Everything Everywhere All at Once
Awards

Ryan Lott on Son Lux’s Incredible Experimental Score for A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once

At this point, there’s very little that needs to be written about Daniels‘ absurdist comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once, because the Oscars are less than a week away, and it seems likely that the A24 movie is going to do very well in many of the major categories. One thing that hasn’t been written too much about is the film’s amazing score — a gorgeous piece of music by […]

Elvis
Awards

Guild of Music Supervisors Awards: Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Stranger Things Win Top Prizes

The Guild of Music Supervisors held its star-studded 13th annual award ceremony on Sunday night at The Wiltern Theatre, where a lively crowd of more than 1,000 guests celebrated outstanding achievement in the craft of Music Supervision in film, television, documentaries, games, advertising, and trailers. Oscar-nominated actors and producers joined forces with iconic songwriters and composers to honor these Music Supervisor tastemakers, who were recognized for their stellar accomplishments in 2022. […]

Everything Everywhere All at Once
Awards

David Byrne and Ryan Lott on Working With Mitski to Craft the Oscar-Nominated Song “This Is A Life” for Everything Everywhere All at Once

Almost everything revolving around Daniels‘ Everything Everywhere All at Once seems like a small miracle of sorts, including how well it has performed this awards season, making it the unquestionable frontrunner in a number of Oscar races, both above and below the line. Ryan Lott and his group, Son Lux, a three-piece experimental music group with Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang, were already well on their way to scoring Daniels’ […]

Gaslit series
Awards

Gaslit Music Supervisor Maggie Phillips on Testing Playlists, Working Within a Budget, and Researching the Sweet Sound of the ’70s

Last spring, to mark the 50th anniversary of the notorious Watergate break-in and cover-up, Starz released its star-studded limited series Gaslit, which featured Oscar winners Sean Penn and Julia Roberts as John and Martha Mitchell. Told from multiple points of view, Gaslit examined all of the key parties involved in the scandal, beginning with the planning and execution of the main event on June 17, 1972, and then following many […]

Awards

Nope, Everything Everywhere All at Once Lead Winners for Society of Composers & Lyricists

On February 15, the Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL) presented the winners of the 4th Annual SCL Awards for score and songs in visual media at the Skirball Cultural Center. The evening was hosted by Darren Criss, who also gave the audience a musical performance. Awards were presented across seven categories for music in visual media, in addition to the Spirit of Collaboration Award and two Jury Awards. The […]

The Whale
Awards

The Whale Composer Rob Simonsen on Creating the Right Musical Tone to Support the Emotion of Darren Aronofsky’s Drama

Darren Aronofsky‘s feature adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter’s acclaimed play The Whale is looking very likely to earn its star, Brendan Fraser, an Oscar for his devastating performance as Charlie, an obese writing professor who is approaching the end of his life when he decides to make amends to those in his life, including his estranged daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink). Joining Charlie for his final days are Fraser’s fellow Oscar […]

RRR movie
Awards

“Naatu Naatu” Songwriter M. M. Keeravani on RRR and Writing Different Themes for Its Two Main Characters

Following his blockbuster Baahubali duology, acclaimed director/writer S.S. Rajamouli returned to the global spotlight last year with the epic action drama RRR, which since its release has captured the hearts and souls of audiences across the globe for a myriad of reasons, of course, but perhaps none bigger than the global phenomenon that is “Naatu Naatu.” The high-energy piece, composed by the renowned M. M. Keeravani with lyrics from Chandrabose […]

Bill Nighy Living
Awards

Living Composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch on How She Unintentionally Created a Tear-Jerking Score for the Bill Nighy Drama

What would you do with your life if you were given a finite number to your existence, with perhaps only months to live? The question is posed by Living, a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa‘s 1952 film Ikiru that transposes the setting to 1953 London. Bill Nighy delivers one of his very best performances as an ordinary man leading a mundane life — a veteran civil servant caught up in a […]

Banshees of Inisherin
Awards

The Banshees of Inisherin Composer Carter Burwell on His Fourth Collaboration With Martin McDonagh and His Songwriting “Competition” With Brendan Gleeson

Composer Carter Burwell has done a fine job establishing and maintaining relationships with a number of talented filmmakers, as evidenced by the fact that they keep coming back to him to provide music to their films. One of Burwell’s frequent collaborators is Writer-Director Martin McDonagh, who has worked with the composer going back to his first feature film, In Bruges. Their latest effort, The Banshees of Inisherin, reunites the cast […]

Viola Davis Woman King
Awards

The Woman King Composer Terence Blanchard on Reuniting With Gina Prince-Bythewood and Finding the Sound of Dahomey

Renowned Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard has been scoring films and television shows going all the way back to Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever in 1991. That partnership has led to a pair of Oscar nominations for Blanchard, for 2019’s BlacKkKlansman, and 2020’s Da Five Bloods. Blanchard returns to the Oscar race this year with his score for Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s The Woman King, which marks a new high for the composer, who has […]