Soundtrack composer Alexandre Desplat

Composer Alexandre Desplat has a number of films running at the Cannes Film Festival 2012, notably “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Rust & Bone”. He has been called a worthy successor to the French masters of film music such as Delerue, Duhamel, Jarre and Legrand. His scores for “Read my Lips/Sur me slèvres” and “The Prophet” directed by Jacques Audiard established his credibility in French Cinema. He then went on to score “The Girl with the Pearl Earring”, “Birth” and “Syriana”.

His innovative voice launched Desplat as one of the most active European composers in Hollywood. He won a Cesar and the Berlinale Silver bear for his score to “The Beat my Heart Skipped” in 2006, the Golden Globe 2007 for “The Painted Veil” and received 3 nominations at the Oscars in 2007 for “The Queen”, in 2008 for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and in 2009 for “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”.

Desplat will be hosting a masterclass, dubbed “A Personal History of Film Music”, at 2.30pm in the Theatre Bunuel on May 19, 2012.

An article in the Harvard Crimson pointed to a project run by Berklee and the movie studio Paramount. The studio has undertaken a massive programme to tag a database of old soundtracks from the 20s onwards, with the goal of making them available for licensing. There are mountains of music out there that cannot practically be used, as they cannot be searched. By tagging old soundtracks, supervisors will be able to locate and cue music from a very rich library that includes scores from films such as Star Trek, Forrest Gump, Chinatown, Mission Impossible, Love Story, and Airplane from composers such as Elmer Berstein, Danny Elfman, Philip Glass, Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone and others.

The idea is certainly good from a logical point of view, and one I recently put to a popular TV series. Why let good music lie dormant when it could be earning money? But a question that bothers me is who will be earning? Was not lots of this music composed “for hire”?

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Berklee students open doors to Paramount’s archives – Boston Movie News | Examiner.com and The Crimson.

News that will surely interest music supervisors is that Harmonix Music Systems, makers of the “Rock Band” music video game franchise has been bought back with the support of an investment firm. Viacom Inc. announced that it has sold the company  to Harmonix-SBE Holdings LLC, an affiliate of Columbus Nova, LLC. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

A comment on the company site states, “We’re excited to be returning to our roots as an independent and privately owned studio. As for what it means for fans, the DLC schedule marches on for Rock Band, we will continue our support of previously released titles, and we’re hard at work on some unannounced projects.”

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EMI Publishing has announced that it’s not going to be making its catalogue available at the new audio streaming rates for websites, that were recently published by the UK collection society PRS for Music. PRS recently cut its minimum stream rates from 0.22p to 0.085p last month, in a move that was intended to ease relationships with digital sites and YouTube in particular.

“We are not currently satisfied that the new rates – in particular the minima – proposed by PRS for Music for streaming services are appropriate”, said EMI Music Publishing’s general counsel for Europe Antony Bebawi.

In practical terms, this means that the company will itself adminster streaming services. It is regrettable that EMI Publishing and PRS did not come to a joint decision about rates. But on the other hand, the fact that digital companies were created on unrealistic rates is not really a valid argument for demanding reductions.

Award-winning Canadian composer Michael McCann has signed to music publisher Licence To Thrill. McCann’s credits include Deutsch Inc., Fox, MTV, Ogilvy & Mather, NBC, Alliance Atlantis and Ubisoft. He has created music for US branding spots, (BP, The Gap / Old Navy); title music for multiple television series including ReGenesis (nominated for Best TV Theme at the Hollywood Music Awards); film and videogame trailers (Tom Clancy’s EndWar, The Law of Enclosures); full game scores (including his award-winning music to Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent). Licence To Thrill provides music for brand owners’ campaigns and interactive marketing.

Actually, there is more to this story than moving house. The “cute” US indie band Oh Darling were licensed into a VW ad and also have a cut on the upcoming “”Road Trip 2″, called “Colorful Day”. They are currently playing a number of dates to coincide with their move to Los Angeles, as well as giving away music on their website. We are often asked what sort of music is used in ads. As you’ll see, the music is not extraordinarily innovative (no offence). Significantly in this case, it’s also instrumental.

Incidentally, they say they are “heading south to the land of palm tress and entertainment for a chance to score a record deal and make it big”. That sounds like a sweet old-fashioend notion in this day and age!

Click through to see the ad, get their concert dates and get the free track.
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