Days in the Life of a Film Composer

Fantastic Fest 2011 is over. I have to admit this was probably the best all-around Fantastic Fest I have ever attended (and I've been to all of them except the first one which only lasted a weekend). I saw seventeen films and they were all enjoyable. There has always been at least one or two films that were total stinkers but I didn't see a single one this year. That's an amazing ratio for a film festival! 100% satisfaction. You can't get that at SXSW, or Austin Film Festival, or any other festival in the country. That's why I keep coming back year after year.

I wanted to write up each day as I traditionally have in the past but I'm way to busy to spend that much time on it so I'm just going to do a single recap of my week. Here are the films that I saw at Fantastic Fest 2011 and the country which they originated.

HAUNTERS (2010, South Korea)
THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II: FULL SEQUENCE (2011, Netherlands)
HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981, Italy)
JUAN OF THE DEAD (2011, Cuba)
NEW KIDS TURBO (2010, The Netherlands)
AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981, USA - with Rick Baker in attendance)
THE DAY (2011, USA)
YOU'RE NEXT (2011, USA)
TAKE SHELTER (2011, USA)
KARATE ROBO ZABORGAR (2011, Japan)
A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI (2011, Japan)
ELITE SQUAD II: THE ENEMY WITHIN (2011, Brazil)
EXTRATERRESTRIAL (2011, Spain)
SNOWTOWN (2011, Australia)
A LONELY PLACE TO DIE (2011, UK)
COMIC-CON IV: A NEW HOPE (2011, USA)
THE INNKEEPERS (2011, USA)

My absolute favorite film of the festival was A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI. As a matter of fact, it is my favorite film of the entire year thus far and I doubt I'll see a better one. It's rare I love a film as much as I did this one. I walked out of the theater beaming with utter delight. My other favorites of the fest were JUAN OF THE DEAD, NEW KIDS TURBO and THE INNKEEPERS. My least favorite of the bunch was HUMAN CENTIPEDE II. Definitely not my kind of film but the black and white cinematography was flat-out awesome and Laurence R. Harvey who played Martin was amazing. These two elements alone were enough to keep it in the "I liked it" column.

Another highlight of the festival was the AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON screening with Rick Baker live in person. The print looked fantastic and Rick Baker gave a stellar Q&A afterwards. Also in attendance was famed Mondo poster artist Olly Moss who unveiled his new poster for the film which everyone in the audience received a copy of. I got mine signed by Rick Baker after the screening. This will be immediately framed and put up on the wall in my studio.

This year I got to hang out with Eugenio Mira from Spain who directed one of my favorite films from Fantastic Fest last year. It was called AGNOSIA (2010) and also featured one of my favorite scores of the year as well which Eugenio also composed. He and I got to geek out about film music and talk about all our greatest Fantastic Fest memories. During the closing night party we even jammed together on a beat-up white upright piano in one of the rooms at the American Legion.

This year featured such an eclectic mix of films from so many different countries. That's part of what makes FF the greatest festival in the world. I'm not sure yet if I'll be going next year but I'm desperately wishing that I will. With so many friends, movies, food, conversations, and memories it would be a shame to miss out next year.

I'm already counting down the days...

I'm taking time out of my busy schedule to indulge myself in what is always my favorite week of the year. I've been attending Fantastic Fest religiously since the second year (I was out of town the first year it was held). It's my favorite film festival in the world and I'm primed and ready to go! It's also one of the few times I just let loose and blog about something else other than my career. It's nice to wax poetic about the films I encounter at Fantastic Fest. Many of them I'll never have the opportunity to see again.

I've already got my tickets for tomorrow's opening day of films. I'll be lucky if I can see twenty films. I just can't do all day every day like a few of my friends will be doing. I'll do mostly week nights and try to fill up my entire weekend if I can. That usually gets me around the 18-20 mark. The wild card in this equation is that I'm still smack dab in the middle of scoring HOLLOW OAKS and need to continue making progress on that. I'm not too worried about it interfering. If I was, I wouldn't be going to that many films. Making movies ALWAYS has precedence over watching movies.

Tomorrow I start Fantastic Fest 2011 with Korean film called HAUNTERS (2011) at 5:45PM. Then I'll follow up with two more. I'll write about them all tomorrow. Hopefully this trio of films I've selected will kick off the fest with an explosion. I can't wait!

Here is the official trailer for HOLLOW OAKS (2011). They used my music from CELL which I think works pretty well (even though the actual score will be radially different).

After composing scores for five feature documentaries in the past two years I was ripe for a narrative. There's an inherent sense of caution one wields when scoring documentaries. Of course there are exceptions; however, all the films I have scored recently could be characterized this way. Scoring docs presents unique challenges over narratives that I relish. It was just time for something different to cleanse the palette.

Enter HOLLOW OAKS (2011). This film couldn't have come at a better time in my career. First of all, it's a narrative which is just what the doctor ordered. Furthermore, I'm being allowed to think outside-the-box with this one...way outside-the-box. My initial ideas for this score came while I was reading the script last month. I'm always hesitant to subscribe to compositional ideas from reading a script because the film could be drastically different making whatever ideas you have obsolete. After I saw the first cut a few weeks ago I started to think that these fledgling ideas could actually work.

As far as I know, nobody has attempted a legitimate 12-tone score for a dramatic narrative film. I know Jerry Goldsmith often incorporated atonal elements in his scores and David Shire composed the main title for THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1974) using a tone row but it wasn't strict 12-tone composition. I haven't composed too many pieces in my life incorporating this unique technique made famous by Arnold Schoenberg; however, I'm a rabid admirer of his music.

Something about this story and the film itself really encouraged me to go down this path. I know there's a reason nobody composes 12-tone music for films. It's woefully inaccessible...which seemed just perfect for this film. When I presented the idea to Everett he completely freaked out! He loved the idea. I kept warning him, "Are you sure? This is music that is not easily accessible," but he assured me he loved the idea. I guess that's because I kept reassuring him I was confident I could make it work and that it was totally appropriate to attempt it.

I'm just about ready to start writing. My assistant Nate is prepping all the Logic files and documenting all my timings so as soon as he is finished I'll be ready to start composing. I've worked out my tone row and experimented with it against picture. So far, I still think it's going to work...and it will be very cool.

I think the trick will be to balance the atonal melodies and harmonies with exaggeratedly simplistic elements. The tempo for each cue will be significantly slow and the textures transparently thin. I've decided that it's going to be primarily solo piano supported with sustained textures from atmospheric MIDI tracks and perhaps a solo cello or other stringed instrument. I've constructed my tone row to offer me hints of traditional functional harmony as the narrative requires. It consists of four cellular motifs comprised of three notes each. Here is the tone row matrix:

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You can see the top row from left to right (P0) states the principal tone row with each transposition listed in the rows beneath. The matrix also reveals the inversion, retrograde, and retrograde-inversion of each tone row. I haven't started composing the actual cues yet so this may be fine tuned or even rewritten if necessary. I want to keep it simple and use it consistently throughout the score. I don't want multiple rows screwing up the timbres that I'll try so earnestly to make familiar as the film progresses. For now, I like the aural qualities of the row and it's functional breakdown. The first three notes outlines a diminished chord, the next three notes a major chord, the next three notes suggests a whole-tone scale, and the last three notes a minor chord. This is my "swiss-army knife".

The score will be "architectural" in nature. It will have a constructed sound yet it'll be dramatic and emotional in ways truly unique to the 12-tone technique. I don't know yet if this will work for general audiences but I'm working for a great director who's daring enough to commit to it. It's going to be a blast working on it and documenting my progress along the way. I don't have all the answers yet but each day will provide me with new discoveries propelling me deeper into my craft.

Here is the poster for HOLLOW OAKS that's being used for the film catalog at AFM. I just wrapped up the spotting notes last night and starting to prep all my Logic files for each cue. I may have found a pianist to record the score as well. Things are moving right along. It should be a fun 4-5 weeks...

click to enlarge

Last month Randall Larsen wrote about my score for SUSHI: THE GLOBAL CATCH (2011) in his monthly Soundtrax column for Buysoundtrax.com. Randall is a very prominent name in the film music journalism world and is a writer I've respected for several years. I still haven't had a huge amount of specific attention paid to my scores, especially outside of the context of the film. This is strictly a review of the music, not the film. It's always a little scary to begin reading one of those but I have to say, so far I haven't had any bad experiences. Even Randall seemed to like it well enough so I'm very pleased.

Here's the review. You can also click here to read the review in context of the rest of his column.

Brian Satterwhite’s score for this documentary about the worldwide Sushi industry (Special Jury Award Winner at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival) is available for download on iTunes and Amazon. The score is a nicely textured composition somewhat in the style of Thomas Newman, for want of a better term, in its use of percolating beats and rhythms, but it nicely evokes colorful wharfs, chopped aromatic fish and diverse languages spoken amidst the crowds of sellers and customers alike. Satterwhite gives the music a breezy appeal through his keyboards and light percussive elements; most of the music adopts this sensibility, lending a sonic color behind narration and interviews. The album allows the score to shine on its own, and it makes for a very pleasing listen.

Thanks Randall!