I can’t quite believe it’s been twenty years since the great Jerry Goldsmith left us. His music has been part of my life for most of my life – still today, rarely a day goes by that I don’t listen to at least some of it. We all have different reasons for liking film music – for some, it’s a musical reminder of a beloved film; for some, it’s a place where you can find great tunes, great melodies; for others, it’s (for the most obvious reason) the most viscerally visual form of music, constructed in a way that allows the listener to either recall a particular film in a particular way, or better still create their own interpretation of it; and there are many other reasons besides. Goldsmith, uniquely, did all of it – just the perfect blend of the European style of encapsulating a film or key moments of a film with an idea or a theme with the Hollywood style of creating a musical journey from one moment to another.

He rose to prominence when composers like Herrmann, Rosenman, Bernstein and North had already begun changing film music away from its seminal romantic classical form into something different, and took their ideas and launched them into the stratosphere – taking the idea that the absence of music can be as powerful as the presence of it, absorbing ideas from classical masters like Bartok and Ravel as much as his film music heroes Waxman and Rózsa (and his great friend and idol North), blending this into the most phenomenal technique.

He could do everything – I don’t think there’s ever been another Hollywood composer who could so naturally drift from serious drama to action thrills to romance or comedy. While outside of the core niche who appreciate his breadth he may be best-known for his music for science fiction or other futuristic movies – whether Planet of the Apes, Alien, the Star Trek movies, it’s not hard to know why – he himself was always most proud of his more personal music – anyone who asked him what his own favourite thing he’d written was got told it was Islands in the Stream, his exquisite and deeply personal music for Franklin Schaffner’s Hemingway adaptation – until the 1990s that is, when his answer changed to Rudy.

In the ten years from 1974 to 1983, he did the most extraordinary roster of wide-ranging scores, including Chinatown (which created the “film noir sound” still in use today), The Wind and the Lion (which features perhaps the single most thrilling piece of film music ever created, “Raisuli Attacks”), The Omen (which created the choral “horror movie sound” still in use today), Capricorn One (which served as the template for most action scores for a good couple of decades), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (the most dazzlingly beautiful symphonic interpretation of Roddenberry’s vision of the future), Alien (haunting, scary, beautiful), Poltergeist (the third horror movie I’ve mentioned and the scores are all exceptional and all completely and utterly different from one another), The Final Conflict (the best music ever written for a bad movie), First Blood (another action masterpiece, but it’s the way he single-handedly brought humanity to a character who would otherwise have just not worked that makes it stand out) and the utterly astonishing Under Fire (has there ever been a greater “ethnic” film score? – no, there hasn’t). And in between all these there are literally dozens of other scores which, had they been penned by anyone else, would be lauded as masterpieces.

I mentioned The Final Conflict as being the best music ever written for a bad movie – and while it’s sa

We Were the Lucky Ones tells the story of the Kurc family during the second world war. Until it began they lived in the Polish city of Radom, but following Hitler’s invasion some went into hiding, some were taken to concentration camps and others flew to distant corners of the world. The score is jointly credited to Rachel Portman and Jon Ehrlich with no indication of the division of labour – but there is no doubting who was responsible for the main theme, which is nothing short of magnificent.

Few can write a tune like Portman and this one is a seemingly effortless mixture of effervescence and tragedy – such a difficult mixture to pull off, I imagine its creation was in fact anything but effortless. It is genuinely exceptional, and yes it sounds like various creations from the past works of the composer but that’s the hallmark of a truly distinct and individual voice. The score’s highlights are generally when it appears but elsewhere there are scondary themes, typically for solo piano, and typically very touching and with Portman’s trademark deft touch. Inevitably there are darker moments too which provide the album with a nice balance which help to sustain its long run time. Highly recommended.

Even though Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem was necessarily dumbed down somewhat for its tv adaptation (as wonderful as it is, it does occasionally read more like a physics textbook) it was still made in a way that could have supported a great score. The direct allegory of the novel to Chinese social issues is lost in translation to the screen as the setting of the modern-day segments are shifted to allow more western characters, but there’s still stuff going on under the surface of the story that would have allowed a smart and deep score which could have combined these personal moments with the broad science fiction scope of the underlying narrative.

Unfortunately it didn’t get that. Instead Ramin Djawadi’s score is entirely surface-level, missing all the opportunities the project provided to him (whether this is his fault or the showrunners’, of course I have no idea). The main title piece is the highlight, a jittery and (by design) disorientating little piece with rhythmic cells being constructed then deconstructed over its brief run time. Sadly the rest of the score is just standard modern thriller material, an array of electronically-realised industrial sounds generally drowning out the orchestra with nary a tune in sight. Avoiding any attempt to create any emotional bonds between the characters (or between them and the audience) it’s just musical wallpaper, even the big sci-fi moments reduced in scope by the music. It’s such a dull album, and within the show feels like a big missed opportunity.

Djawadi fares a little (but only a little) better in his other big show released at the same time, Fallout, based on the post-apocalyptic video game series. While it’s not The Last Of Us by any means, I found it to be a reasonably entertaining show. Again the opportunity was there for a distinctive score and again it wasn’t really taken – the big mecha-warrior types, the cowboy/ghoul, the plucky young heroine, the mystery of the creation and leadership of the underground community – easy to see how these elements could have been given their own sounds with some overarching material linking everything together.

Instead it is mostly standard modern thriller material again, a bit grittier and more electronic than 3 Body Problem, but importantly with more of a sense of momen

Brazilian directors Eryk Rocha and Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha’s “The Falling Sky” delves into lives of the Amazonian Yanomami people, who live in the heart of the Amazon rainforest where they are contending with a harsh humanitarian crisis caused by the massive invasion of wildcat miners searching for gold and cassiterite, a mineral used in electronics. […]

 

The Best Shorts Competition is unique in the industry.  Attracting both powerhouse companies as well as talented new filmmakers, The Best Shorts is an exceptional, truly international awards competition, not a traditional film festival – which allows filmmakers from around the world to enter their films in this prestigious competition.

Established in 2011, Best Shorts is an avant-garde worldwide competition that strives to give talented directors, producers, actors, creative teams and new media creators the positive exposure they deserve. It discovers and honors the achievements of filmmakers who produce high quality shorts and new media.  

Our talented award winners have gone on to win Oscars, Emmys, Tellys and other awards.

Where our filmmakers are from:

The Best Shorts Competition puts filmmakers first and provides a direct opportunity for recognition and publicity for high quality films and documentaries. It is international in scope and has granted awards to producers in Australia, Bahrain, Bali, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Malta, Martinique, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States and more!

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The Best Shorts Competition is an excellent venue for films, documentaries, new and experimental media, television pilot programs, animation, educational programs, remixes & mashups, movie trailers, music videos, webisodes and tube length works. As long as the entry is 57 minutes or less, it is eligible for submission.

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Each year Best Shorts Competition receives thousands of entries. Quality and creativity are celebrated in five levels of awards: Best of Show, Outstnading Achievement, Award of Excellence, Award of Merit and Award of Recognition.

The judging takes place by in-house staff and a committee of industry professionals including Emmy, Telly and Communicator award nominees and recipients.

As with the Tellys and regional Emmy Awards, entries do not compete against each other. Instead, entries are judged against a high standard of merit and are scored accordingly. Judges score entries on a performance scale and winning entries are recognized and awarded as Outstnadning Achievement, Awards of Excellence, Awards of Merit, Award of Recognition or no award.

Best of Show honors are granted to the top scoring entry for each season.  Awards of Excellence are granted to entries with truly exceptional filmmaking.  Notable artistic and technical productions are recognized at the Award of Merit award level and Award of Recognition recognizes achievement in a specific category of entry.

No fixed number of awards are granted at any level but rather fluctuate based on the total number of entries received for each competition deadline.

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Each submission received through the Best Shorts Competition website or film portals will be contacted via electronic mail to confirm entry. Film portals such as Film Freeway will also be notifies through their system.

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While Heather Morris’s novelisation of the memoirs of Holocaust survivor Lale Sokolov has not been without its controversy (the Auschwitz Memorial Research Centre has criticised it for some factual inaccuracy), it is an extraordinary love story set against the backdrop of evil and I have found the tv adaptation to be harrowing and powerful. I think it is vitally important that these stories keep being told for generations to come.

Sokolov is played with sensitivity by Jonah Hauer-King – who looks uncannily like a young Mark Rylance – while the older version of him, portrayed passing on his memories to writer Morris, comes courtesy of an exceptional performance by Harvey Keitel. It is shocking – over and over, it is shocking – and yet contains moments of genuine human beauty whose contrast with mankind’s most shameful acts makes them seem all the more touching.

It can’t be at all easy for any composer to find the right tone for this sort of material – overdo any sentimentality and the criticism will flood in, go too hard on emphasising the beautiful moments and risk being accused of smoothing over the terror, treat it anything like a horror movie and then risk losing the small-scale triumph over adversity that ultimately is what plays out for specific characters while most of those around them are wiped out. The credited composers, Hans Zimmer and Kara Talve, both have personal connections to the time – Zimmer’s mother fled the Nazi regime shortly before the outbreak of the second world war, while Talve’s grandmother spent the war hiding with a piano teacher in France.

Poignantly, the very piano Talve’s grandmother used at that time is used in the score (it has a characterful, truly distinctive sound). Zimmer said of the approach to creating the music that he wanted to make it seem like an alien world – one that nobody would ever want to visit – and this lends it a very slightly detached feel which works very well indeed and avoids all the pitfalls mentioned previously.

The highlights however come in the scoring of those shimmers of light. The main theme, “Whatever It Takes”, underscores most of these in one form or another. Its simple, unmistakably Hebraic central melody is affecting – whether heard on solo violin, cello, the old piano and even in a vocal version by no less than Barbra Streisand it is powerful and direct. The other most powerful device in the score is a kind of (presumably) electronic chime which is used to horrifying effect to signify deaths – if you hear it out of context without having seen the show you may be tempted to think it is anachronistic, but it’s actually quite extraordinarily powerful in context – it appears throughout the score, and proves the notion that sometimes the most simple ideas are the best.

Necessarily – and obviously – the album can be an uncomfortable listen at times. “Not Long Now” is harrowing – the familiar violin transported to an instrument of terror, those chimes of death dotted hauntingly throughout. “I Will Find You” contrasts screeching violin with a calm cello as tragedy unfolds. But you need those moments – for the shimmers of light to appear so bright, they have to be there. The whole story has to be told, and Zimmer and Talve tell it so well. It is unflinching in its portrayal of evil, gently and entirely unsentimentally celebratory when it can portray beauty. It’s an impressive piece of work.

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54st International Film Festival Rotterdam 30 January – 9 February 2025     Researcher and filmmaker Sharine Rijsenburg will receive €20,000 towards the production of her Afrofuturistic project Bubbling Baby.   With IFFR 2025 confirmed to take place from Thursday 30 January to Sunday 9 February 2025, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) announces the winner of its latest RTM Pitch. Bubbling, a cultural movement fusing dance, rhythm and electronic music born out of Rotterdam’s Afro-Caribbean community in the 1990s, is the focus of a documentary project awarded a grant of €20,000 by International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) together with the municipality of Rotterdam. Researcher and filmmaker Sharine Rijsenburg will explore Bubbling culture as having both a deep imprint on the city’s identity whilst being simultaneously undervalued. As the winner of the RTM Pitch, the project will receive expert guidance and aims to premiere at IFFR 2025. Sharine Rijsenburg: “I started as a Young Selector at IFFR in 2019, and it feels like a dream to make my own film for the RTM programme now, five years later. For me, Bubbling Baby is a film about how we in Rotterdam, as a multicultural metropolis, celebrate, remember and appreciate our night culture. The Bubbling subculture shows a history that has helped shape Rotterdam’s identity, yet has remained invisible. With this fil Read more Interview With Composer Will Bates for Score of Michael Mohan’s IMMACULATE; Premiere at SXSW Interview With Composer Will Bates for Score of Michael Mohan’s IMMACULATE; Premiere at SXSW Rick W / Sunday, April 14, 2024 0 130 Composer Will Bates has composed original scores for a myriad of filmmakers including acclaimed directors Mike Cahill (Another Earth; I Origins; Bliss), Alex Gibney (We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks; Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief; Zero Days; The Forever Prisoner), Ry Russo-Young (You Won’t Miss Me; Nobody Walks) and Fisher Stevens (Mission Blue; Bright Lights).  Bates’ upcoming projects include Dark Sky Films’ Blackout, directed by Larry Fessenden and starring Marshall Bell, which hits theaters (limited run) on March 13th. Notable credits include Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money; FX’s Class of ’09; AMC+’s Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches; Dean Craig’s comedy film The Estate; Michael Mohan’s thriller The Voyeurs; Michael Tyburski’s drama film The Sound of Silence; Starz's Sweetbitter; and the drama/sci-fi series Away; Netflix’s Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated mini-series Unbelievable; and the thriller limited series Devil in Ohio; SyFy’s hit series The Magicians; the George R.R. Martin produced series Nightflyers; Hulu’s series The Path; Chance; and The Looming Tower; NBC’s Rise; and more. Bates’ recent score for Michael Mohan’s Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney, premiered at SXSW on Tuesday, March 12th and hit theaters on March 22nd. In an interview with Will Bates after the festival, here is what he had to say:   Can you tell us about your music background and what led you to film scoring? WILL: I’ve always wanted to be a film composer. I think I was about 6 or 7 when I sang the entire score of Star Wars to my parents one morning. And once I realized that one man was responsible for all the tunes I’d been humming in my head, I decided I wanted to be John Williams when I grew up. I started playing the saxophone and at about 12 or 13 I got very into jazz. I had a rethink and thought maybe I’d like to be Cannonball Adderley instead. With my buddy Quentin Collins, I started playing in jazz clubs and bars around London from the age of about 14, masquerading as an 18-year-old, wearing my dad’s oversized suits. Then I discovered electronic music and released some obscure dance music on tiny London labels. I later moved to New York and became the lead singer of an Indie Rock band called The Rinse. We toured the US, opened for some big bands, and had a record released in Japan. But generally, we somehow dodged success like skilled ninjas. But all through that time, my lingering first love of scoring remained. The only way I ever learnt to support myself was by scoring commercials, first in London, and fi Read more RSS Load last 9 article(s)Loading...