via: fullerton.edu

Film as Collaborative Art Symposium

Recital Hall

12-2PM World Electroacoustic Listening Room Project: Audio-Visual Works

2PM Stacey Steers, Filmmaker, Animator-Lecture-Demo, Screening of film

3PM Film Music Panel: Chris Young, Sharon Farber, Thom Sharp, Composers, Veronika Krausus, Moderator

4PM Chris Young, Film Music Composer, Lecture-Demo

5PM Sharon Farber, Film Music Composer, Lecture-Demo

530PM Thom Sharp, Film Music Composer, Lecture-Demo

6PM Natalie Farrey, Film Producer, Lecture-Demo

630PM Screening of Student Films, with guest Filmmakers

8PM Film as Collaborative Art Concert, Meng Hall

Featuring New Music Ensemble with guest film composers: Chris Young, Sharon Farber, Thom Sharp, Veronika Krausus, Filmmaker Quintan Ana Wikswo, and CSUF faculty composer Pamela Madsen and CSUF faculty performers: Jean Ferrandis, flute, Larry Timm, oboe and Mikhail Korshev, piano

via filmmusiccritics.org
Composer Christopher Young has been presented with the International Film Music Critics Association Award for Best Original Score for a Comedy Film in 2011, for his work on The Rum Diary, by IFMCA members Jon Broxton and Oscar Flores. Young’s award came in a strong category that also featured scores by David Arnold (Paul), Spanish composer Roque Baños (Torrente 4: Lethal Crisis), William Ross (A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas) and Steve Jablonsky (Your Highness).

This is Young’s third IFMCA Award, having previously won for Best Score for a Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror Film for Drag Me to Hell in 2009, and Film Music Composition of the Year for the cue “Concerto to Hell” from the same score.

The Rum Diary is based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson, and sees director Bruce Robinson making his return to the cinema 19 years after his last feature, Jennifer Eight, and a full 24 years since his acclaimed debut, Withnail & I. Johnny Depp stars as jaded and alcohol-soaked journalist Paul Kemp, who takes an assignment working for a local newspaper in Puerto Rico in the mid-1950s. However, rather than finding the escape from life he was looking for, Kemp stumbles from one hilarious rum-laced adventure to another, facing the closure of his newspaper, dealing with his cantankerous colleagues, getting involved in some shady dealings with a local industrialist played by Aaron Eckhart, and even falling in lust with the shady entrepreneur’s beautiful young wife, Amber Heard.

Young’s music is a celebration of Puerto Rican life and culture, as well as the laid back jazz grooves of the film composers of the time, including Henry Mancini, Les Baxter and Neal Hefti.

New Jersey native Young studied at North Texas State University and at the UCLA Film School, and was originally a jazz drummer, before making a move into film music in the early 1980s. He rose to prominence following his critically acclaimed score for Hellraiser in 1987, and has since gone on to score a slew of critical and commercial successes such as Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Murder in the First, Species, Entrapment, The Hurricane, Swordfish, The Grudge, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Spider-Man 3 and Ghost Rider. He was nominated for a Golden Globe in 2002 for his score for The Shipping News, was nominated for an Emmy in 1996 for Norma Jean & Marilyn, and won the prestigious BMI Richard Kirk Award for career achievement in 2008.

This week we’re going to focus on the great film scores of Christopher Young. I’d have to say one of my favorite film scores is from Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser.” It’s just one of those sound tracks I can put on and listen to whether it is driving, working around the house, writing or some other creative process. There is just something about that score.

Christopher Young graduated from Massachusetts Hampshire College with a BA in music. He went on to do post graduate work at North Texas State University. Young was inspired by composer Bernard Herrmann, of Citizen Kane and Vertigo fame. He moved to Los Angeles and attended classes at UCLA where he studied with film composer David Raksin.

Learn more and listen to samples!

Mr. Young has score many types of films besides horror. Christopher Young is known for scarey film scores for “Hellraiser,” “Hellbound: Hellraiser II,” “Drag Me to Hell,” “Ghost Rider,” “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” “The Grudge” and “The Grudge 2.″ He has also done many scores that you may not realize. One movie I like that I didn’t realize he did is “Rounders.” Young has also done comedies like “The Man That Knew Too Little.” All together he has scored over 100 films. When Danny Elfman was not available to score “Spiderman 3,” Christopher Young was able to help Sam Raimi out. If you notice the list of horror above, you’ll notice that he went on to help Raimi more later as well. Check out IMDB for Christopher Young’s full filmography.

[VISIT MUTANTVILLE.COM TO HEAR SCORE SELECTIONS]

via examiner.com

The Core (2003)

Music Composed By Christopher Young

Performed By The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra

Conducted By Pete Anthony

Score Produced By Flavio Motalla and Christopher Young

Intrada Special Collection Volume 187

Disc 1=11 Tracks – Running Time: 51:35

Disc 2=10 Tracks – Running Time: 48:50

Total Time: 21 Tracks – Running Time: 100:25

The Core was a big budget reimagining of Journey to the Center of the Earth set in a more modern and apocalyptic version. WIth a terrific ensemble cast that featured Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo, D.J. Qualls, Tcheky Karyo, Bruce Greenwood and Academy Award nominee Richard Jenkins, The Core is a fun and entertaining thriller that while it might take itself a little too seriously at times yet it does have a sense of humor to boot. The plot of the film is simple, the Earth’s core has stopped rotating for some strange reason (this is a major reveal in the storyline so I won’t spoil it for you) which has caused birds to slam into things and die, as well as unnatural occurances in the Earth’s atmosphere with relentless storms and thunder strikes and earthquakes. Aided by a pair of professors (Eckhart, Karyo), a famed scientist (Tucci), two Air Force Pilots (Swank and Greenwood), a crackpot inventor (Lindo) and the ultimate hacker (Qualls) under the supervision of a Military General (Jenkins) they devise a plan that would take the crew deep into the Earth’s core to jump start the Earth’s motor again within a short period of time before the worst things imaginable begin to happen. The film was a modest hit when it was released in 2003 and is still a charming big budget sci-fi thriller that is definitely better than alot of the sci-fi films that have come out since.

To Be BROADCAST

1. Sat 19 Nov 2011 @ 12:15  BBC Radio 3

Film composer Christopher Young, who has scored Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Hellraiser, and Drag Me to Hell, discovers how his musical scare tactics are inspired by the past.

Throughout the programme, Christopher Young examines how a composer makes an audience jump in terror. He discovers how his own devilish compositions are inspired by the works of Wagner, Berlioz and Liszt. Surprising connections are drawn between classic horror scenes and demonically inspired operas and symphonies.

The programme starts with an investigation of the relationship between the devil and the violin, embodied in the life and legend of Niccolo Paganini. With musicologist Maiko Kawabata and violinist Philippe Quint, Christopher considers the devil’s role in musical complexity.

The tritone is a musical interval nicknamed Diabolus in Musica. It was generally avoided by medieval composers due to the chaos it created within harmony. Goldsmith’s Lecturer in Music Anthony Pryer dissects the unsettling nature of the Devil in Music. Along the way, Christopher discovers what many musicologists consider to be the first horror scene: The Wolf’s Glen scene from Der Freischutz, an 1822 opera by Carl Maria Von Weber. With University of Leeds Professor of Critical Musicology Derek Scott, Christopher examines Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Franz Liszt’s Faust Symphony. King Edward Professor of Music at King’s John Deathridge helps Christopher to discover the demonic techniques developed by Richard Wagner. Horror music expert Stan Link examines Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, while identifying the sensorial similarities between horror films and classic Romantic works.

The Devil in Music is a Whistledown production for BBC Radio 3. The producer is Colin McNulty.

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