The Annotator

Ian Hultquist is an American composer of original scores for films, documentaries and television shows. Sofia Hultquist, is an Italian composer and performer that writes and creates music for film, fashion and media. Together, the husband and wife team have collaborated on scores for films such as: "The First Monday in May" "The Gospel According to Andre" and the feature length documentary, "Love & Bananas."

LOVE & BANANAS chronicles the mission of actor/director Ashley Bell and a team of elephant rescuers led by world renowned Asian elephant conservationist Lek Chailert, who cross 480 miles of Thailand to rescue Noi Na, a 70-year old partially blind trekking elephant, and bring her to freedom. This documentary looks to expose the cruel secret that every Asian elephant has had to endure to become a service animal; a process known as Pajan (aka The Crush Box). LOVE & BANANAS aims to ignite a new way of thinking about this species and shows what can be done to prevent the extinction of Asian elephants.

In this episode, Ian and Sofia Hultquist talk about how they utilized elephant sounds, recorded during filming, within their score; how the a central character, Lek Chailert, her story and love for elephants influenced their music; and how they creatively dealt with temp music used in early edits of the film.

ANNOTATED TRACKS AND SEGMENTS

02:22 - "Pajan"

04:27 - "Lek's Theme"

07:39 - "The Road"

10:22 - "The Homecoming"

13:33 - "Part of the Heard"

OTHER TRACKS

15:47 - "Welcome to Thailand"

SOUNDTRACK

The original score was released on April 27, 2018 on the Hultquist’s own label, Little Twig Records, and is available digitally on Amazon.com (https://amzn.to/2vnpVs5), iTunes, and streaming on Spotify and Apple music. 

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Ian and Sofia Hultquist at their official sites: ianhultquist.com and sofiahultquist.com. Follow them on twitter at @ihultquist or @drumandlace

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

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Jesse Harlin has been a composer for video games for over 15 years. His music has been played by the London Philharmonic at Abbey Road’s Studio 1, but has also has his music blasted among crowds in New York’s Times Square. He is an interactive music designer building music systems with some of the top audio engineers in the industry. Some video game titles to his credit include: THE FORCE UNLEASHED, MONKEY ISLAND 2, STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC and MAFIA III. One of his most recent original scores has been for the video game, YOKU’S ISLAND EXPRESS.

Yoku’s Island Express, a pinball platform adventure game, launched on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch™ and PC on May 29th 2018 from Team17 and developer Villa Gorilla. Yoku, the dung beetle, has arrived on Mokumana Island to take over the role of postmaster and he’s ready for the easy life, soaking up the sun and delivering parcels on a tropical paradise! However, an ancient island deity is trapped in a restless sleep - and it’s all down to Yoku to traverse the island using a unique blend of pinball mechanics, platforming and open world exploration.

In this episode Jesse Harlin talks about how he focused creating strange and unique instrumentation mixtures in the score: from odd toy sound pairings to percussion via beat-boxing, mixed with soft female vocal work + turntablism … run through ring modulators. He also talks about his use of language as the score starts in French but morphs into Polynesian-like-skatting to other spontaneous sounds he formed into fictional vocabulary.  

ANNOTATED TRACKS AND SEGMENTS

02:13 - "Welcome to Mokumana Beach"

05:44 - "Welcome to the Space Monks"

09:46 - "What Lies Beneath"

OTHER TRACKS

00:09 - "The Slug Gardener"

13:18 - "Gorilla Woods"

SOUNDTRACK

The original score was released on May 28, 2018 and is available digitally on Amazon.com, iTunes, and streaming on Spotify and Apple music. 

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Jesse Harlin on his official site: http://dunderpatemusic.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @oogew

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

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Disasterpeace (aka Rich Vreeland) has over 50 albums to its credit. He has composed scores for video games such as: Puzzle Agent and Puzzle Agent 2, Fez, for film such as: It Follows and Under the Silver Lake and for television he has written music for Adventure Time and the soon to be released DIY.

Disasterpeace wrote the original score for the massively popular video game, HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER which released on March 31, 2016 from developer Heart Machine. 

The game is a 2D Action RPG in the vein of the best 8-bit and 16-bit classics, with modernized mechanics and designs on a much grander scale. Hyper Light Drifter features intense action, other-worldly environments and a captivating storyline. Our Hero is haunted by an insatiable illness, traveling further into the lands of Buried Time, hoping to discover a way to quiet the vicious disease much like its creator, Alex Preston, who suffers of a heart disease, major source of inspiration for this game. It has been called "a surreal, indie Zelda" by Kotaku and "decadent, cryptic and classy" by Polygon

In this episode DISASTERPEACE takes us through his music for the game's brief intro cinematic. Not once or twice, but three times ... each time unveiling a different handful of audio elements from this deeply layered score filled with musical motifs, sound design, and audio easter eggs.

ANNOTATED TRACKS AND SEGMENTS

02:14 - Piano Sketches

03:40 - Vignette - Visions

04:35 - Main motif

05:06 - Intro. Cinematic / Vignette - Visions #1 (Motifs, Prometheus chord, chug chug, sheen of noise)

08:10 - Intro. Cinematic / Vignette - Visions #2 (Sound design, musical narrative)

10:48 - Deep Drums

11:50 - Snack Jack

13:11 - Intro. Cinematic / Vignette - Visions #3 (Palette library)

OTHER TRACKS

14:49 - The Abyss

SOUNDTRACK

The original score was released on April 12, 2016 and is available digitally on Bandcamp (http://music.disasterpeace.com/album/hyper-light-drifter), Amazon.com (https://amzn.to/2LsXQsF), iTunes, and streaming on Spotify and Apple music. 

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Andrew Lockington on his official site: http://disasterpeace.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @disasterpeace

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

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Canadian-born composer, Andrew Lockington has composed original scores for feature films such as: ‘SAN ANDREAS’, the Golden Globe nominated “FRANKIE AND ALICE” starring Halle Berry,“PERCY JACKSON SEA OF MONSTERS”, “JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH”, and “CITY OF EMBER”, “THE SPACE BETWEEN US” and the Netflix series “FRONTIER”

He recently scored the 2018, American, sci-fi monster film, RAMPAGE - directed by Brad Peyton. The film is loosely based on the video game series of the same name by Midway Games. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Åkerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. It follows a primatologist named Davis Okoye who must team up with George, an albino gorilla who turns into a raging creature of enormous size as a result of a rogue experiment, to stop two other mutated animals from destroying Chicago. It is the third collaboration between Peyton and Johnson, following Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) and San Andreas (2015).

In this episode, Andrew lockington opens up his score for RAMPAGE, sharing with us how he looked to nature to inform his approach, specifically studying gorillas and other apes and the sounds they make. He also studied African music and choir which eventually lead him to employing the African Childrens Choir and, finally, he discusses how he employed electronic elements into his score to connect the film to its video game roots.

ANNOTATED TRACKS

02:12 - Space

03:30 - Gorillas

05:18 - Pavo

06:27 - Wyoming

07:41 - Cornfield

11:00 - Chicago

13:56 - Requiem

17:03 - Rampage

SOUNDTRACK

The original score was released by Water Tower Music on April 13, 2018 and is available digitally on Amazon.com, iTunes, and streaming on Spotify and Apple music.  

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Andrew Lockington on his official site: http://andrewlockington.com

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can 

Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

FOLLOW US

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Facebook @TheAnnotator

Email [email protected]

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Ronit Kirchman is a composer, music producer, songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. She composes music for film and television, theater and dance, multimedia installations, and the concert stage. Her widely varied film scores include the feature films Zen and the Art of Dying, Finding Neighbors, and The Skin I'm In, as well as The Golden Age of Fish, Say You Love Me, and Gowanus, Brooklyn among many others. Ronit is the composer for the riveting Golden Globe-nominated dramatic series The Sinner (USA Network). 

THE SINNER is an eight episode close-ended series, The Sinner follows a young mother (Jessica Biel) who, when overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage, commits a startling act of violence and to her horror has no idea why. The event launches an inverted and utterly surprising crime thriller whose driving force is not the “who” or the “what” -- but the “why” -- as an investigator (Bill Pullman) finds himself obsessed with uncovering the woman's buried motive. Together they travel a harrowing journey into the depths of her psyche and the violent secrets hidden in her past.

In this episode, Ronit Kirchman gives us a detailed breakdown of her music for THE SINNER. She reveals how she wrote the score to help define the very nature of the show as well as the psychology of the series main character. You'll hear how she balances deeper and darker colorations in her music with subtle religious references and lastly action vibes carried by propulsive synths and beats.

ANNOTATED TRACKS

02:05 - Swim

04:37 - Shallow Grave

07:34 - I Love Jesus

09:48 - Determination

10:47 - Simmering

12:52 - APB

14:11 - The Stairway Down

SOUNDTRACK

The original score for season one has been released by Lakeshore Records and is available digitally on amazon.com, iTunes, and streaming on Spotify and Apple music.  

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Ronit Kirchman at her official site: http://ronitkirchman.com/ or follow her on twitter @ronittweets

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can 

Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

FOLLOW US

Twitter @audioannotator

Facebook @TheAnnotator

Email [email protected]

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Ronit Kirchman is a composer, music producer, songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. She composes music for film and television, theater and dance, multimedia installations, and the concert stage.  Her widely varied film scores include the feature films Zen and the Art of Dying, Finding Neighbors, and The Skin I'm In, as well as The Golden Age of Fish, Say You Love Me, and Gowanus, Brooklyn among many others. Ronit is the composer for the riveting Golden Globe-nominated dramatic series The Sinner (USA Network). 

THE SINNER is an eight episode close-ended series, The Sinner follows a young mother (Jessica Biel) who, when overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage, commits a startling act of violence and to her horror has no idea why. The event launches an inverted and utterly surprising crime thriller whose driving force is not the “who” or the “what” -- but the “why” -- as an investigator (Bill Pullman) finds himself obsessed with uncovering the woman's buried motive. Together they travel a harrowing journey into the depths of her psyche and the violent secrets hidden in her past.

In this episode, Ronit Kirchman gives us a detailed breakdown of her music for THE SINNER. She reveals how she wrote the score to help define the very nature of the show as well as the psychology of the series main character. You'll hear how she balances deeper and darker colorations in her music with subtle religious references and lastly action vibes carried by propulsive synths and beats.

ANNOTATED TRACKS

02:05 - Swim

04:37 - Shallow Grave

07:34 - I Love Jesus

09:48 - Determination

10:47 - Simmering

12:52 - APB

14:11 - The Stairway Down

SOUNDTRACK

The original score for season one has been released by Lakeshore Records and is available digitally on amazon.com, iTunes, and streaming on Spotify and Apple music.  

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Ronit Kirchman at her official site: http://ronitkirchman.com/ or follow her on twitter @ronittweets

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can 

Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

FOLLOW US

Twitter @audioannotator

Facebook @TheAnnotator

Email [email protected]

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Zach co-composed and oversaw all music production for YouTube Red's first developed sitcom, Sing It!, created by YouTube superstars, Benny and Rafi fine. He again collaborated with the Fine Bros for 2017's feature film, F The Prom. He also wrote the theme song for USA Network's NFL Football Fanatic. In parallel to his composing career, Zach creates 1980's inspired electronic music under the pseudonym D/A/D.

Composer Leo Birenberg’S music is featured in Fox’s celebrated hybrid animation series Son of Zorn. Leo has also been a frequent collaborator of composer Christophe Beck, working as a writer, arranger, and producer and has contributed additional music to a number of films, including Frozen, Edge of Tomorrow, Ant-Man, and The Peanuts Movie.

Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg have co-composed the score for YouTube Red's mega-hit series Cobra Kai, which takes place in the Karate Kid universe thirty-four years after the original film, THE KARATE KID, and stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka reprising their original roles.

In this episode, composers Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg open up their original score for COBRA KAI and reveal how they resurrect the spirit of the original KARATE KID. While moving in the music in a contemporary direction they invoke classic retro 80s synth and guitar, traditional flutes and japanese koto, while building to a climactic finale incorporating a 70 piece orchestra.

ANNOTATED TRACKS

02:33 - Ace Degenerate

03:51 - King Cobra

04:54 - Miyagi Memories

06:24 - Final Match

07:24 - Miyagi's Tomb

08:31 - Slither

10:20 - The Cobra and the Mongoose

10:58 - Miyagi-Do

12:43 - Time Out

14:14 - Quiver

15:19 - Stone vs Diaz

16:53 - Sensei Sam

SOUNDTRACK

The original score can be found on Amazon.com, itunes or streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg at their respective sites: http://zachrobinsonmuisc.com and http://leobirenberg or follow the composers on twitter @zachrobinson @leobirenberg

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can 

Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

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Facebook @TheAnnotator

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Beyond Skyrim: Bruma is an unofficial Skyrim expansion that revisits established themes from the award-winning soundtrack by Jeremy Soule while also incorporating influences from the Far East.

In the game mod, players can travel beyond the borders of Skyrim and explore Bruma, the northernmost county in Cyrodiil where they can delve into the Ayleid ruins, meddle in local affairs or explore the wilds.  

Beyond Skyrim: Bruma is composer Daniel Ran’s first composition project of this kind and in this episode he talks the challenge of writing new music of his own that would compliment pieces from Jeremy Soule's original score. He also shares about how he came to write for and work with a choir for the first time on one of the games key pieces.  Lastly he reveals how working on this particular project had the surprising effect of making music feel "more real" to him.

ANNOTATED TRACKS

01:41 - Maker of Worlds

06:34 - Last of the Guards

08:35 - Arch Henchman

10:46 - Nox Atra

OTHER TRACKS

00:07 - Apparitions

SOUNDTRACK

The original score can be found on Amazon.com, itunes or streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Daniel Ran at his official site (https://www.danielran.com/) or follow the composer on twitter @danielxran

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can 

Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

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Olivier Derivière is an award-winning composer who has scored music for animation, films and video games and is widely acclaimed for both his composition and innovative approaches to connecting music with the game experience. Some of his groundbreaking titles, Remember Me, Supernova, Obscure, Assassin’s Creed IV Freedom Cry and his previously annotated score for GET EVEN. One of his most recent video game scores is for the DONTNOD video game, VAMPYR.

In Vampyr you play as Dr. Jonathan Reid, a famous surgeon and blood transfusion specialist freshly turned into a vampire after arriving back in his home city of London following the Great War. A man of logic and science, Reid’s firm beliefs are turned inside-out upon awakening to a once-hidden world of secret societies, ungodly creatures and ancient orders set upon ending his existence. All the while, London’s population crumbles under the pressure of a terrible disease – and Dr. Reid may be the city’s last hope to stop it.

Olivier Deriviere returns to THE ANNOTATOR and shares about his main theme from the game and how he heavily employs the cello, throughout the score, to capture the loneliness and struggle of the game’s main character. He details Eric-Marier Couturier’s cello performance which makes use of the double string technique to express the core struggle between the doctor and the vampyr. Deriviere also tells us how he found working on this game a unique privilege despite Vampyr’s main theme centering on the theme of death and how he wrote some of the darkest and most emotional music while dealing with the loss of his own grandmother. 

ANNOTATED TRACKS

02:59 - The Struggle

05:06 - Making a Vampyr

06:45 - The Funerals

11:09 - Insane Family

14:51 - The Cross

17:13 - A Night at Home

SOUNDTRACK

The original soundtrack for VAMPYR is available on bandcamp. You can also stream the soundtrack on Spotify.

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Olivier Deriviere at his official site (http://olivierderiviere.com/) or follow the composer on twitter @oderiviere

Listen to Olivier Deriviere previous episode for the video game GET EVEN.

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can 

Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

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Facebook @TheAnnotator

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Nima Fakhrara is a composer, ethnomusicologist and the founder of Zoo Creatives.  His film credits include “The Girl in the Photographs”, “Consumed,” “The Signal,” and “Gatchman” (Battle of the Planets), while within video game genre, his credits he has “Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and the 2016 release “1970 Revolution.” 

One of his most recent projects for a video game is DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN, where is joined by composers Philip Sheppard and Joe Paesano in creating this highly anticipated game's original score.

DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN is an adventure game developed by Quantic Dream and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4, released worldwide on 25 May 2018. The plot revolves around three androids: Kara, who escapes the owner she was serving to explore her newfound sentience and protect a young girl; Connor, whose job it is to hunt down sentient androids; and Markus, who devotes himself to releasing other androids from servitude. They may survive or perish depending on dialogue choices that shape the story as customized by the player.

In this episode of THE ANNOTATOR, Nima Fakhrara, over 8 tracks of his work, opens up about his main challenge of writing music for one of the games main characters, CONNOR. He talks about how, while creating something cold and robotic, he also needed his music for this android investigator to evoke emotion. That challenge was increased by choosing to use only synths and electronics to accomplish this. Nima Fakhara also talks about how Connor’s music is the type of music he believes an android might create for themself.

ANNOTATED TRACKS

03:22 - Hostage

05:19 - Your Choice

09:27 - Now

11:41 -They All Look the Same

15:17 - I Trust You

15:31 - Meet Markus

18:08 - Wake Up

19:32 - Connor Suite

SOUNDTRACK

The original score has not been released.

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER

You can also hear more music and find out more about Nima Fakhrara at his official site (https://nimafilmmusic.com/) or follow the composer on twitter @ostadnima

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can 

Find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

FOLLOW US

Twitter @audioannotator

Facebook @TheAnnotator

Email [email protected]

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