Eureka, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Video Games | 31 Comments »

She could escape annihilation from bloodthirsty cyborgs, but apparently not the broadcaster’s axe. 

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been cancelled.

Of course, I’m disappointed, even though the writing has been on the wall for quite some time.  The ratings slipped throughout Season 2, and we didn’t pass the “Friday Night Death Slot” test.  

It’s both easy and misguided to blame the network, or assume that it would have survived if better promoted.  I believe that Fox did everything they could.  I think that we simply fell in the snare of network television expectation.  At the end of the day, these are financial decisions being made by financial institutions.  Remember, that if Battlestar Galactica aired on Fox, it would’ve been cancelled in two weeks (BG was technically an underperforming series even by Sci Fi Channel standards!).
(more…)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 114 Comments »

I’ll be celebrating the release of the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles soundtrack in style this weekend with a signing at Dark Delicacies in Burbank!  Also available from La La Land Records will be the recently released Eureka and Rest Stop: Don’t Look Back soundtracks.  If you’ve never been there, Dark Delicacies is a blast… a horror-themed store, perfect for any film buff on your Xmas list.

DARK DELICACIES
4213 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505
Saturday, December 13, 2008, 2pm
www.darkdel.com 

Off topic… Did you see that Battlestar Galactica’s most recent episode, “Revelations,” was named the Number 6 best episode of television this year by Time Magazine?  Number “6″?  Coincidence?  The clip they’re showing on their site features my work for choir and orchestra, “Diaspora Oratorio” (Beware of MAJOR spoilers if you haven’t seen the show).  

(more…)

Albums, Battlestar Galactica, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 60 Comments »

It’s finally official!  My soundtrack for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles goes on sale December 2nd!  (Perhaps a perfect holiday gift for any sci fi fans you know??)

The behind-the-scenes details of this album held us up for a while, but I’m thrilled to report that the discs are off to the manufacturers and are being prepared for distribution at this very moment.  Autographed copies will be available directly from La La Land Records on December 2nd, however I suspect they’ll go quickly.  The CD is already available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

I’ll write a detailed entry about the album next week and post some audio clips.  In the meantime, here’s the OFFICIAL TRACK LISTING.  Remember, you heard it here first!  :)

(more…)

Albums, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 64 Comments »

SPOILERS AHEAD: Tonight’s episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, aptly titled Mr. Ferguson is Ill Today, is a particularly unusual story.  The plot is fractured into multiple accounts of the same narrative from the perspective of each of the major characters, the location was unique and, above all, the story culminates in the death of a principle character, Cromartie.  (The episode’s title is actually the first line of dialog Cromartie spoke in the pilot!)  While the multi-perspective storyline provided interesting musical challenges, it was the episode’s Mexican location that gave me the most room to explore.  

“Mr. Ferguson” allowed me a second opportunity to produce a song for Terminator, after the season premiere’s searing “Samson and Delilah” with Shirley Manson.  This time, I arranged a traditional Mexican folk tune called “La Llorona.”  

I first heard about this song a few days before I saw the episode.  I happened to be hanging out with the episode’s director Michael Nankin (whose skillful touch Battlestar fans will recognize from some of the best episodes of that series, including Maelstrom) and he told me that he was experimenting with the song in his cut.  So, even before the spotting session with the producers, I was already thinking about how I could take a traditional Mexican folk tune and Terminator-ize it. (more…)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 24 Comments »

It’s finally official!  FOX has picked up the remainder of season 2 for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, allowing us to complete a full 22-episode season.  Our ratings have been low this fall, so I’m glad that FOX understands how incredibly competitive our time slot is.  I can only assume that impressive downloads and DVD sales must have been a factor.  Read the entire story at The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

(more…)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 19 Comments »

This entry is the first in what I hope will become a continuing series of interviews with industry professionals.  Rather than comprehensive, career-spanning interviews, I will focus on one project or aspect of a person’s career that relates to an experience of my own.  Loyal readers can enjoy in-depth detail, and I have the chance to learn something professionally valuable.  The format will be unusual, since half the blog will be interview and the rest my own experiences and inevitable opinions.  But the interviews will be easy to spot if you want to scan ahead to the pearls of wisdom from people far more knowledgeable than myself.

For this first interview, I’m thrilled to have spoken with renowned composer Bruce Broughton.  I’ve loved Bruce’s work ever since I was a kid, when I first heard his knock-out scores for Young Sherlock Holmes and Silverado.  The latter project, combined with his brilliant work for Tombstone, instigated my life-long love affair with classic Westerns and their scores. 

My interview focuses on one of his most under-appreciated credits: Tiny Toons Adventures.  I always adored his ­Looney-Tunes-inspired score for this now-classic series, but my admiration grew tenfold when I had a brief opportunity to follow in his footsteps, writing a full-fledged orchestral animation score for this loveable little scamp, Atomic Al:

(more…)

Interviews, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 14 Comments »

LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD: I don’t know if my brutal schedule will allow for me to write about every episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles this season, but tonight’s Automatic for the People features outstanding pieces I can’t resist sharing.  This week, I wrote lovely score cues for new plot lines and characters, but it was actually the “source” music I had the most fun with.  (This term refers to music heard by characters in the film, as opposed to score only experienced by the viewing audience).

Several scenes took place in a bar.  Typically, there will be music at bars in film and tv, but Automatic for the People presented a unique opportunity.  Sarah and Cameron infiltrate a bar and Cameron’s job is to get close enough to the security guards playing pool to visually scan their badges.  So, Cameron plays the “helpless girl who can’t play pool” trick.  Of course, it would have been just as easy for her to kill them all, but not quite as subtle.

(more…)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 19 Comments »

Bear and Shirley in the studio, recording vocals for “Samson and Delilah” 

• “If I had my way…
• I’d burn this whole building down” 

The second season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles began with a bang tonight.  As the series composer, I returned to the smashing metal percussion and electric string quartet textures of the Sarah Connor musical soundscape.  However, Samson and Delilah also allowed me to once again stretch from the confines of underscore composer into song producer and arranger, and gave me the opportunity to work with Garbage lead singer and songwriter Shirley Manson.  

The song I produced for her was featured prominently in the opening moments of the episode.  And it will be the first track of the forthcoming Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles soundtrack CD that I’m thrilled to announce will be released by La La Land Records as early as next month!

The evolution of the song began last spring, long before scoring or even production began, in fact before the second season was officially picked up by Fox.

(more…)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 34 Comments »

Great news!  Warner Bros. and La La Land Records have come together to release my soundtrack album for “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season One.”  This will include all the best musical moments from the first season, featuring all the metal-smashing-percussion and electric-string-quartet you can handle!  The album release date has not yet been announced, but expect it before the end of the year.

(more…)

Albums, Eureka, Films, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 19 Comments »

        In honor of tonight’s 2-hour season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I present a quick look at the major thematic elements that comprise the score. 

Sarah’s Theme

        This is the most frequently used theme in the series, and not coincidentally, also the longest and most developed.  Most of my themes (both in T:SCC and BG) tend to be short motivic ideas.  I rarely have opportunity to introduce a theme that has an A section and a B section.  However, as I was scoring the pilot, I came up with this tune for Sarah:

(more…)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 22 Comments »

      Tonight and tomorrow are the two-night premiere of Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the newest series to showcase my original score.  I’m not going to spoil any plot points here, but just give a quick introduction to the music of the series.  

      I got involved with Sarah last summer.  I was still deep in the throes of finishing Eureka, and preparing to dive into Battlestar Galactica: Razor.  But, when I got the call that the producers wanted to meet with me, I leapt at the opportunity to get involved.

      The films of James Cameron are one of the principal reasons I got into the film music business in the first place.  I had always adored movies and music, but seeing Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2 and The Abyss in my formative years turned a daydream into a burning desire.  When I was 9 years old, my mom got me a Yamaha PSR keyboard (which I still have in my closet to this day) and when I figured out how to work the sequencer, the first thing I programmed in… was the Terminator theme.

(more…)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 24 Comments »

     Everybody here that works with me on my scores budgets our writing and recording schedules very strictly, making sure that every day is precisely planned out.  We don’t have any other choice.  With scoring going full-steam on both Battlestar Galactica and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, there’s not a lot of time to mess around.

     I don’t usually factor in time to have an organ removed.  But I might have to start.

(more…)

Albums, Battlestar Galactica, Films, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 9 Comments »

     Wow! I knew it would take me a while to get back to this blog, but I never thought it would be 5 months! After finishing the intense Bob-Dylan-inspired Galactica season finale, I think I needed a little time off. So here’s what’s new…

     I will begin scoring the two-hour straight-to-DVD movie, Battlestar Galactica: Razor, next week. I’m looking forward to diving back into the Galactica universe for one last season. And no, I didn’t score the trailers Sci Fi Channel has been running. I’m never involved with any of the promos, even though sometimes they’ll use my score in the ads.

     There are some really exciting releases coming up in the next few months. I spent my entire spring and summer working on the new Battlestar Galactica Season Three Soundtrack Album for you guys and it’s finally finished!

(more…)

Albums, Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Films, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles | 6 Comments »