The Indian (as in India, the country) press reported today that income tax officials raided the residences of several music directors (known as composers in the US industry), along with the homes of a number of actors in India’s film industry. Here’s an excert from the story as posted on Web India 123:

About 300 people were carrying out the raids, aimed at unearthing unaccounted money of the film personalities.

The raids were conducted at the residences of actors Vivek, Vikram, Vijay, Surya, Silambarasan, ”Jeyam” Ravi, actresses Sneha and Trisha, producers Oscar V Ravichandran, T Rajender and S A Chandrasekhar, Director I S Shankar, Music Directors A R Rahman, Harris Jayaraj, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Playback singers Mano and Srinivas and financiers Sanjay Wadhwani, Subash Nahar and Pankaj Mehta.

Of couse, the cynical part of me wonders if the “unaccounted money” was unaccounted for by the income tax officials rather than the film personalities. Another part of me is thinking that the offshore-scoring idea wasn’t so silly after all. Perhaps Indian filmmakers will be looking for composers without the stigma of income tax troubles. As far as I know, I’m in good standing with the IRS and I’ve never has tax troubles in India. Heck - I’ve never even been to India.

Tonight I attended an advanced screening of Dreamwork’s Dreamer, scored by John Debney (The Passion of the Christ, Sin City, The Pacifier, and many more) . The film begins with aerial footage of rural land (presumably Kentucky, where the story takes place). The opening strings are somewahat amorphous. I was expecting something a bit more grand to match the visuals - but when the camera slowly comes to rest on a particular farm house, and the intimate sounds of a 12-string guitar and solo fiddle come to the forefront, it makes for a nice transition as if to say “in the world at large, we are going to focus our story on one small family”.

It’s difficult to analyze the score without giving away the film, but there is a sceene where the young girl in the story is atop a runaway horse, and eventually jumps from the horse into her father’s outstretched arms. Whereas the scene may not be a defining moment for the story, it caught my musical ear. In an almost imperceptible moment the score goes from a sound of alarm to a more serene calming presense when the girl safe in her father’s embrace. Although seconds apart, the transition between the movments is very smoothe - as one continuous theme, rather than a distinct before-and-after separation. Granted, I’ve seen the film only once - but that’s how I remember it.

Overall, Dreamer is real feel-good story with a score to match. There are quite a few cues in this movie. A lot of music, but it really does the job of enhancing the emotional content rather than distracting from it. I was also taken by the lack of cursing, violence, or inuendo in the film. None of the typical vices, yet a pretty good range of emotion. There’s some pretty amazing horse racing footage, too (when you consider what it must have taken to get those shots). Bring the whole family out for this one. You’ll enjoy a really good film and some pretty impressive music.

This afternoon, I went to the screening of a trailer for the soon-to-b-released Chronicle of Narina: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I don’t think this is going to be some silly kids’ movie. On the contrary, we’re talking multi-million dollar (nine figures) epic here. Some “making of” footage was also shown. Weta, the same folks that gave us Middle Earth in the LOTR movies, have gone to great lengths to bring Narnia to the big screen. Unfortunately, the “making of” footage mentioned nothing of the score, but I did learn that composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek, Shrek2, Kingdom of Heaven, Chicken Run, and many more) provided the Narnia score. I’m always interested in hearing and analyzing other’s work. While I am waiting for my next gig, I might as well be a student of those who are finding work, eh? I’m really looking forward to the December 9 release. When I get to hear some of the score at length, I’ll offer my review here.

If you visit my site, you are probably familiar with the world of film music - but I’m going to guess that the rank-and-file individual is not. Any if I mentioned the name “Howard Shore”, most folks would say that the name sounds vaguely familiar, but could not tell me who he is or what he does. After all, his name or likeness doesn’t appear on the evening news very often.

Howard Shore is a film music composer. You would have heard his work in The Aviator (alongside the work of J.S. Bach), The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Panic Room and dozens of other films. While Mr. Shore may have been under the radar (or is that RADAR?) for most folks, he has not gone unnoticed by the industry.

You may recall that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the Oscar for the best score. Additionally, Shore won a Grammy Award for his work on The Two Towers. In 2002, he received both an Oscar and a Grammy for The Fellowship of the Ring, which also received awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics and the Broadcast Film Critics. Wait! There’s more! Classic FM in the UK - for two years in a row - voted The Lord of the Rings soundtrack the best film score of all time. That’s right, all time. (More at The One Ring)

Makes me want to make a marathon weekend of watching all of the LOTR movies - except this time listening more to the score instead of being distracted by the disrepancies between the films and Tolkien’s books. I tip my baton to Howard Shore.