ScreenSounds

Dedicated to reviews and news of music for film, TV and games

Thursday, December 02, 2010

NEWS FROM COSTA COMMUNICATIONS


From Costa Communications:-

CRIMINAL COMPOSERS

RECEIVE

HOLLYWOOD MUSIC IN MEDIA AWARD FOR

“BEST TV SCORE”

LOS ANGELES –Five-time ASCAP Award-winning TV and film composers Steffan Fantini, Scott Gordon and Marc Fantini win the 2010 HMMA: “Best TV Score” for the weekly CBS’s series Criminal Minds. The Hollywood Music in Media Awards were held at the Hollywood & Highland Center, home of the Academy Awards, Thursday, November 18th, 2010. The team is back for the sixth season of the hit show Criminal Minds starring Shemar Moore and Thomas Gibson as members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. The composers are also scoring the new Criminal Minds spin-off Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior starring Oscar® winning actor Forrest Whittaker, which will debut later this year.

Explains Steffan Fantini, “For Criminal Minds, the idea for the music was to bring haunting elements into the drama. It is a hybrid score which blends dark orchestral, guitar loops and sound design. Music is composed that is literal to a specific scene. A spot of blood or an eyelash is all addressed musically to build the drama of a scene for the viewer.”

Due to the uniqueness of the scores and the popularity of the show, the Criminal Minds’ composers write a weekly blog describing the music they have written for each episode. The blog appears on the cbs.com/criminalminds website. The current entry explains that the current episode needed a score that harkened back to the golden age of Hollywood. For this specific episode, the composers created a classical orchestral motif that was reminiscent of that era. The composers described the episode as the films: “Sunset Blvd” meets “Psycho”.

The three composers attend spotting sessions for each episode and develop their own perspective. “Knowing that our music is the unseen character, we strive to create a unique and original musical identity for each project,” says Steffan. “The pay off for us is that we can play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” says Scott Gordon. “There are no egos, until there are,” he laughs. The composing team’s singular and combined musical backgrounds and talents make them leaders in the film, TV and videogame music genres. Their musical palette spans multiple genres from classical to pop, rock to jazz, and alternative to hip hop.

The Fantinis began their careers as recording artists and producers. At age 12, Marc played guitar solos on leading New Kids On The Block albums. Steffan and Marc also sang and produced many artists’ hits. They then transitioned into film and TV scoring. Meanwhile, Scott Gordon was becoming a leading engineer and mixer for many iconic performers including Ringo Starr, Alanis Morissette, Bon Jovi, The Eagles, Tom Petty and Aerosmith. Through the Ringo Starr session, Gordon met the Fantinis which led to the collaborative relationship.

The trio eventually moved into film scoring by writing music for composer Mark Mancina on Training Day and Shooter. Fantinis and Gordon went on to compose for films including Hurricane Season and Mercy Streets. Their current projects include the film The Lost Medallion: The Adventures of Billy Stone, the Sony Playstation game Sorcery and the TV series Army Wives.

The Hollywood Music in Media Awards recognizes and honors the music in visual mediums, the talented individuals responsible for creating and placing it, and the music of both mainstream and independent artists from around the globe for their compositions and recordings in all forms of media including film, TV, video games, commercial advertisements, movie trailers and music videos. The HMMA is also the first music awards event to recognize and honor excellence in music supervision. In addition, iconic individuals are presented with special awards for outstanding career achievement and longevity in entertainment.


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