‘Blade Runner 2049’ to Feature Music by Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer iscurrently scoring Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. While we first heard of the composer’s involvement in the project back in May, Villeneuve clarified in a recent interview with Studio Cine Live that the composer is collaborating with Benjamin Wallfisch on the score and the theme written for the movie by the film’s original composer Johann Johannsson who is still involved in the project will be used in the score. The sci-fi thriller starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista and Jared Leto takes place thirty years after the events of the first film and follows a new blade runner who unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. Hampton Fancher and Michael Green (Green Lantern) have written the screenplay. Ridley Scott who directed the 1982 original film (scored by Vangelis) is producing the project with Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove (The Blind Side, Insomnia). Blade Runner 2049 will be released on October 6, 2017 by Warner Bros. Pictures. Visit the official movie website for updates.
THE INFLUENCER J.R. Schumann, 35 Senior Director of Country Programming, SiriusXM
The executive in charge of SiriusXM’s country programming says he’s proudest of the artists the satellite broadcaster’s top country channel, The Highway, has spotlighted early in their careers -- many who have broken through to a larger audience. (SiriusXM reaches 31.6 million subscribers but doesn’t break out listenership by genre.) During the past year, Schumann has watched two female artists who were designated “Highway Finds” catch fire: Carly Pearce, whose “Every Little Thing” is No. 18 on the Aug. 5 Country Airplay chart and has sold 138,000 downloads, and Ashley McBryde, whose single from her upcoming album, Girl Goin' Nowhere, “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega,” got early love from Schumann and helped the Arkansas native score her Grand Ole Opry debut in June.
FGL On J.R. Prior to Schumann’s arrival at SiriusXM in early 2016, The Highway played a significant role in breaking Florida Georgia Line, and member Tyler Hubbard praises the programmer’s continuation of the tradition of “giving new artists a chance for their music to be heard.” Adds his partner Brian Kelley: “Passion is a huge thing. He came all the way to Boston to celebrate our first stadium headline show at Fenway. That support is one of a kind.”
Don't Tell Him Ballads Make Bad Radio If you talk to terrestrial radio programmers today, they’ll say, “I need tempo.” But “that’s a myth,” says Schumann. “Pick the greatest songs by the greatest artists of our time, and either their No. 1 or No. 2 song is going to be a ballad.”
There's A Lot Of Music Out There Schumann says he receives close to 100 tracks a week, about half of them from indie and unsigned acts. To sift through all that music, he creates playlists that he listens to throughout the workday. When something grabs his attention, he replays it. He also has discovered a gem or two at local showcases. “I saw local songwriter Phil Barton perform a song he had co-written called ‘Skin & Bones.’ When I told him how much I loved it, he told me that Eli Young Band was recording it,” says Schumann, who lives in the Franklin area of Nashville. Schumann tracked down the song “and we ended up playing it as the first single leading up to the album launch.”
Rolling Stone reports that the tour has been named Dio Returns, and the image of the metal singer, who died in 2010, will perform with live musicians from the Dio tribute band Dio Disciples.
The European leg of the tour starts in Helsinki on Nov. 30, and it'll arrive in the U.S. by the spring of 2018. You can also expect the Dio Returns Tour to make an appearance at select festivals next summer.
Dio's widow, Wendy Dio, and his estate worked on the project with the hologram company Eyellusion. The tour will use audio from some of Dio's live performances, and the hologram will supposedly take you back to the singer's Sacred Heart and Dream Evil tours.
"In 1986, for the Sacred Heart Tour, Ronnie and I created the Crystal Ball with Ronnie filmed and speaking in a suspended crystal ball effect, done with back projection, which was the closest we could get to a hologram," Wendy Dio tells Rolling Stone.
"Ronnie was always wanting to experiment with new stage ideas and was a big Disney fan. With this said, I am sure he is giving us his blessing with this hologram project. It gives the fans that saw Ronnie perform an opportunity to see him again and new fans that never got to see him a chance to see him for the first time. We hope everyone will enjoy the show that we have all worked so hard to put together."
Watch the digital Ronnie James Dio perform at a Pollstar Live! trade show:
Want To Star Alongside Your Favorite Musician In Their Video? This App Can Get You Pretty Close.
First of all thanks to Hugh McIntyre for this article.
Have you ever watched a music video that accompanies one of your favorite songs and wished you could have been a part of the production? Perhaps you want to be closer to the artist fronting the visual, or maybe you’d change something about it if you could? Now there’s a startup that aims to put fans into the music videos they love...sort of.
After years of forging relationships with some of the biggest labels and artists in the world, Nashville-based startup VideoBomb has just recently launched on iOs, and the company is finally off and running. The app allows anyone to film themselves lipsyncing along to a beloved single and edit the clip to feature both them and the superstar who made the track a hit in the first place. The final product cuts back and forth between the professional treatment and the fan-made option, which is split up and inserted intermittently.
The resulting new video is not as high quality or exciting as the company boasts it will be (the idea of inserting yourself into a music video from one of the biggest rockers or pop stars on the planet is certainly enticing), but it’s exactly the sort of thing that younger Millennials and Gen Z go crazy for. VideoBomb follows in the footsteps of Musical.Ly, which also doesn’t worry about high production values, focusing instead on letting kids have fun and share their creation with the world immediately.
The company launched its product at the CMA Festival earlier this year, where a number of high-profile artists joined in on the fun, including country superstar Hunter Hayes, who filmed himself singing along to a Brett Eldredge’s single.
Users can download 15-second clips and upload them to social platforms for free, and after doing so at least three times, they will then be able to do so with 30-second short videos. Fans who opt not to pay will only be allowed to use the first minute of any song to record their version, but for $1.99, they can access the entire track. Right now, VideoBomb has a library of 47,000 music videos from two of the three major labels, and more should be coming soon.
The newly-available VideoBomb app is a fun first step into what could be a huge industry (fans of any form of content inserting themselves into the show, movie, or music video of their choice), though it is clear the technology still has a long way to go before most people would be willing to invest much time or money into it. If this startup can keep the lights on and the buzz going, perhaps it will be the one to further the tech, and one day, it can really, honestly look just like you’re singing right alongside your favorite musician in their most popular video, which would be a dream come true for millions of people around the world.
A few months ago I was experimenting with different sounds in my midi controller, particularly looking to do something more with the sub-sonic effects.
When Mass Effect Andromeda was released, I thought! Why not do something using the teaser, so that's what I did with some effects using sub-sonic.
The soundtrack I did while watching the video and fit the track for each part.
Well that is it! I hope you enjoy, any comment will be welcome, whether it's positive or not.
Judas Priest Explains How New Mobile Game 'Road to Valhalla' Is Part of Metal's 'Great Escapism'
Judas Priest is taking fans to Odin's lair with a new mobile game, Judas Priest: Road To Valhalla.
The adventure -- available now (July 19) via the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch -- allows players to use song stems from Priest's 2016 Battle Cry livealbum to create new songs to battle characters from Priest's songs and album art to advance through the game until they reach the mythical Valhalla.
Priest favorites such as "You've Got Another Thing Comin'," "Breaking The Law," "Electric Eye," "Turbo Lover," "Painkiller" and, of course, "Halls Of Valhalla" are featured as part of the game, which was developed by Babaroga in partnership with the band, Trinifold Management LLC UK and Sony Music Entertainment.
"It's like a little microcosm of that world we've created with the characters over these years that come to life in a very good way," frontman Rob Halford tells Billboard. "The people that made it did a fantastic job, 'cause you don't want people to go, 'Oh, that's cheesy.' You want it to feel like people are really getting lost in the whole thing, and that can be kind of difficult to do on a small phone. But with this you can put your ear buds in and turn it up full and get lost on the Road To Valhalla for as long as you can before the boss taps you on the shoulder and tells you to get back to work."
Most appealing to Halford and his bandmates is Road To Valhalla's music creation component. "You need to have some weight there, with the music," Halford explains. "All the songs that were incorporated are great songs. It's quite challenging, and it's a lot of fun. You can make it quite simple, which I choose, or some of these crazy maniacs can do extraordinary things. It's really a first for us, so we're excited to see what kind of shenanigans that fans will get up to with this particular event."
And when they get to Valhalla? "It's full of the great attributes of metal with lots of fire, lots of mountains, lots of smoke and lots of color and speed and excitement as you're making the journey," Halford says. "Along the way you're attacked by all these incredible beasts, a lot of whips and chains and motor bikes and tour buses. I think this is part of the great escapism that we try to make with metal. You can actually be part of the experience rather than just listening with this."
While fans are escaping they can also prepare for the arrival of Priest's next album, the follow-up to 2014's Redeemer Of Souls. Though not expected until the spring of 2018, Halford says the set is mostly finished and "is going through those last pieces of machinery" -- including what he calls "some killer artwork." Halford is staying mostly mum about the music itself, but he allows that, "We worked really hard on this one to make a really strong follow-up. It's another big step for lots of different reasons -- but that's all I can say or I'll risk being put in the Tower of London for talking about it too much."
Music.Film Launches Online Hub For Licensing Film Scores
Cutting Edge Group, a company that has been helping finance film scores and soundtracks in exchange for ownership of masters and compositions for the past 10 years, is launching a new online portal for its Music.Film production catalog, where creators looking to license scores and songs from high-profile films for their own works can search through Music.Film's catalog digitally. The web-based hub will be unveiled this afternoon at a launch event in Los Angeles, and is available online now.
Recognizing the shifts required in the digital age when it comes to licensing music for television shows, advertising or gaming -- namely, tighter timelines and smaller budgets -- Music.Film is making their catalog of some 400 scores and soundtracks searchable, allowing supervisors to navigate much easier and more quickly than before.
Several of the more high-profile pieces of the company's catalog have also been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the music in the films The King's Speech, Sicario and Carol, for example -- all of which are in Music.Film's catalog -- have been nominated for Academy Awards for Best Original Score, while past Best Picture nominees Arrival and Whiplash also won sound-related Oscars; the former also picked up a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score, while the latter was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
Since Music.Film owns master and publishing copyrights, the company spins itself as an easy alternative to the often more expensive licenses that exist for the majority of film scores. It also offers one-off deals, annual partnerships and generally more-affordable access to high-quality film scores, and waives synch fees for songs that are included in charitable campaigns or public service announcements. By providing the stems of their tracks, composers and supervisors can also incorporate pieces of licensed music into existing scores.
