Jeff Rona: One Of The Best Composers In Hollywood

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Most of you haven’t heard of Jeff Rona, and it’s not so surprising. he has been ‘hiding’ in the shadows of the more known composers for a while now. As part of Hans Zimmer’s company Media Ventures, he has learned from the best, but unlike many others in Hans Zimmer’s school of film scoring, this guy is special, and follow his own style. I would describe him as the male Lisa Gerrard, a mix between Harry Gregson-Williams, Mark Isham and John Murphy.

He has been composing for 15 years, doingall sorts of things, mostly TV series (Chicago Hope, Profiler) and documentaries like Sharkwater. I have 3 soundtracks with Jeff Rona and believe me when I say I will get more. Please listen to one of his soundtracks called Slow Burn, a movie starring Ray Liotta: Listen here!

Earthsea by Jeff Rona

This is the first album I heard of Jeff Rona. It’s a Scifi Channel mini series from 2004 which wasn’t a great success. I kind of enjoyed Earthsea though. When I got hold of the music recently I was overwhelmed. Jeff Rona’s imagination is a beautiful thing as he uses ethnic voices to great effect and the strings go from light to powerful perfection. He doesn’t stop there and present us with oboe and the flute in a way that really captures the imagination. Even if you haven’t seen Earthsea, there is enough for everyone to be full and happy after hearing this.

Traffic The Miniseries by Jeff Rona

Traffic the miniseries might not be as good as the movie, but the music is in fact better than the movie. I’m not going to do any comparisons here, but this is a beautiful score by Jeff Rona. It’s an ambient score, not unlike Phone Booth by Harry Gregson-Williams or Crash by Mark Isham. When you listen to it, you think about busy streets and all sorts of things go through your mind as he pushes the deep rhythms further inside you. Yes it’s easy to drift away into dreamland with this score, but not because it’s boring, far from it, because it is haunting and exciting and thought provoking. Another top score by Jeff Rona who is quickly gaining popularity here at Soundtrack Geek.

A Thousand Roads by Lisa Gerrard and Jeff Rona

Here Jeff Rona partner with Lisa Gerrard and when these two come together, gold is made. Jeff Rona’s haunting instruments and Lisa Gerrard’s powerful voice makes this journey into Indian culture unforgettable. This soundtrack is special, it’s different from what you have heard before. It experiments with Indian voices, combined with ambient sounds and classical instruments. They can so easily fail, but they succeed immensely. I love this soundtrack so much, and I will buy all of Jeff Rona’s work. Amazing stuff.

Buy Jeff Rona’s scores here: BUY

This week’s cinema releases

There are 2 releases on January 4th this week which I want to talk about. The Killing of John Lennon and One Missed Call.

One Missed Call is the remake of a Japanese horror movie. IMDB description: In this remake of the Japanese horror film “Chakushin Ari” (2003), several people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves — messages which include the date, time, and some of the details of their deaths. First, let me tell you how I hate that poster. It’s repulsive, it really is. is the guy supposed to be scary? And what’s with the many noses? I have seen the Japanese version, and it’s a standard horror movie, but the interesting thing is that Reinhold Heil & Johnny Klimek is doing the score. They have done some decent horror scores before, but I wonder if it gets a release, probably not.

The Killing of John Lennon is a dramatization of Mark Chapman’s plan to murder John Lennon. I would like to see this, even though it doesn’t have any big names on the director, actor or composer side. The score is being composed by Martin Kiszko and Makana, two unkown composers, at least to me. Martin kiszko has only been featured in low budget TV series and documentaries like “Battle of the Sexes: in the Animal World” and “Zastrozzi: A Romance“. The Killing of John Lennon is Makana’s debut so that should be interesting. Will there be a release? Probably not.

Hopefully there will be some bootlegs released, and if there is, I will let you know about it.

Happy New Year Movie Score Fans!

This is going to be a short one, just a couple of things before we go into the new year.

A friend of mine told me that David Arnold is scoring the 2010 Narnia movie. What happened to Harry Gregson-Williams? He is scoring the Wolverine movie in 2009, but what is he doing in 2010 so he can’t make a score for the Narnia movie? My mind started creating these terrible thoughts. What if he’s taking a year of rest or worse, stop creating scores for movies.

CLOVERFIELD

It’s less than 2 months away, and we’re all a little curious about this movie right? A great PR campaign and the hype has got us all excited. So we know this is a monster movie, and I’m expecting a few actions scenes and crushed buildings. That requires music, right?

So who is actually making music for this? I am unable to find that out. Does anyone know? Is it some unknown composer or part of the secret viral campaign? When I see this movie, I will closely listen to the score. It should be a great score I’m sure.

Well, that’s my little New Year’s Eve update. See you all next year!

Will 2008 be the year of the game scores?

I don’t know if you have been playing much games, but the music in them are just as good as the Hollywood blockbusters. The game industry is bigger than the movie and music industry combined and it’s growing. Huge amounts of money are being pushed into the games industry and the result is better, bigger games with epic scores. Who are these composers? Mostly they are unknown to the most of us, and mostly Japanese. However it seems like the names are getting bigger and bigger.

Today I heard the Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune soundtrack by Greg Edmonson. He is also the composer of a great sci-fi TV show by Joss Whedon called Firefly. It was an amazing piece of work by Mr. Edmonson, and it is so professionally made you would think it was a big time hollywood score by Steve Jablonsky or Hans Zimmer. That begs the question, I wonder what the budget is of a big game title? Probably not far away from a Hollywood movie.

Greg Edmonson might not be the most known composer but I guess you have heard of Harry Gregson-Williams? He’s been doing the Metal Gear Solid series for a while. How about Michael Giacchino? He’s been doing the Medal of Honor series. Trevor Morris, Graeme Revell and Harold Faltermeyer are also in the business of game scores In the future, maybe the movies and games blend together, maybe not, but the game industry is powerful enough to attract the biggest names Hollywood has to offer.

Next year I will be reviewing game as well as movie soundtracks for you all. I’ll keep you posted!

Was 2007 such a bad year?

I’ve heard from some people that 2007 was a disappointing year for scores. After listening to about 80 scores, I have to say I ended up on the positive side. The only disappointing thing is how average most of the scores were. There were a couple of amazing scores like Transformers and National Treasure: Book Of Secrets and there were dreadful scores like Sleuth. So many landed in the middle and they were dull, dull and dull. So what about the composers? Who disappointed? Who were great? Who were average?

Brian Tyler has always been a favorite of mine and I look forward to every score he makes. This year he had 3 scores: Finishing The Game, War and Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem. As you know I really enjoyed War as it made it to my top 10 this year. Finishing The Game was good as well, while AVPR was strictly average. All in all a good year for Brian Tyler.

Charlie Clouser is quite new to me. I listened to 2 of his scores this year: Dead Silence and Resident Evil: Extinction. I thought Dead Silence was bad, but Resident Evil: Extinction was really good. I don’t know what to think of him, but I hope he takes one step further next year.

Christopher Young disappointed me with both Spider-Man 3 and especially Ghost Rider.

Dario marianelli was a little hyped up this year, especially with the score for Atonement. He also had the score for The Brave One. I had heard great things and maybe my expectation were sky high because neither of them delivered. Hoping for a better 2008.

Geoff Zanelli is a name I haven’t heard of much in the scoring world, but this year he had 2 big movies. Hitman and Disturbia. As you know, Hitman made it to nr. 6 on my Top 10 list. Great score! Disturbia was slightly less exciting. I found it rather dull, but it wasn’t bad.

Hans Zimmer is someone I always expect great stuff from, so maybe my expectations are a bit high when listening to his scores. That being said, Pirates of The Caribbean: At World’s End delivered, it’s a great score. Possibly the best of all 3 Pirates scores. The Holiday I’d rather not mention, because it was one of this year’s worst scores.

Harry Gregson-Williams always delivers great scores, right? Well he certainly did this year. The Number 23 made my Top 10 list and Gone Baby Gone made my top 20. A great year for Harry!

James Newton Howard has been busy, but overall it was a good year for him. I listened to 4 scores of him this year: Charlie Wilson’s War, Michael Clayton, Water Horse: Legend of The Deep and The Lookout. The only score that disappointed me a little was Water Horse: Legend of The Deep. People I spoke to thought it was the best, but for me it was a little better than average which isn’t good enough when it comes to James Newton Howard.

John Murphy delivered 2 great scores, one in my top 3 this year. Sunshine was amazing and 28 Weeks Later wasn’t too far behind. Can’t wait for his next projects.

Marco Beltrami had 2 good opportunities this year in Live Free Die Hard and 3:10 To Yuma. He failed on both accounts. 2008 can only be better for him.

Mark Isham isn’t a consistent composer. I find his scores frustrating in that it varies from the brilliant to the abysmal. This year I heard Next, Reservation Road and Lions For Lambs. Thankfully it was a nice year for him as all these scores were really good.

Michael Giacchino is starting to annoy me. When will he come up with a great score? So far I haven’t found it. This year I listened to 2 game scores and 1 movie score: Medal of Honor: Vanguard, Medal of Honor: Airborne and Ratatouille. Of these 3, Ratatouille was the best one, but far from greatness. Christopher Lennertz did a better job with the Medal of Honor series in my opinion. Well, it can only go upwards for mr. Giacchino.

Patrick Doyle had 2 very different scores this year. Sleuth was this year’s worst score by a country mile, but The Last Legion wasn’t bad.

Paul Haslinger hasn’t impressed me yet. The closest was Underworld which I enjoyed. This year I listened to 2 releases: Shoot ‘Em Up and Vacancy. Shoot ‘Em Up was very strange, but it wasn’t bad. Vacancy however, was bad, both the score and the movie.

To summarize, 2007 wasn’t as bad as some people would have it. My composer of the year would have to be Mark Isham. Honorable mentions to both John Murphy and Harry Gregson-Williams.

2008 could be really great. I have already listened to The Spiderwick Chronicles by James Horner which wasn’t bad at all. Might do a review of that one soon. See you soon!