Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

 

It’s been thirteen years since the robotic killing machines known as Screamers destroyed the human population of Sirius 6B. But now a distress signal brings a team of rescuers to the supposedly abandoned planet. Can it be a long-lost colony of human survivors? Or have the Screamers evolved into something even more sinister…a half-man/half-machine hybrid that needs to escape Sirius 6B to finish its mission: the complete annihilation of the human race? Based on a short story by the visionary creator of Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report, SCREAMERS: THE HUNTING is a mind-shattering sequel to Philip K. Dick’s legendary sci-fi cult thriller!

John Rodd music engineer & Benoît Grey composer

Crédit Photo: Chuck Doud

 

 

Dear Mister Benoît Grey, could you please tell us more about yourself: your training, background, personality, origins and culture, tastes in matter of arts? 

I was born and raised in Montréal Québec, where I was nourished by that uniquely Canadian blend of French and English/American culture. As a result I was exposed early to American popular music but also to many Canadian and European influences too. My first instrument was the piano, which turned out to be very useful because I still do most of my composing on the keyboard. I started out playing classical music, but later fell in love with rock and pop, and later trained as a jazz bassist when I moved to the USA to study at the University of Miami. This made sense at the time because it was African-American music that was the most interesting to me since that element was missing from my Canadian and European influences. I got heavily immersed in all the African-influenced musics of the Americas: jazz, blues, R&B, funk, soul, gospel, reggae, calypso, salsa, merengue, mambo, rumba, soca, samba, bossa nova, etc.  I performed for many years in ensembles featuring each and all of the styles, and that is as important a part of my musical formation as any formal education I received in college. This training led to my working as a performing and recording bassist with many great American artists, culminating with my being hired by the legendary “Genius of Soul” Ray Charles to be his bassist. I worked with Ray for 3 or 4 years and toured the world with his orchestra several times during that interval. After I resigned from touring, I moved to LA to concentrate on composing, recording and orchestrating. I have been working in the “music for media” field ever since, all the while immersing myself in the orchestral scores of the masters of great classical and film music.

 

You have worked in media music field in many different capacities (orchestrator, MIDI transcriber, contractor, etc.) Could you please explain to us your different roles? 

Traditionally in Film/TV/Video Game music, the music is written by the composer and then handed off to his team to prepare for the recording session. This would typically start with the orchestrator, who takes the composer’s themes, counter-melodies, harmonies, etc., and distributes them to the various instruments of the orchestra, and in so doing creates the conductor’s score from which the musicians’ parts are copied. Then the orchestra musicians and vocalists (hired by the contractor) perform the score, which is recorded by the studio engineer and staff to be later synchronized with the film, TV show, Video Game, etc. at the mix stage.  In my transition from musician to composer, I deliberately sought out work as a proofreader, copyist, MIDI transcriber, orchestra contractor, and orchestrator as a means to learn my craft “from the inside out”, and to thus become as versatile a professional composer as possible.  

In the last few years, the newest technologies have forced a drastic evolution of the composing process described above, and now some or all of this process is performed by the composer alone or with his crew of assistants in his private studio, which may or may not involve live musicians. This is because so much of the music is now realized electronically instead of acoustically.

 

How would you describe your own style? And more particularly your score for “Screamers 2:The Hunting”? 

Since I have such an extensive background in so many different musical styles, it’s logical that I would draw from whichever style or styles best support the project I am working on. However, I would say that the common thread that ties all my music together is sensitivity to the drama, and emotion of the story. In my opinion the music should not be attracting attention to itself, but rather subtly illuminating and enriching the inner voices in the minds of the audience members. I consider film music to be an invisible actor in the scenario, yet a powerful one that can guide the audience toward nuances of meaning and the interior connections of the story as it unfolds. 

In the case of “Screamers: The Hunting”, the filmmakers and I agreed that we would approach it through several distinct themes. One was of the planet itself, and its desert-like exteriors. These reminded me of the deserts of the classic sci-fi novel “Dune” which its author Frank Herbert obviously modeled on the terrestrial Middle-East. I suggested the idea of Middle-Eastern melodies, particularly woodwinds, which the filmmakers loved. The other sub-theme was the spaceship’s interiors and its quasi-military mission to Sirius 6-B. The obvious solution was percussion, which I favored toward larger drums: Taikos, Djembes, Ethnic Toms, and some more traditional “military” snares, supported by low brass chords. However there was the need for a “creepy” element to suggest the insidious nature of how the Screamers were able to infiltrate their way into the human enclaves, and of how the mission to Sirius 6-B was getting into trouble. This was the most demanding part of the score, as I spent literally hundreds of hours creating and exploring countless layers of sound design that eventually gave a voice to the unsettled, ominous, uncomfortable feeling of the environment, particularly when the nature of the conflict was as yet unseen. Ultimately, the three primary colors of the score were Middle-Eastern melodies, large ethnic percussion and complex multi-layered sound design.

 

If you could choose your next work what would it be, with whom?

 I read somewhere that a laugh is a scream in slow motion, thus I have this love affair with both suspense/horror and comedy. Therefore, I am very gratified to work on projects that explore the either ugliness or the bliss of the human condition.  If I could choose my next project, I would love to someday work with fellow Canadian David Cronenberg. Although the subject matter of his films can be troubling, he always finds the heart of the story, the underlying humanity of what brought the protagonist to this place. Two other favorite filmmakers include Steven Soderbergh and Pedro Almodóvar. On the TV side, I love both comedy and drama.  I adore comedy in the vein of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” “Monk” and “Psych”: all hilarious shows, but with intelligence behind it. My favorite dramas include “The Tudors” and “Dexter”. I mention these above programs merely to illustrate the sort of project that I would be thrilled to work on.  On the video-game side, I am a great fan of what is going on musically in “God of War”, “Bioshock” and the most recent Blizzard, Ubisoft, Sony, Activision, and THQ titles.

 

What’s about your future projects?  

I just completed an orchestration of the “Chronocross/Chrono Trigger” title for the orchestral performance tour of “Video Games Live”.  VGL is an amazing video game music production that features live orchestra and choir, rock band, electronica, video screen playback, live actors, and audience interactivity in a truly unique concert experience. I have orchestrated many titles for VGL, including ”World Of Warcraft”, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”, “CC Red Alert”, “Starcraft” and the Guitar Hero version of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion”, which always brings down the house. I urge your readers to attend a performance of this amazing production when it comes to a venue near you. One can keep up with their tour schedule by linking to http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=dates

 I am also in negotiations for a new film, set to release later this year. I cannot divulge its title yet, but it is a comedy film starring some very well known actors. Your readers are welcome to visit my website http://www.benoitgrey.com/ and to check out the latest news to keep current with these developments. In the meantime I am composing music for Warner Brothers Television, which I love because they give me a lot of leeway and are very supportive of what I do.

 Many thanks! 

And thanks to you and your readers for your interest in my work. À bientôt!

 

Special Thanks: Elisabeth Meunier - SONY