Guest post by Alyssa Brooks, IU Cinema’s Events and Operations Assistant, and Caitlyn Stevens, the Cinema’s Social Media Specialist and Marketing & Engagement Assistant.
At yesterday’s First Thursdays Festival, IU Cinema was celebrating The Art of the Film Score in honor of today’s Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Program and IU Cinema’s long-standing commitment to live music events.
The events in Arclight: The Director/Composer Relationship, sponsored by the Jacobs School of Music, The Media School, and IU Cinema, spans the careers of director Rod Lurie and composer Larry Groupé, who is a visiting professor of composition in music scoring for visual media at the Jacobs School of Music. The two will discuss the intricacies of the director-composer relationship and the artistic conception, planning, sketching, and shaping that go into developing an original score for a film.
Visitors to our First Thursdays table had the chance to flip through the scores of David Copperfield and Body and Soul, test their film score trivia knowledge, and talk to student composers Eli Tash and Luke Henry about their experience with Double Exposure, which pairs film-production students with student composers at the beginning of the creative process to collaborate on the creation of a new film.
For those who missed the event and would like to take the quiz before checking the correct answers, it can be found here!
Otherwise, scroll down for some fun facts about film scores and their composers…
In what country was composer Hans Zimmer born?
- Austria
- Canada
- Germany
- Switzerland
CORRECT ANSWER: Germany. Hans Zimmer was born in the town of Frankfurt in 1957.
Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” appeared in which of the following films?
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Transformers
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Arrival
CORRECT ANSWER: Arrival.
Before hiring James Horner, which singer/songwriter did director James Cameron approach to compose the score for Titanic?
- James Taylor
- Jewel
- Enya
- Norah Jones
CORRECT ANSWER: Enya.
Rachel Portman was the first woman composer to receive an Academy Award in the scoring category for Emma. In what year did this occur?
- 1989
- 1997
- 2001
- 2007
- 2012
CORRECT ANSWER: 1997 for the movie Emma. Only 4 women composers have ever been nominated for the Best Original Score award.
Which of the following films marked the end of a 10-year friendship and creative partnership between Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann?
- Psycho
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Torn Curtain
- North By Northwest
CORRECT ANSWER: Torn Curtain. FUN FACT: It was Herrmann’s idea to add music to Psycho’s shower scene, ignoring Hitchcock’s request to keep it silent.
What electronic instrument was used to perform the theme for The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)?
- Synthesizer
- Theremin
- Novachord
- Ondes Martenot
CORRECT ANSWER: The theremin, which is controlled without physical contact.
Danny Elfman, most known for his collaborations with director Tim Burton, composed the theme for which well-known television series?
- It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
- The Simpsons
- Seinfeld
- The X-Files
CORRECT ANSWER: The Simpsons
This Jewish German composer was coincidentally saved from the Nazis when they annexed his home country of Austria during the time he was temporarily in Hollywood to write the score to The Adventures of Robin Hood:
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Arnold Schoenberg
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold
- Yann Tiersen
CORRECT ANSWER: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Which of the following film scores was composed by English musician and composer Clint Mansell?
- Punch-Drunk Love
- Jaws
- Black Swan
- Jackie
CORRECT ANSWER: Black Swan. Clint Mansell and Darren Aronofsky also collaborated on The Wrestler and Requiem For a Dream.
Which of the following composers appeared in the ‘80s music video for Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles?
- Hans Zimmer
- John Williams
- Howard Shore
- Jon Brion
CORRECT ANSWER: Hans Zimmer, who played the keyboards and synthesizers for the band early in his career.
Composer John Williams composed all of the themes for Star Wars. Which theme is pictured here?
- “Yoda’s Theme”
- “Princess Leia’s Theme”
- “Han Solo and the Princess”
- “The Imperial March” (Darth Vader’s Theme)
CORRECT ANSWER: “The Imperial March”
You can learn more about the craft of film scoring by attending Rod Lurie and Larry Groupé’s Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker program today at 4 pm at the IU Cinema. Lurie and Groupé will also be present at tonight’s 7 pm screening of The Contender, which was written and directed by Lurie and scored by Groupé. These events are part of the series Arclight: The Director/Composer Relationship, which is sponsored by the Jacobs School of Music, The Media School, and IU Cinema, and supported through IU Cinema’s Creative Collaborations program.