant to dark and uber-ominous so seamlessly that it never, NEVER fails to impress me. It sets the stage perfectly for the rest of the wonderfully strong album.

Loud chants, blaring brass, thundering timpanis, and surging string washes are delightfully complimented by lighter cues with tingling percussion and swirling woodwinds. It's got a little bit of everything, and it never slows down or grows dull. It's a remarkably mature album for such an early David Arnold venture, and it has clear prototypes for musical ideas which he would later crystallize and perfect in his (even more famous) scores for Independence Day and Godzilla (and, to some extent, his biggest, baddest James Bond scores).

A track-by-track or even semi-track-specific review of the album (beyond that overture) is a bit of a silly notion: there are 30 tracks, and every one is dynamite. The best way to sum it all up is to say that it's a dern fine bit of adventure music, and it was the obvious watershed in Arnold's amazingly successful career. This is where it started, folks! And, if you're like me, you'll find this a terrific score to revisit every once in a while. Every *frequent* once in a while. It's fabulous. And, in this bland-as-oatmeal season where most new film score albums fail to muster anything more than a cursory glance and an unenthusiastic "Oh, ah..." from me, these classics are welcome tools for refreshing the mind and soul with some truly splashy and FUN orchestral mayhem.

If you don't have it, you can listen to the entire thing in my imeem playlist. Enjoy!

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Armstrong/Rahman)

I really do realize that anyone paying the slightest attention to this blog is probably expecting me to get into some juicy David Arnold material by this time. But my necessarily rigid system is to go through my CDs in the order they present on my shelf: and right now Elizabeth: The Golden Age is the next score on my shelf. My CDs are arranged alphabetically by composer, and chronologically within each composer's section.

This is a recent score: 2007, I believe, is when it was released. My buying habits are of the wait-until-I-can-snag-it-for-cheap-as-free species, so I didn't pick this one up until a few weeks ago, when it leapt out from the Discland soundtrack section with an enticingly manageable $7.00 price label.

Hence this review, which is far too late for a relatively new score, and not quite late enough to match up with reviews for the likes of A Bridge Too Far, not to mention all those other golden oldies I plan to review: Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Sea Hawk, Rocky, Star Wars: A New Hope, and those syrupy-sweet John Barry albums. Gosh, if there's one thing that really discourages me in the writing of this blog, it's staring at my CD shelves and seeing all those favourites sitting despairingly towards the end, all those John Williams and Debbie Wisemans, those Howard Shores and Shirley Walkers, and even (whoa!) a Zimmer album or twain. I must content myself for now with early winners like Arnold, Barry, Elfman, Desplat, & etc. That's the consoling thing about all this: my collection consists almost solely of albums I really like, if not outright love. So this shouldn't get too boring.

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Two unanswered questions strike me as I listen to E:TGA again: first, why have so few people noticed and talked about it? (Or am I not paying much attention?) Second, why do most of the few people who have mentioned it seem to regard it as merely functional?

A functional score, I submit to you, is one which is technically competent and does an adequate job of musically interpreting the action and emotion of the screen. Typically 2- or 3-star material.

A great score is one which not only supports its film to excellence, but also stands away from its visual context with remarkable strength and independence. 4- and 5- star stuff. The stuff of repeated playback. It helps if the score is somewhat novel, stylistically. And my point is, Elizabeth: The Golden Age is an extremely solid manifestation of all these characteristics. Hence I consider it a great score, even an excellent one, and I am in wonder that fewer people have not shouted its praises from the rooftops.

Of course, I may be blind or silly enough to be overlooking some glaring faults, and I may be even naive enough in this hobby to not realize that this score is utterly unoriginal and that there are better incarnations of the same concept elsewhere, but right now that is all by the way. Let us examine the album, and listen to it, and you may decide for your own self: my mind is already made up.

As the eye glances over the simplistic but bold cover art, it notes not one but two composers named: Craig Armstrong, whom we know well from World Trade Center and The Incredible Hulk, and A. R. Rahman, whom almost no one in the western hemisphere knew about until the functional and occasionally enamoring song-score to Slumdog Millionaire. The two composers are wildly different career- and style-wise, and their merging here is an instantly intriguing concept. I'm interested without even having heard the music, and here's why:

Armstrong's music, at least from what I've heard of it (only World Trade Center and Hulk prior to E:TGA), makes constant use of large orchestra, large, deep choir, and subtle (sometimes not-so-subtle) electronics in support. As a classical composer as well as a film composer, he is a talented, extremely capable composer who perfectly embodies in his music the styles and constructs of the WEST. His is elegant and respectful music, supported in its thematic solidity with engagingly complex technical mastery.

Rahman, on the other hand, is India's best-known film composer and Bollywood tunesmith extraordinaire. His music is pulsing, highly ethnic, deeply emotional and admirably wholehearted. In other words, he's everything to Indian film music that Armstrong is to Western orchestral music. The men approach their music with the same love, care, devotion and intensity, but from different cultural, religious, and technical worldviews.

So what interests me as I stare at the CD insert is whether two such consummate but different artists can create a cohesive score. I'm excited to say that they can, and that they did.

If there's any complaint to be made about the collaboration, in fact, it really has to do with the fact that you almost can't tell it was written by two men. They seem to have meshed so perfectly that one practically wonders why two composers were needed. But then all doubt is swept away with the realization that the score likely wouldn't have been nearly as rich and savory as it has indeed ended up being, had these two fine composers not worked together.

And a rich, savory score it is! (I've gone an awful long ways here without actually describing the music... got to remedy that...) All the elements in this score shine out bright and strong, yet no one element is inordinately dominant, or frustratingly underused. A perfect example is the aptly titled "Opening" (guess which track THAT is), which marches forth with an an appriately regal, powerful, and authoritative, yet exquisitely beautiful violin solo, supported by full string orchestra and percussion, and even an amazingly stirring male chorus, chanting massive dirges with giant bells gonging and clanging about. (And I'll have you know for whatever record you're keeping that I am a GIANT sucker for bells and gongs as percussion.) For a track only one and a half minutes long, it certainly makes its mark.

Those very conflicting airs of beauty and strength, of delicacy and tenderness matched off with militant, awe-inspiring majesty, are what I think defines this score for me, in the end. Ethereal female choir and massively warlike male choirs trade off, and deep, soothing washes of strings with rapturous violin solos give way to thudding statements of electronic percussion. Passionate, despairing, even aching themes of longing resolve into magnificently determined anthems. The idea of Elizabeth the First as the virgin Queen, and as the sole leader of a tiny island against the Giants of Europe, is communicated amazingly thoroughly.

This score is not very period-sounding, I should mention. This is disctinctly modern film music. There are no attempts at historic instrumental accuracy or anything of that sort. It is the emotion and ideals of the film that are scored, and not the era and locale. With that admission, the score is very definitely suited to its film.

The score is even allowed a hint of far-off fantasy: the deep and resounding reverberation evident in the recording and mix gives the music a distant, but forceful, quality. It is this aspect of the score, among a few others, that helps the music retain its credibility despite its entirely modern nature.

All of the CD is solid: there's really no dull moment on the entire thing, although some moments do manage stand out: the infectious chanting male choir and towering bells from the opening get further treatment in the following track, "Phillip," and the militant nature of the score is best heard in "Battle" and "Horseback Address." The tenderness of the score is displayed quite lovingly in "Now You Grow Dull," "Possible Suitors," "Destiny Theme," "Love Theme" and "Divinity Theme" (which alone of all the cues betrays some of Rahman's Indian background). The power of the monarchy and the beauty of the female who holds that power are combined in the stunning "Storm," a choral work of immense size and inspirational value.

As I already mentioned, no one element is underused, and neither does any one element overstay its welcome. The violin solos are tastefully distributed, the electronics are restrained but impressive, the choirs employed at only the right moments. Each element is used where it will make the maximum impact. Just when you're thinking, "Gosh I love this choir piece, but what ever happened to that lovely guitar and violin idea?", it pops up again, and by the time it's over you're thinking, "That was so great! Now where was that percussion?" only to hear that percussion rear its militant head. In other words, as a listening experience, the album is incredibly well constructed, to such a fantastic degree that it may very well have been a deciding factor in my deciding to proclaim this score a true winner. It flows so well.

Of course, hearing it yourself will do a much better job of convincing you of this score's wonderful strengths than I can with type, but hopefully I've at least sparked your curiousity, and if you've heard it yourself already then you hopefully agree with me. If there's any weaknesses to be noted, the only one I can think of is that the score functions so well as a whole that it's actually quite hard to pick out more specific strengths and highlights. And since highlights are what everyone looks for in a great score, the difficulty in doing so with E:TGA could make it a functional score for less attentive and less perceptive types.

Every track here is a solid four-star cue: it's well-structured, stylish, eminently suitable for the subject matter, thematically innovative, masterfully orchestrated and innovative. It's not a typical blockbuster score by most standards, but it is wonderfully epic; huge; massive; romantic; sweeping; tender; thrilling. Everything I look for in film scores. It's not a score of undeniable perfection, but it's rare for me to find a score that grabs me so well right from the outset, and which I can so readily enjoy all the way through. Hence I love it. It might be a sign of laziness in me, but there you have it. Hear it for yourself and let me know your thoughts.

Listen to it here.

Overdue Update + Apology + Promise

Yes, I've been back for some time now (as those few of you who frequent the Filmtracks and MMUK boards will know), but again, I've been far more busy listening to my music than writing about it, and I think it will be best for me if I make some kind of half-hearted promise to write something music-related every Saturday, or something like that. Let's shoot for that: I really do enjoy writing for this blog when I get the chance, and I'd hate to see everything I've already written here fade into dusty obscurity. If I make time to update here (which I certainly can do), then I think we'll all be better off. I give you my word, things will be different from now on.

I mentioned once that I had about 20 days' worth of music. Now, what with birthdays and Christmas and various happy discounted discoveries at the local shop, that has grown to about 28 days. And again, some of that is in digital format, and so will not be considered for discussion here until I've got through my CD collection (sometime around 2047 A.D.). But there's certainly a lot for me to write about, and I need to get cracking.

I am well aware that the purpose for this blog has long been ignored. I have, after all, continued to accumulate scores at an alarming rate, though thankfully not at an expensive one. But be assured of this: however hypocritical I may seem since the formation of this little site, adding score after score to a collection I originally deemed complete (although temporarily), I am nonetheless in a wondreful state of contentment, and consider myself incredibly lucky to be able to even consider reviewing so many CDs.

But! Since I cannot seem to stop collecting (and would probably be foolish to try doing so again), I shall focus on keeping my other promise, which was to write about the CDs I do own. Prepare yourselves: I think I'm actually going to get started on it in earnest. Keep me accountable: my accountability and honesty is why we're on this page in the first place.

So until next post! God bless and keep you, and make your life musical in as many ways as possible. Ta!

~Dave

(Listening to Rescuers: Down Under by Bruce Broughton. Soaring! Majestic! Incredible!)

"10,000 Miles" by Mary Chapin Carpenter is what you should play when reading this

Yes! I'm going to New Orleans to direct Peter Baehr's new film for him. I'll be back on December 15, but until then pretend I don't exist. There's no reliable way in heck I'll have time in the intervening 3+ weeks to update this thing. So for now, let's enjoy stuffing our iPods with marvelous movie music, and I'll be back soon, with plenty to say and hopefully plenty to write!

Cheerios with Chocolate Milk, my lovelies. Don't eat any anchovies. You know!

Dave Dueck