# Charlie Clouser and the American Horror Story Main Title Theme



## gsilbers (Oct 15, 2011)

I am actually working on this show (sadly... after post :cry: ) and realized charlie's credit for the main title mx. the show is amazingly good. freaky as shit. 

charlie, ive seen you come around here so wanted to ask you what or how you made those sounds for the theme music. although its like, not _real_ music (semantics right? ) 
its a lot of very good creepy ass sound design sfx that goes very well with the very disturbing imaginary shots. (o) 

if you guys havent seen it , you should, then try not to have nightmares


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## givemenoughrope (Oct 15, 2011)

Sounds grandular...

very cool.


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## gsilbers (Oct 15, 2011)

maybe video example is a good idea ..


http://www.movieweb.com/tv/TVI5ZO3q4ntgLP/season-1-main-title (http://www.movieweb.com/tv/TVI5ZO3q4ntg ... main-title)


damn commercials.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 15, 2011)

Charlie is very talented and original. I would not know where to begin to try to do some of what he does.


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## charlieclouser (Oct 16, 2011)

Thanks you guys... but it was just a case of reverse-engineering a demo that the showrunner loved and that they had used as a temp to cut the titles against.

Not even a creative act of music composition, really, just a painful act of audio forensics. 

Is the show any good?


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## bryla (Oct 16, 2011)

givemenoughrope @ Sun Oct 16 said:


> Sounds grandular...


I think it's glandular


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## givemenoughrope (Oct 16, 2011)

bryla @ Sun Oct 16 said:


> givemenoughrope @ Sun Oct 16 said:
> 
> 
> > Sounds grandular...
> ...


I think you're right.

For me, the opening titles give a false impression that this might not be your typical Hollywood 'horror'/suspense fare; that it might be smarter or at least have more curveballs than that. Oh well.

So, you had to knock-off someone else's demo that was made specifically for this show? Ouch.


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## Lex (Oct 16, 2011)

givemenoughrope @ Sun Oct 16 said:


> bryla @ Sun Oct 16 said:
> 
> 
> > givemenoughrope @ Sun Oct 16 said:
> ...



Maybe it was some commercial track that had that grandular sound, it's a form of grand synthesis if I'm not mistaken.

alex


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## givemenoughrope (Oct 16, 2011)

Anyone know what music they used in the opening scene when the two kids are exploring the basement? I feel like that it's score from a film I've seen recently. It's bugging me that I can't remember.


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## charlieclouser (Oct 16, 2011)

Well, what really happened was this:

They contacted me to to the theme and showed me the main titles they had done. Apparently, the folks who cut the main titles were the same ones who cut the titles for "Se7en", and they were looking for a cue that had the vibe of the Coil remix of NIN's "Closer". So they had this piece of music that a friend of theirs had done in college ten years ago, and they used that to cut against. The showrunner fell in love with that piece, but the guy who did the demo isn't doing music anymore, and had no files except for the stereo mix, which had an unknown sample of some loop of pizz strings in it.

The story I got was that the original demo had been done in one afternoon in a dorm room using CoolEdit Pro (seriously), and that the granular sounds were made by dropping coat hangers on the bathroom floor and recording them with the gooseneck mic that came with a Dell desktop, then timestretching them using the "quick" algorithm on CoolEdit - the pizz loop came from an unknown source, and the original composer had none of the files used in the original - and the original mix was all out of whack with the granular sounds way too loud, etc.

When they contacted me it was, "We're looking to capture the vibe of this piece", so I did some quick demos that had the murky, crusty vibe with granular time-stretch stuff on top. After hearing them they came back with, "Those were great, but what we really need is a piece of music that we can substitute for the demo and that the showrunner won't be able to tell that he's hearing a replacement cue".

Great. So now it's audio forensics, not actually creating anything? I tried to get out of the gig, even offering to give them what I had done up to that point, free of charge and no credits needed, so that they could give it to someone else to finish - but they were all like, "We don't have anyone else, help us Obi-Wan, you're our only hope!"

So I fiddled with it for a few more days, basically reverse-engineering what they originally had, and sent them stems. This was about three weeks to air. They came back with, "These are great - we'll play them for the showrunner and let you know..." 

I never heard from them again - so I sent a leadsheet and full deliverables to my agents and said, "You deal with it, I'm bailing to Hawaii for a couple of weeks." 

Vamos a la playa!

I just got back from Lanai and haven't seen the show, but I guess they used what I gave them if you guys say my name's actually in the credits. 

As to the score, the music supervisor told me that they temped it primarily with Bernard Hermann's cues from "Psycho" and "Vertigo", and that the showrunner loved those cues so much that they spent over $300k clearing every single cue for the first episode, but that the composer would need to replace those cues as the series went on. I think they used the same composer that the showrunner had used on "Nip/Tuck" but don't quote me on that. Whoever it is, he probably wants to drive a stake through Bernard Hermann's zombie-fied corpse right about now!


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## givemenoughrope (Oct 16, 2011)

Great post! That all makes way too much sense. I can totally see the guy trying to make a Coilesque track on CEP in a dorm room 10 years b/c that's probably exactly what I was doing...annoying the crap out of my roommate. (so much fun when you barely know what you're doing sometimes...)

I remember the Herrmann cues in the middle and end but I think the opening is from Alan Silvestri's What Lies Beneath which is very Herrmann-sounding. 

I think it's great that you had the huevos to bail on a knock-off even though it would have never been heard as one (except to a few people). I wish I did that the last couple times around.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2011)

thx charlie. 

yes, you are in the credits along with someone else but didnt recognize the name. 
I work with the HD masters so i stop and jog to check well those end credits  

the show is pretty good. i dont like the horror genre but when you give it good drama writing it comes together as a good stick of glue for the audience. 

i think the name of the show comes from using back stories from the classics like amityville, the others, psyco. etc
it has several subplots related to the house and the main characters. 

anyways, thanks for the story. and i think i know which pizz loop you are talking about. its barley heard under the crazy granular stuff. the 5.1 mix also sounds very good in the theme as those sounds seem to hover and move nicely.


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## Markus S (Oct 17, 2011)

Lovely music, it's great to have Charlie here with us, not only for the awesome music, but also for the very insightful posts!


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## choc0thrax (Oct 17, 2011)

So I guess this is the opening? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPeu7MYlPYc


That is one Fincheresque opening. Even the big, in your face credits remind me of the first Girl with the dragon tattoo trailer.

Haven't seen the show as I have a strict no Ryan Murphy policy in my life.


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