Last weekend I sat down to watch TREMORS again (super fun movie), and while watching it I remembered that while Ernest Troost was credited with composing the score, Robert Folk wrote a good portion of the music. Does anyone know the story of how this came to be? Was it a studio/producer/director decision to replace some of the music, or a Trevor Jones-like decision by Troost to leave the picture be? I'd assume the answer is your run-of-the-mill Hollywood composer shuffling, but I have no idea. Just curious.
Oh man, I remember there was an article/interview in an old FSM or Music from the Movies or whatever that told the entire story behind this score. Anyone remember which issue?
Last weekend I sat down to watch TREMORS again (super fun movie), and while watching it I remembered that while Ernest Troost was credited with composing the score, Robert Folk wrote a good portion of the music. Does anyone know the story of how this came to be? Was it a studio/producer/director decision to replace some of the music, or a Trevor Jones-like decision by Troost to leave the picture be? I'd assume the answer is your run-of-the-mill Hollywood composer shuffling, but I have no idea. Just curious.
Thanks much for any info.
Yeah I interviewed Robert Folk in MFTM and asked about the Tremors story. Basically Troost's score was going to be rejected in its entirety and Folk was brought on to re-score. But he wasn't given enough time to re-score the whole film. I think he managed about 20 plus minutes for some key action sequences and alternate theme (which turned up on the Intrada produced Folk Promo CD set). In the end they had to use some of Troost's score in the final film. Interestingly Folk declined the offer of an additional music/co-composer credit.
Also, TREMORS II turned out pretty good (the film I mean)... sequels after that were just too cheap to be worth watching.
I didn't see parts 3 or 4, but I agree that TREMORS II was a lot better than could be expected. (Phil Tippett Studios gets a lot of credit!) You just couldn't replace the chemistry between Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon.
Yeah I interviewed Robert Folk in MFTM and asked about the Tremors story. Basically Troost's score was going to be rejected in its entirety and Folk was brought on to re-score. But he wasn't given enough time to re-score the whole film. I think he managed about 20 plus minutes for some key action sequences and alternate theme (which turned up on the Intrada produced Folk Promo CD set). In the end they had to use some of Troost's score in the final film. Interestingly Folk declined the offer of an additional music/co-composer credit.
Thanks for your time in posting that, Gold Digger! That's an interesting story. I haven't heard Folk's suite, but from the sound of the music in the film, Troost's cues are the "twangy" bits throughout while Folk gets going with the more lively orchestral cues (at least the final action sequence).
I didn't see parts 3 or 4, but I agree that TREMORS II was a lot better than could be expected. (Phil Tippett Studios gets a lot of credit!) You just couldn't replace the chemistry between Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon.
Oh man, I remember there was an article/interview in an old FSM or Music from the Movies or whatever that told the entire story behind this score. Anyone remember which issue?
This is from Robert Folk interview:
"Q: You did a great monster movie score for TREMORS... Folk: That was a terrific film. I was re-scoring it. It had already been done [by Ernest Troost] and I was hired at the last minute. We had a fairly normal schedule when I started on my first day of working, but by my second day or working I got a phone call saying 'the release date's been moved up, write everything you can in one week!' So it's one of those scores that was written in a week, with a pile of orchestrators on board. We just replaced as much of the original music as we could. It think we ended up with about two thirds of the music in the film. I did not take credit on the film because there was an odd clause in the original composer's agreement and I didn't want a shared credit. A strange set of circumstances, but a terrific film to work on."
Interview by Randall D. Larson Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Sept 1997 and March 1998 issues
I have a CD-r with both Troost score (39 minutes)and Robert Folk compositions (17 minutes)! Perfect quality!
