Brian Tyler goes to golf

Brian Tyler is going to write a score for The Greatest Game Ever Played, a brand new film from the Disney factory directed by Bill Paxton.

The film is about a true story, a golf tournement that took place during the US Open in 1913, in which season's champion Harry Vardon was beaten by a young player aged 20, Francis Ouimet.

Shia LaBeouf and Stephen Dillane will star in this picture.

Bruno Coulais hails this year's Caesar

Just a few hours before the Academy Awards in Hollywood, France praised its best film performances of the year with a new edition of the French national film awards, the Caesars.

Bruno Coulais won that time a Caesar for the best film score by The Chorus, beating other nominees such as Angelo Badalamenti (A Very Long Engagement), Nicola Piovani (L'Equipe), Tony Gatlif and Delphine Mantoulet (Exils).

The Caesar to the best film of the year went to L'esquive, by Abdellatif Kechiche.

Zimmer will score the two following sequels of Pirates of the Caribbean

The soundtrack music for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was composed by Klaus Badelt, with the Media Ventures team behind him. Now it's turn for master Hans Zimmer to put his crew on two new sequels of that movie. Zimmer is going to write the score for this two new chapters that will be shot simultaneously, according to Music from the Movies.

Gore Verbinski will be director for both sequels, featuring the corsair ménage-a-trois formed by Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, with John Bruckheimer leading production.

Silver Bear for Desplat in the Berlinale

French composer Alexandre Desplat won the Silver Bear to the best music in the last edition of the Berlin Film Festival.

It was his music for De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté, a film by Jacques Audiard, which raised the jury's enthusiasm.

Being the author of very interesting scores, such as Birth, The Luzhin Defence or Girl with a Pearl Earring, Desplat is currently working on three new projects: Hostage, starring Bruce Willis; The Upside of Anger, with Kevin Costner and Joan Allen; and a French comedy tittled Tu vas rire mais je te quitte (You will laugh, but I leave).

Furthermore, it has been announced this same week that Desplat will also score Casanova, Lasse Halström's new film project, starring Heath Ledger, Lena Olin and Jeremy Irons.

Roque Baños will score four new films

Spanish film composer Roque Baños has informed BSOSpirit about his latest projects. The first one is Fragile, a thriller movie directed by Jaume Balagueró, with Calista Flockhart playing the main character. This new film can be easily mistaken by Frágil, Juanma Bajo Ulloa's latest work, with a score written for that purpose by Bingen Mendizábal.

Baños will score as well Los dos lados de la cama (Both Sides of the Bed), a sequel to El otro lado de la cama. The songs of this musical comedy have already been composed and recorded, but the composer is still working on the score.

Another film request for Baños is the second sequel of Santiago Segura's Torrente. The film is almost finished and Baños signed a contract to write its score.

Last but not least there is The Kovak Box, by Daniel Monzón, a thriller about a writer in a pathetic situation: each person he meets dies committing suicide. Baños will put music to such a mysterious movie.

Patrick Doyle will revisit Dr. Jekyll

This is going to be a very intense year for Patrick Doyle. One more film request has been already listed in the busy agenda of this Scotish composer: Jekyll + Hyde, a new horror film based on Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, taken to the screen by novel director Nick Stillwell, in what will be his first movie. Bryan Fisher and Bree Turner will feature in the acting crew.

Last week Man to Man came to be presented in the Berlin Film Festival. This is Doyle's first contribution of the year, with a score requested for the film by French director and composer's friend Régis Wargnier, starring Joseph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Before the next Harry Potter will come to theaters in November, two more films scored by Patrick Doyle are already in the pipeline: Nanny McPhee, starring Emma Thompson, and Wah-Wah, a drama directed by Richard E. Grant with an efficient team of actors and actresses, featuring Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Miranda Richardson and Julie Walters.

Howard Shore wins Grammy Awards

Almost a year ago from the release of the movie "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", Howard Shore still wins new awards for his work on "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy. This time, Shore won last night, the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media and Best Song Written For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media, for the song "Into the West", this last one award have been won with Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox.

In the musical show field, the Best Musical Show Album went to Stephen Schwartz for his work in the musical "Wicked", an alternative and parallel history of "The Wizard of Oz". The other film music award in this Grammy edition went to "Garden State" in Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media.

Talking about the rest of this awards, the late Ray Charles has been the great winner of this edition with 8 awards, includes Record of the Year, and the performer Alicia Keys with 4 awards.

To see the complete winner list of this Grammy Awards edition, click here:
47th Annual Grammy Awards Winners List

Saturn Awards Nominees

The Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films announced the Saturn Awards nominees with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as favourite with nine nominations.

The Best Music Award nominees are the following:

- Danny Elfman, by Spider-Man 2
- Michael Giacchino, by The Incredibles
- Edward Shearmur, by Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
- Alan Silvestri, by Van Helsing
- Alan Silvestri, by The Polar Express
- John Williams, by Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

More information: http://www.saturnawards.org/

"Fable", awarded by AIAS as best videogame score

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) presented last week in Las Vegas the 8th edition of awards to the best videogames of 2004. The two most awarded games were ?Half-Life 2? (PC) and ?Halo 2? (XBox). ?Half-Life 2? received an award as best game of the year, while ?Halo 2? rendered others, such as best video-console game, best online game, best action game narrated in first person and best sound performance.

Musicians Russell Shaw and Danny Elfman were awarded for the best viodeogame score with ?Fable?, an XBox role game. Elfman wrote, in fact, the main theme. He also gave a music pattern to be developed during the game by Shaw, music and sound lab chief in Lionhead Studios, the company which produced ?Fable?. Next week (February 15), a CD with this game?s music will be marketed in the U.S. by Something Else, and will be also in online shops such as Amazon.

"GTA: San Andreas" was also awarded as best non-original soundtrack for its magnificent collection of music themes included in the game.

http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-8/winners.asp

Luc Besson and Eric Serra together again in a new film

French director Luc Besson will have ready on 2006 a film adaptation of Arthur and the Minimoys, a fantasy suitable for children. In it, a 10 year-old boy explores his grandmother's garden and discovers some one-inch sized beings whose lives are endangered because of a project to build a parking lot in there. Besson himself once wrote story, with two more sequels to follow.

Now he aimed to take his story to the screen as an animated film with very popular voices, such as Madonna's or David Bowie's. As usual, Eric Serra will be responsible for the music score.

Michael Giacchino on Mission: Impossible III

Hans Zimmer won't score this second sequel to Mission: Impossible. The chosen composer will be now Michael Giacchino. This 2004's sensation-composer highlightened in an interview two weeks ago that he wasn't still sure enough if he would handle the project, directed by J.J. Abrams (to open in 2006), but chances are many that he finally will.

Together with Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Scarlett Johansson and Carrie-Anne Moss will feature in the film.

After succeeding with his music written for The Incredibles, young composer Giacchino is also busy with The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (TV) and another super-hero movie: Sky High.

Carter Burwell gets fired from Serenity

The score that composer Carter Burwell had written for Josh Weddon's film, Serenity, based on the Firfly series, which embodies comedy, western and sci-fi themes, has been rejected just a few weeks before being recorded.

Burwell explains in his own web site http://www.carterburwell.com that this was both a shock and a surprise for him, because everything was working out pretty well. According to the film musician, ?what made the job difficult was that the score needed to reflect whatever was happening on screen moment by moment, and there were a hundred minutes of those moments?. Burwell complained about a traditional role for film music, in which you must hear what you see; ?but it's the opposite of my usual approach, which is to find something for music to say which is not otherwise there?. Even admitting he has often worked in the traditional mode, Burwell claims ?I do not find it challenging?.

Not confirmed rumors are placing John Debney or David Newman as new authors for Serenity's soundtrack. However, it must be remembered at this point that Christophe Beck has worked before with Josh Weddon in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Beck, in fact, would then replace a fired composer for the second time this year. He precisely substituted David Newman in a prequel of The Pink Panther.

Also in his web page, Burwell informs that he will now concentrate on a concert project called Theater of the New Ear, without more film request in his present agenda.