Here’s the new episode of my screenwriting “power hour” (neither an honor, nor full of power) with my pal Charlie Vignola. We’re really enjoying making these, and it’s okay that it’s not reaching a big audience. Only so many people want to watch a couple of talking heads they’ve never heard of—but I do think we offer a lot of good advice. Here’s a twitter thread I created of 25 “observations” of being a developing screenwriting. I thought this had good advice, too, but it did

The other day I had a little melodic fragment stuck in my head—but I couldn’t remember what it was from. This seems to be happening to me more often as I age—it’s annoying! Turns out it was from Jarre’s Enemy Mine (such relief when you place it!). But for a moment I thought it might have been from the outdoor sequence of Goldsmith’s Logan’s Run. I was out of the office so I pulled up a YouTube file to check. Watertower Music (the Warner Bros. in-house label) has released two

Let me tell you about the time that a friend and I accidentally/simultaneously wrote Free Guy. And you can read it, if you want! You may hear about “simultaneous creation” in Hollywood—well, it’s true, it happens. We’re living proof. In 2016–17, Robert Nathan and I wrote GAME, about a virtual-reality video game in which a non-playing character (NPC) becomes sentient—and a chase ensues inside and outside the game to control him. Sound familiar? Our version wasn’t an action–com

Okay folks, today’s “a good one”! Another one of my encounters with the greats (a la the John Williams story) that’s full of embarrassment and regret—for ME! I’m happy to tell these stories, but may I ask a favor? Could you please visit my IMDB page? You don’t have to do anything, just go to the page (to goose my silly “star rating”). If you’re an IMDBPro member, please go to my “pro” listing (preferred). Also—please follow me on Twitter! You can “like” the Film Score Monthly

I loooooooove Jerry Fielding. I was first exposed to him via his two Star Trek scores, “The Trouble With Tribbles” and “Spectre of the Gun.” In the early 1990s I became friends with Nick Redman, a huge Peckinpah/Fielding fanatic, who gave me the Fielding CDs he produced at Bay Cities Records—and I gradually discovered Jerry’s entire oeuvre. I could write extensively why I like Fielding...but not this morning. Here’s a great interview with Fielding (who died in 1980) and his m

So this whole column is a nothingburger: turns out I was remembering something wrong! The name of R2-D2 famously came from postproduction lingo: when George Lucas and Walter Murch were dubbing American Graffiti, Murch called out the term for a film reel he wanted—“R-2-D-2” (reel 2, dialogue 2). George liked the sound of it and made a note. Only I misremembered: I thought maybe this happened on THX 1138. And I went looking through my paperwork for making the THX 1138 CD, to se

I used to tape weird stuff off of TV. I have a couple of boxes of VHS tapes in a closet here, and several more in my mom’s basement. There’s certainly an abundance of society-destroying sludge on the Internet, but there’s also a ton of cool stuff—the kinds of things I used to tape, and then some. A YouTube channel called “ThemeWorks” has published a number of composer interviews and film music-related videos. Although...why is this stuff all in black and white? I found the 19

That was fun yesterday—in case you missed it, I randomly blew off steam about an old pet peeve of mine, which is when we’d release a cool CD and people would immediately respond, “Now, we need...” and list the next score they wanted. Here is the message board discussion that resulted. There’s also one the FSM Facebook page (please “like” that, if you haven’t done so already?). To be clear: I’m not actually upset when people say this. As long as people are not hostile to other

Above is a computer “wallpaper” screen that Joe Sikoryak made for us circa 2008. You can find this and a few others on our website, under “Fun Stuff.” I bring this up because we were pretty productive in the FSM album days. I had a great time supervising the CD line. Usually, because we worked so hard on the master, packaging and presentation, the fans were happy with what we did. And perversely, this resulted in less discussion of the albums online—because people talk a lot

There’s a lot of stress when you run a CD label. And the biggest nightmare (other than a project being canceled on you) is when you finally get the finished CDs in stock...and there’s a manufacturing defect. Aahhhhh!!!!! Unfortunately, it happens more often than you think. From CD indexing errors to typos to sonic glitches to misaligned photos...well, I’m glad I no longer run a label. All you can do is reprint or repress the defective item and eat the cost, and then go throug

First off, I know that most of the people who read this blog are from the film score world, not the aspiring-screenwriting world—and that’s fine. For the past month I’ve done a weekly “talk show” with my friend Charlie Vignola about screenwriting. This is mostly because it’s for fun for us; we truly want to give people free, useful advice—as opposed to the “hope industry” of contests, coverage sites and courses that are profit-driven and man, some of these “instructors” could

One of my all-time favorite shows is Mad Men. That’s not exactly an outlier opinion. So I was delighted to learn that composer David Carbonara lived not too far from us in our particular corner of the L.A. surburbs. And, even better, he had no problem indulging my geeky questions and observations of the masterpiece television program he so brilliantly scored—with buoyant 1960s period jazz and subtle, tasteful score cues that captured the quiet, tormented soul of Don Draper. H

Here’s something I had blocked out of my memory: an attempt to make, circa 2009, a free FSM “sampler CD” from our albums released out of the Turner catalog (the historical M-G-M film library). I think we had hoped to have this somehow circulated through Screen Archives to reach fans of Turner Classic Movies. How, I don’t know—and maybe that’s why we pulled the plug? I do remember getting it mastered (which was easy for Doug Schwartz to do, as he had mastered all the tracks to

Happy Easter (and Passover, to my people). Sorry, I don’t have anything holiday related. I came across the above video about Cowboy Bebop—the original anime—which is a terrific explanation of the show’s appeal. However—spoilers galore! If you have not watched the series, I recommend doing that first. It’s on Netflix at the moment. This video was created by somebody named “Soul” in 2018—so it’s truly a shame, if not outright tragic, that it was, I’m sure, not seen by the creat

Episode 5 of my YouTube screenwriting show with Charlie Vignola is up, and we talk about the ways to make a good script great. This was a fun discussion and I hope it has useful advice.

Amin Matalqa is a director whose debut feature, Captain Abu Raed (2007), was the first film produced in Jordan in 50 years, and won the Audience Award for World Cinema—Dramatic at Sundance. He’s directed several other films and TV productions since then, and is in post on his latest, 5000 Blankets, starring Anna Camp. I’ve known Amin since the 1990s when he was a very enthusiastic and supportive FSM reader. He would write and call our office about his passion for film scores,

Neumation Music has published excerpts from a J.A.C. Redford interview about his work orchestrating for James Horner. It’s very interesting. If you’re wondering why film music of the last 25 years just isn’t as interesting or detailed or well-written as it used to be, certainly through the 1980s—well, there are a lot of reasons. Styles have changed: movies need different kinds of scores. And composers have different educational backgrounds, so they’re more likely to be well-v

Billions wrapped up its sixth season Sunday night. I guess there will be at least one more? I have enjoyed this show way more than I thought I would. A lot of the Showtime shows, in chasing HBO’s pay-cable glory, have struck me as too broad and loud. (Dexter and Weeds come to mind; just not to my taste.) Billions was pitched on the star power of Paul Giamatti and Damien Lewis, as a New York-based prosecutor and ruthless hedge fund billionaire, respectively. I tuned in from th

There were many fun things about producing the FSM catalog—chiefly, getting to access great film music and release it to the fans! But along the way, watching our art director, Joe Sikoryak, create new cover art was always one of the most fun parts of the process. While I never liked vinyl, I do appreciate that they had better covers, owing to the size. CDs were limited by the smaller dimensions. Because of that, a CD cover is kind of a “snapshot” expressing the film, rather

I asked people to visit my IMDB page to goose my stupid “star” rating—and it worked! Thanks! I’m up to #82,623 or so this—fun! Hey, it’s not like I’m making any money from this. So please do click through to my IMDB to swell my head even more. Today I want to bring your attention to one of my favorite reference sites: whosampled.com. I love this site! These folks compile all the samples used in hip-hop and dance tracks—all kinds of pop music. It’s fabulous. Above is a rap son