Hello again! I decided to combine Episodes 3 & 4 into one blog post this time. It was convenient, both cues have some similarities musically….. Um, OK, yes, I got behind in my blogging schedule & had to catch up by doing a 2 for 1. You caught me. Good job, Sherlock…..
The cue I’ve chosen for Episode 3 – “Food Glorious Food” is entitled “Steak Out”. Oh yes, I’m such a clever wordsmith aren’t I? Smirk away, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a pretty goofy play on words which will make slightly more sense if you watch the episode, though no less cringeworthy, but hey, I have to come up with this music as fast as I can and usually name these cues with whatever comes to mind at the time, usually something that makes a connection to either the scene or a key section of dialog which makes identifying it in a discussion with my director easier. It’s always easier to say “Hey, let’s do a variation of the ‘Man Bites Dog’ cue from episode 3″ than to say “let’s re-use 3M54, remember that one?”
Anyway, I want you to watch the show, so I won’t give away too much. Suffice to say that the scene is a “cat & mouse” type of thing where our main character escapes his confines and the hapless agent who is assigned to guard him must now figure out where he has gone in order to find and re-apprehend him. Since a lot of this show encompasses both comedic and dramatic aspects, often in the same scene, the challenge was to come up with “chase” music that sounded like chase music but didn’t sound overly dramatic or heavy. Listen to the cue and then hear it in context and see what you think. This particular scene happens roughly about 3 mins and 40 seconds into the episode.
Ok, for Episode 4- “Rehythm”, I have chosen a cue that I am quite fond of. In the scene where you will hear this cue, Agent David Killjoy & Zhon have a confrontation that starts out playful & is rather funny but quickly turns quite tense & dark.
If you’ve been watching the show (you have been watching, right?), you may have noticed that Agent Killjoy is a bit uptight, stiff, by the book, almost robot like at times. At least that’s the way I saw him and in this cue my goal was to come up with something that gives you the idea that this guys circuitry is melting inside his head as he paces back & forth up to the point where he explodes and shouts “What are you really doing here, Zhon?!” So, you may notice that the music leading up to that point is kind of robotic, yet frenetic, my attempt to create the musical equivalent of electronic overload. Did it work? I hope so, you decide. I know my brain felt a bit fried after working on music for an entire day…. You can see and hear the episode in context here.
In case, you missed the hyperlinks above or actually made it all the way through my blog post and now want to see what I’m talking about, you can click this hyperlink to watch the whole series of Zhon: The Alien Interviews
