On May 26th 1989 two strangers connect through crossed phone lines… ☎️
Come to the 2021 Newport Beach Film Festival to find out what happens...
Sunday October 24th @ 7:45pm
South Coast Village - Regency Theater
"HIM & HER" Ticket Link: https://nbff2021.eventive.org/films/614a9fb26265de0023ad0b11?fbclid=IwAR1FHLMJtln64_qsTKQhhTU7WME6o5muzrWEGH7320Ti8YG1H8G2bNmnGvk
So thrilled to announce that another film I scored during the pandemic, “HIM & HER”, is now set to world premiere later this month. This romance drama film about “connection” will hit you in all the “feels.” Promise. And there is a special surprise happening at this world premiere attendees won’t want to miss that I will share more about later.
HIM & HER will world premiere at the 2021 Newport Beach Film Festival on Sunday Oct 24th at 7:45 PM @ South Coast Village.
Tickets can now be purchased here:
https://nbff2021.eventive.org/films/614a9fb26265de0023ad0b11
Logline: Crossed phone lines in 1989 lead to a life changing conversation between two strangers, who eventually meet in an unusual way.
The film is directed by Íce Mrozek and produced by Independence Hall. A heartfelt thanks to you both for bringing me on board to such a special and unique film. My score to this film, completed before I began work on Silent River, is almost the antithesis of what I did for Silent River. Him & Her’s score being much more subtle, delicate, textural sound design score with a bit of an 80’s throwback. I am excited this will be released to the world at this premiere SoCal festival.
A small streaming preview of my Silent River score is embedded in the audio player below for your listening pleasure. I have presented here about 29 minutes of selected cues and themes out of my 1 hour, 20 minutes of total score from the film. This score’s style is a departure for me from my previous films. I really got a chance to explore a dark, atonal and textural side.
The film is described as a “beautifully realized and smartly written sci-fi tale is a haunting exploration of losing control and the journey back to normalcy. Led by command performances from West Liang and Amy Tsang, SILENT RIVER is a visually stunning and layered film that boldly challenges the idea of what is real and what is not.”
At times the score sounds like horror. A other times, beautiful and emotional. The film really gave me an opportunity to stretch. I am also very excited that we were able to record the score in Los Angeles with some wonderful featured solo AFM musicians like Phil O’Conner on clarinet / bass-clarinet and Andrew Duckles on Viola who both really infused their talents on their instruments into the heart of the score. Enjoy!
SILENT RIVER posters for the up coming world premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.
General public tickets go on sale on 9/13 at the link below:
Writer/Director Chris Chan Lee’s SILENT RIVER will world premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival IN THEATER on Sept 25th, 2021 at the Regal LA Live Theaters, 4:30pm. (Note: In person attendees to the festival must be vaccinated). Chris’s 1997 film YELLOW shook the Hollywood norm and broke barriers for Asian American cinema, paving the way for many others to follow since. Chris is truly a rock star. I am so honored to be collaborating with Chris on his third highly anticipated directed film.
“Chris Chan Lee’s beautifully realized and smartly written sci-fi tale is a haunting exploration of losing control and the journey back to normalcy. Led by command performances from West Liang and Amy Tsang, SILENT RIVER is a visually stunning and layered film that boldly challenges the idea of what is real and what is not. Don’t miss the World Premiere of Lee’s latest, an awe inspiring film which will dazzle on the big screen. ”
Ticket purchasing info and other details on the world premiere as well as other festival screenings coming up this Fall all be announced soon. I am very proud of my score to Silent River. I wrote almost 1hr, 20min of score for the film that was recorded here in Los Angeles with some wonderful AFM studio musicians who brought some amazing talents to the music. Some of which I have chronicled in previous posts on my website here.
Hope to see folks at Regal LA LIVE on Sat. Sept 25th at 4:30 pm!
My upcoming Silent River score is very different for me and a departure from many of my last scores. No Being Rose country here. A lot more experimentation and invention of sounds at the root of this score. A lot of these sounds started as samples taken from Emil Richard's well worn Pianotron that now resides up at L.A. Percussion & Backline Rentals. Many of those sounds in the score were subsequently manipulated, stretched, and crafted into textures and sounds I could then use throughout the film cues. I talked about that Pianotron recording session here last July.
In additional to all of that, I also used a Leaf Audio Microphonic Sounbox mkII. There is a mechanical nature to these sounds and that was my intent. To blend those machine like sounds with the more human characters of the film, I also hired a couple of the best soloists I could find to feature with Phil O'Conner on clarinet and bass clarinet and Andrew Duckles on viola. The end result is a score on the darker side for this atypical Sci-Fi drama that I can't wait for you all out there to see it come together. In the mean time, with the director's blessing, here is one little snippet of the score's result combined with what it looks like when I blindly stare at the mixing board creating my stems...trying to not have any audio peaks. Think of it like a screen saver with music.
Simply put….wow! Extremely honored and thankful to the Hollywood Music in Media Awards awards for presenting to me tonight the award for Best Contemporary Classical music for my Lord Of The Rings inspired music suite called “I Think I’m Quite ready For Another Adventure.” Major Congratulations to the other nominees and all the winners tonight! So much talent world wide in the category.
A heartfelt thank you to the folks on my music team, orchestrator Ryan Humphrey, Mixer Lisa K. Fowle (not on facebook), contractor Noah Gladstone at Hollywood Scoring, recording engineer Adam Michalak, copyist Tran Thanh, Landon Donoho on video, solo soprano vocalist Karen Hogle Brown and of course the amazing AFM musicians who brought it all to life right here in LA. (Phil O'Connor, Stephanie O'Keefe, Dylan Skye Hart, Rob Schaer, Chris Bleth, Armen Ksajikian, Mark Robertson, Michael Valerio, Geoff Osika, Amy Tatum, Adam Bhatia, Mark Miller, Corinne Sobolewski, Mei Chang, Rodney Wirtz, Jacqueline Brand, Joo Lee, Nicholas Daley, Aaron Oltman and many others....). And of course to my wife Heather and daughter Madison for the endless cheers and support.
Honored to be nominated for the suite of music I composed called “I think I’m Quite Ready For Another Adventure”, inspired by J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord Of The Rings Series in The Hollywood Media Music Awards contemporary classical / Instrumental category.
If anyone has not had a chance to hear it yet. It can be found linked here or in the Music dropdown menu of this website.
Some pics from the Pianotron recording session this past weekend. (A pianotron is basically the guts of an upright piano, taken out of its shell and performed in a percussive, exploitative way. It is often old, creaky and out of tune leading to some unique and unexpected sounds. There is also no keyboard to play the strings any more.) This particular pianotron once belonged to famed LA studio percussionist Emil Richards (see link) and I am extremely honored I had the opportunity to use it and capture its sounds for this new score. I am looking forward to taking the recordings we recorded and transforming them into some lush, unique and dark sonic landscapes and textures that will ultimately be the foundation of Chris Chan Lee’s new film.
My last film is still (for strategic reasons of the filmmakers) not something I can talk about just yet…but it should be having its film festival premiere sometime soon. And once that happens, I will be more in a position to discuss it rather unique story. But this week I am starting to get into a new film by director Chris Chan Lee (title to be announced). Chris was the editor of the film JASMINE, that was directed by a good friend of mine Dax Phelan. This is not the first time Chris Chan Lee has been in the director seat. This will be his 4th time in the director seat following his debut called Yellow in 1997 and then Undoing in 2006.
This new film is a unique and dark film that is going to give me an opportunity to explore a music score I have never done for a commercial project before. We are already talking about unique approaches and instruments in our score including a Microphonic Soundbox like the one pictured to the right..and incorporating a Pianotron, which is basically the guts of an upright piano opened up and open to percussive explorations. Needless to say…there are going to be few to no “rules” on this score as we explore an otherworldly approach to the music and soundscape for the film. I look forward to seeing everyone on the other side of it. Till then…..cheers!
Microphone Soundbox mkII (Leaf Audio)
Pianotron (Piano Guts)
AB5 is an overly broad and terrible CA law that went into effect January 1, 2020 which attempts to make it much harder for independent contractor businesses to operate in the state of California. It is a complicated mess to be sure, but the end result will be less musicians will be hired for independent film work in California and production companies will just go out of the state or country to record their music. And that is a tragedy for the arts in California. I have been rather vocal about this. This story was one of those times.
My thoughts on 2020 ahead and a video. Many things to reflect on both amazing and sad. Especially the death of my mom just one month ago. But one 2019 demo project in particular that I am very proud of despite the obvious hurdles it involved I will share below.
****Demo submitted for Amazon Prime's Lord Of the Rings TV show.****
Months ago in mid 2019, I recorded and submitted this demo suite of themes and score music to friends & colleagues of mine who are the showrunners for Amazon's Lord Of The Rings series to be considered to be their composer for the show. I knew the political stakes were/are high for the "composer hire" on a show of this budget and stature and I am very grateful and blessed for the opportunity that my music was able to be submitted and listened to by the showrunners. I received a very nice and encouraging letter from one of the showrunners that reiterated that sometimes it is the projects that we do not get that prove to be more important in advancing our careers forward in the long run. I could not agree more and this is ultimately why I am choosing to publicly share my music with the world.
So while I now know that I will not be the composer on the show, and I debated myself over the last few months about whether I would even make the music I wrote for them public, I ultimately decided that I was proud enough and honored to have worked with the amazing AFM Local 47 musicians in Los Angeles on this demo, I felt it should be out there in the world and not lost to the trunk of unused demos.
The team I assembled to produce this demo package was the best of the best in Hollywood. Many thanks to Noah Gladstone, Adam Michalak and the team at Hollywood Scoring, my dear colleague Lisa K. Fowle (not on facebook) for her wonderful mix, my orchestrator and teammate Ryan Humphrey. Landon Donoho for the wonderful imagery and video edit. And of course all the amazing Local 47 players in the orchestra, including concert master Mark Robertson, soloists Phil O'Connor, Dylan Skye Hart, Rob Schaer, Chris Bleth and LA Master Chorale soprano vocalist Karen Hogle Brown.
Instead of releasing it here as a retrospective to my work in 2019, I felt it should instead be released on January 1, 2020, symbolic of the beginning of a new chapter and outlook going forward this year in hopes that I will manifest something out of this score demo suite. Ultimately now...I own and control all of the music, themes, arrangements and orchestrations performed in this video and if the right project comes along...(oh say....maybe an other-worldly epic fantasy adventure with dragons and swords)...it could be theirs for their show. But till then...please enjoy!
P.S. There is also a Reelcrafter page where audio from the entire suite can be downloaded here: https://rcrft.co/reel/BrianRalston/LOTRSuite
The official website of film and TV composer. Features biography, projects, news / updates blog and contact information. Brian Ralston is a Los Angeles based film/TV composer of such films as Crooked Arrows (20th Century Fox) , Graduation (Magnolia Pictures), Don't Fade Away and 9/Tenths Of The Law.
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