The 2011 BMI Film And TV Awards was held on 18 May, 2011 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles.
Among the talented composers of music featured in last year’s top grossing films and top-rated television network and cable programs at the invitation-only gala were Nathan Barr and Jace Everett for their work on True Blood. So congratulations to the fabulous musicians for the deserved Award!
There’s a great interview at Buzzfocus.com from Wondercon with composer Nathan Barr, who apart of sharing his creative process for composing True Blood’s music, gave us what we think is quite a juicy spoiler. True Blood will kick up its season 4 opening with a 10 minutes Orchestral piece in the episode “She’s not There.” What could this be? Fairy World? Anyone?
Nathan also said that he especially enjoyed composing for Maryann, and creating the were wolves atmosphere. He also loved doing the music for Lorena.
Gary Calamar, the Music Supervisor for True Blood, was recently interviewed by Rolly & Grady. Gary currently works on True Blood (HBO), House (Fox), and Dexter (Showtime) and at Santa Monice Public Radio Station KCRW. Here’s a snippet of the interview:
R&G: What’s your day-to-day job entail? Can you take me through the music selection process? Use True Blood as an example.
Gary: Well, we get the scripts early on. We just started a few scripts for the new season: Season 4. True Blood is kind of unique in that each episode is named after one of the songs in the show; generally when we get a script, the writer has already titled the episode after a song that he or she wants to see in the show and that ties into the theme of the script. The song may or may not end up in the final show. Sometimes it will and sometimes we’ll find out the song just doesn’t work or for various reasons it won’t make it into the final cut. There have been times when we’ve had to change the title of the episode because of this fun little thing that we do with the titles. We read the script, take some notes, and then really get down to the nitty gritty when we see a rough cut of the show. They’ll send a rough cut to my office and I’ll look at it and again take some notes or make mental notes. Then we go in for a spotting session, where I will sit and watch the show with Alan Ball, the creator, and usually the writer of the episode, the music editor, the editor, and various producers. The composer, Nathan Barr, is there. We go through the show scene by scene and decide what we’re going to do musically: whether it’s going to be scored, which Nathan will take care of, or whether it’ll be a song, and I pick the song. What’s the vibe that Alan is looking for? I’ll weigh in and give my opinion. Everyone will throw in their two cents and then I go back to my office and start putting ideas together. I’ll creatively have an idea of what I think is hopefully going to work and I’ll sit down with the picture, showing the picture on the screen, trying different songs, and I’ll try to narrow it down to three to five songs or so, and then I’ll work with the music editor to cut them into the scenes. Then we’ll go back and show them to Alan and he’ll make the final decision.
Read the whole thing at the source, it’s a very well done interview.
Kevin Alejandro and Nathan Barr will be guests in the upcoming Sunset Reception that will take place on December 4th at the home of Jeff Haber in Three Arch Bay, Laguna Beach. (Saturday, December 4, 2010 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.)
Tickets start from $100, more info can be found here.
True Blood’s composer, Nathan Barr, was on Last Call with Carson Daly last night. Carson visits him in his workshop (his converted garage) and we get to see many of his special instruments that he uses to create his musical masterpieces for the show. He shows how he created “Bill and Sookie’s Theme” and also the score behind the scene where Jason rescinds Bill’s invitation to his house.
The video is just under 5 minutes, but really worth checking out.
This is from Nathan’s Facebook: Nathan will be appearing on NBC’s “Last Call with Carson Daly” Friday October 15 at 1:30 am. Tune in to get a first hand tour of Nathan’s studio and to see the eerie instruments he uses for the True Blood score!
Last week Nathan Barr and Lisbeth Scott performed music from True Blood at the International Film Music Festival Ciudad de Úbeda. Here’s a fan-made video of Lisbeth Scott singing “Take Me Home,” the song played in season one as Sookie eats the last pie made by her Gran.
Gary Calamar, the Music Supervisor for True Blood, was recently interviewed by Rolly & Grady. Gary currently works on True Blood (HBO), House (Fox), and Dexter (Showtime) and at Santa Monice Public Radio Station KCRW. Here’s a snippet of the interview:
