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Posted: |
Oct 18, 2010 - 12:16 PM
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By: |
DS
(Member)
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This is a beautiful symphonic score for full orchestra, composed by Paul Gilreath (http://www.paulgilreath.com/) with some duties handled by Suzie Katayama (http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/artist-detail.cfm?id=3317) for the American release of Roland Emmerich's film "Making Contact." The film itself is a weird, overt hybrid of "Poltergeist," "E.T.," and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," while also borrowing elements from various "Twilight Zone" episodes ("Long Distance Call" and "The Dummy"). The original 1984 German cut of the film featured an electronic score by Hubert Bartholomae, but when imported a year later to the U.S. by New World Pictures an entire twenty minutes were cut from the film and Gilreath was commissioned to write an orchestral score. What Gilreath came up with (very much in the vein of Williams and Goldsmith & the great symphonic scores of the eighties) is better (in my opinion) than 90% of what we're getting from Hollywood composers today. It sounds so big, thematic, and fresh to me in this current climate of film music. Nobody is writing scores like this anymore. I would love a release (official/promo) of this music.
Here is the final 30 seconds of the film and the complete three minute End Credits, which will give you a good idea of what the entire score is like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2MoaX6jnNI
A very nicely scored dramatic scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_OHU5vaGuI
And this is the TV spot, with Gilreath's music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGrFEQNsHq0
Anybody else remember this crazy film and neat score? Anybody know what orchestra performed the music?
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I remember this film but never saw it nor heard any of the music until now. All I can say is those sound clips were simply wonderful - very Williams/Goldsmith/Horner-esque. I would definitely support a soundtrack release if one ever came about. And yea, you can include me in as one who misses this type of music very, very much. Tthey jus don't score 'em like they used to. 
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Yeah, of all the labels it seems Intrada would be the most likely. BSX has done some obscure 80's gems as well.
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Yes, Intrada has released Def-Con 4 and Angel.
BSX just recently did The Philadelphia Experiment as well.
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I put up a suite of score ripped from the film on Youtube, and he left a message last year:
Just saw some of the comments here. I wrote the score to the US release for Making Contact... I was a kid at just 23 years old. Ah, listening to this brings back memories. The company that released the US version wanted an orchestral score as compared to the electronic score that was originally used for the German version. This was the first orchestral score I did and it was a work in exploration... and by that I mean, I was exploring how the hell to write a score. I had written a couple of other electronic scores, but this was the first feature length orchestral one. I wrote non stop for 3 weeks, night and day. Did all the orchestrations myself. Then had 6 copiest over to my apartment for 2 days writing out the parts, then proofing them. I conducted the session, which was done in 7 hours. It was supposed to be a 5 hour recording (that was what we had budgeted) and we had to record almost 80 minutes of music! I remember that I called New World at the end of 5 hours with still 20 minutes of music to record to ask for another $2500 to pay the musicians to do another hour. The musicians ended up giving me an hour for free because they loved the score and wanted to help the newbie. One of the most wonderful days of my life and something I'll always remember even at 52 years old dentist in Atlanta now... Thanks for listening to my rant.
PG
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I guess there's a rights and/or tapes issue; I can't imagine this not being on CD by now simply because nobody cares.
It's kind of like "when Eight Bells Toll" -- WTF is the hold up?
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