The Big Score

In this episode of The Big Score Grammy Award-winner and composer, Simon Franglen, takes listeners behind the music of Avatar: The Way of Water, with water being one of the main inspirations for how Simon deftly created an ambient piece of music matching the stunning visuals of the film. A longtime collaborator with director, James Cameron, Simon reveals how he came to work with Cameron on Titanic, winning a Grammy for “My Heart Will Go On” and which lead to them collaborating again on the original Avatar, alongside James Horner, and Avatar: The Way of Water. 

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Academy Award®-nominated composer Carter Burwell’s score for Searchlight Pictures’ The Banshees of Inisherin stands out as a separate character in this much buzzed about film, already an awards contender. Tune in to hear Carter personally detail the behind-the-scenes creation of the music, recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. Burwell worked closely with the film’s writer and director, Martin McDonagh, to bring his writing to life, incorporating Balinese gamelan instruments to create the light and dark sounds mirroring the story. The Banshees of Inisherin soundtrack marks Carter’s fourth pairing with McDonagh, previous collaborations include In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, as well as his Oscar-nominated score for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

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For composer, rapper, and singer Mato Wayuhi, the challenge to “redefine the definition of indigenous art” for the Hulu series Reservation Dogs was one he was more than ideally suited to take on. In this episode of The Big Score, the form USC film student from South Dakota talks about how his Oglala Lakota culture heavily influences the gritty sounds he creates to capture the thematic qualities of the show, how technology helped him construct zombie-esque sounds, how 90's hip hop inspired his rapping, and how he honors his father and the indigenous sounds of his culture with a deer hoof rattle.

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“This score blows!” according to its creator, EMMY® Award-winning and Academy® Award-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton who, in this episode of "The Big Score", is giving fans a look behind the inspiration for the score to 20th Century Studios’ film Amsterdam. Taking the cue from the film’s main characters, three unsung heroes who changed the course of history, Pemberton recalls how he turned to the “unsung heroes of the orchestra,” the woodwinds including flutes, clarinets, oboes, saxophones and bassoons to mirror the film’s optimism, lightness, emotion and humor. He also added crotales, drums and plucked piano strings to try and create a more unique and unusual sound palette for the score and reveals that there are some very personal moments within this score, alongside a good dose of mystery, adventure and intrigue and hopes that “people find it as intriguing a musical journey as the movie itself.”

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For Emmy-nominated composer, Amanda Jones, the challenge to create a sonic universe to match NatGeo’s Super/Natural series filled with the world’s most extraordinary animals, was a welcome one. For this score which she describes as “percussive heavy, very organic, guttural and raw, and a little bit weird,” Amanda details how she utilized a vast array of instruments including Afro Venezuelan and Afro Columbian percussion, wooden flutes, acoustic guitar, violin, congas and a ukulele, to bring a spectacular universe of animals to life. The Vassar and Berklee College of Music grad’s innovative and experimental approach to creating music, manipulating and stretching the tone and sounds of each instrument, was key to creating a musical narration for everything -- from flying squirrels to elephants. She even made spiders sexy, tune in now to find out how.

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In this episode of "The Big Score", we go behind the scenes of Onyx Collective’s first scripted series Reasonable Doubt with composers Adrian Younge of Jazz is Dead and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest. In this exclusive behind the scenes look at how the music, Adrian & Ali detail their creative process, enduring friendship and what it was like working with series creator Raamla Mohamed. The composer duo touch on how their unique musical journey’s prepared them for this experience and why it was important to explore an eclectic mix of genres, from hip-hop, jazz and soul for their score.

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In this episode, husband and wife composing team, Drum & Lace (aka Sofia Hultquist) and Ian Hultquist pull back the curtain on how they created a score for Rosaline, a fresh and comedic twist on Shakespeare’s classic love story Romeo & Juliet, that compositionally feels modern but uses a mix of instrumentation from the film's period including harpsichord, lute, wooden flutes, renaissance drums and more. Notes the pair,“One of the most interesting, challenging, and fun parts of working on the film was integrating traditional instruments of the time, into a score with a pop-sensibility. Learning how to write and arrange for these instruments and making them work alongside harps and synths, was exhilarating and was furthered when we had a chance to cover a few iconic pop songs with our Renaissance ensemble.”

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Academy Award®-nominated composer Carter Burwell’s score for Searchlight Pictures’ The Banshees of Inisherin stands out as a separate character in this much buzzed about film, already an awards contender. Tune in to hear Carter personally detail the behind-the-scenes creation of the music, recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. Burwell worked closely with the film’s writer and director, Martin McDonagh, to bring his writing to life, incorporating Balinese gamelan instruments to create the light and dark sounds mirroring the story. The Banshees of Inisherin soundtrack marks Carter’s fourth pairing with McDonagh, previous collaborations include In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, as well as his Oscar-nominated score for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

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Peel back the many layers of creativity from EMMY Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated composer, Daniel Pemberton, as he describes how he reimagined the sounds of the 50’s but in very unconventional ways to create the score for murder-mystery film, See How They Run, based in 1950’s London. Pemberton pulled out all the stops in creating the sounds of the era without being too literal. Incorporated into the 70-piece orchestra are vintage banjoes, interesting drum and rhythmic textures, and even his glass water bottle and a metal stick. Also featured in the score is the iconic Mrs. Mills piano housed at Abbey Road Studios and famously known as the piano in the Beatles’ Lady Madonna, Penny Lane and With A Little Help From My Friends to bring in a vaudeville, honky tonk sound.

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Go behind the scenes with composer Pierre-Philippe Cote (a.k.a. Pilou) as he discusses his inspiration for the soundtrack to Hulu’s NOT OKAY, a social media satire that exposes opposite ends of the moral spectrum of internet fame. Starring Zoey Deutch as an aimless aspiring writer with no friends, no romantic prospects, and — worst of all — no followers, who fakes an Instagram-friendly trip to Paris in the hopes of boosting her social media clout. But it’s only a matter of time before the facade cracks, and she learns the hard way that the Internet loves a takedown

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