Film score

A film score (also sometimes called background score, background music, film music or incidental music) is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score forms part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects, and comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to enhance the dramatic narrative and the emotional impact of the scene in question. Scores are written by one or more composers, under the guidance of, or in collaboration with, the film's director or producer and are then usually performed by an ensemble of musicians – most often comprising an orchestra or band, instrumental soloists, and choir or vocalists – and recorded by a sound engineer.

Film scores encompass an enormous variety of styles of music, depending on the nature of the films they accompany. The majority of scores are orchestral works rooted in Western classical music, but many scores are also influenced by jazz, rock, pop, blues, new-age and ambient music, and a wide range of ethnic and world music styles. Since the 1950s, a growing number of scores have also included electronic elements as part of the score, and many scores written today feature a hybrid of orchestral and electronic instruments.

Trent Reznor

Michael Trent Reznor (born May 17, 1965), known professionally as Trent Reznor, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and film score composer. As a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, he has led the industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails since 1988. His first release as Nine Inch Nails, the 1989 album Pretty Hate Machine, was a commercial and critical success. He has since released eight studio albums. He left Interscope Records in 2007 and was an independent recording artist until signing with Columbia Records in 2012.

Reznor was associated with the bands Option 30, The Urge, The Innocent, and Exotic Birds in the mid-1980s. Outside of Nine Inch Nails, he has contributed to the albums of artists such as Marilyn Manson and Saul Williams. He and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, are members of the post-industrial group How to Destroy Angels, alongside Reznor's fellow composer Atticus Ross and long-time Nine Inch Nails graphic designer Rob Sheridan.

Reznor and Ross scored the David Fincher films The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Gone Girl (2014), winning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Social Network and the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In 1997, Reznor appeared in Time's list of the year's most influential people, while Spin magazine has described him as "the most vital artist in music".

Danny Elfman

Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American composer, singer, songwriter, and record producer. From 1976 to 1995 he was the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band Oingo Boingo.

In 1976 Elfman entered the film industry as an actor. In 1982 he scored his first film, Forbidden Zone, directed by his older brother Richard Elfman. Among his honors are four Academy Award nominations, a Grammy for Batman, an Emmy for Desperate Housewives, the 2002 Richard Kirk Award, and the Disney Legend Award.

Early life and career

Danny Elfman was born in Los Angeles, California, into a Jewish family. He is the son of Blossom Elfman (née Bernstein), a writer and teacher, and Milton Elfman, a teacher who was in the Air Force. He was raised in a racially mixed community in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles. He spent much of his time in the local movie theatre, adoring the music of such film composers as Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman. Stating that he hung out with the "band geeks" in high school, he started a ska band. After dropping out of high school, he followed his brother Richard to France, where he performed with Le Grand Magic Circus, an avant-garde musical theater group. Violin in tow, Elfman next journeyed to Africa where he traveled through Ghana, Mali, and Upper Volta, absorbing new musical styles, including the Ghanaian highlife genre which would eventually influence his own music.

Rob Powers

Rob Powers (born 1965) is an American sportscaster and television journalist.

He is the sports director for WABC-TV (a division of network ABC) in New York City, New York, where he serves as the sports anchor for the weekday 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. editions of Eyewitness News and periodically substitutes for news anchors.

Career

Powers first joined WABC-TV in 2009 as its weekend evening sports anchor.

Prior to joining WABC-TV, he was the longtime sports director and 5:30 p.m. news anchor at WTVG, an ABC-affiliated television station in Toledo, Ohio. While in Toledo, Powers earned four Emmy Awards. When not anchoring sports, he was the play-by-play voice announcer for University of Toledo football and basketball, as well as the city's minor league baseball team, the Toledo Mud Hens.

Prior to Toledo, his other television assignments were in Binghamton, New York, and Indianapolis, Indiana.

See also

Video game music

Video game music is the soundtrack or background music accompanying video games. Originally limited to simple melodies by early sound synthesizer technology, video game music has grown to include the same breadth and complexity associated with television and movie soundtracks. While simple synthesizer pieces are still common, game music now can include full orchestral pieces and licensed popular music. Video games can now also generate or alter their soundtrack based on the player's current actions or situation, such as indicating missed actions in rhythm games.

Beginning in the early 2000s, it became increasingly common for video game soundtracks to be commercially sold or performed in concerts that focus on video game music. The early limitations on video game music also inspired the style of music known as chiptunes that use the original simple melodic styles, sometimes sampled directly from classic games, with more complex patterns or mixed with the traditional music styles.