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Chernobyl composer Hildur Guðnadóttir interview

Funny story, many years ago when American Beauty was released I visited a friends house who is a very experienced film composer & who has a classical background, and when I started raving about Thomas Newmans score for American Beauty she stopped me, dug through her CD collection, and put an Arvo Part CD on... ah! Whether Newman deliberately referenced Part or not, it was very apparent as a precedent.... And OMG how many times have those AB cues been used as temp music in films!!
You've piqued my curiosity. Which Part piece are you referencing? I'm familiar with Part and Newman's American Beauty, but I don't recall the similarities. Thanks!
 
You've piqued my curiosity. Which Part piece are you referencing? I'm familiar with Part and Newman's American Beauty, but I don't recall the similarities. Thanks!
Same here. I know much of Part's music and American Beauty. Which Part pieces in particular?
 
While Arvo Part hasn't written for picture,

Actually, he has! I doubt any of us will ever hear it though.

Since this thread already has hints of the Drama Zone, I just want to say that Game of Thrones' writers flushed themselves down the toilet by the end, and I haven't seen Chernobyl, but I'm bitter enough to enjoy that it's surpassed the former's ratings.
 
AP should write for picture so directors will stop needle-dropping or doing soundalikes of the same three or four pieces (Rescue Dawn, Place Beyond the Pines, Prisoners, etc.)

I listened to some of the score for Dunkirk in the car this morning and even the first minute ghosts the Elgar theme. When every scene is scored separately with nothing tying them together the musical part of the storytelling just feels kind of lost and rudderless. It's one element that keeps this from being a classic for me.
 
You've piqued my curiosity. Which Part piece are you referencing? I'm familiar with Part and Newman's American Beauty, but I don't recall the similarities. Thanks!


sorry - that conversation was 15+ years ago and back then I didnt know Arvo Parts music at all
When I get some free time I will have a hunt for it...

Ah a quick search found this, presume thats what she was referring to:

https://fauxmat.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/arvo-parts-fratres/
 
The series was absolutely brilliantly made and the score was spot on! Absolute fantastic job.

The show really tugged on a my heartstrings and stirred up some horrible memories. Especially the scene with fire-fighters... I've had radiotherapy treatment, it's really not nice. After 4 weeks the split skin and searing burns set in. When those guys looked into the core, they literally cooked from the inside out, instantly, but there would be a delay before a surge of pain hit. You don't feel it happening until your skin burns and splits. The pain must have been unimaginable pain. You continue to cook for days and weeks, the firefighters in the hospitle really got it bad.

What I liked about the show is the small details. Like when one of the firefighters could "taste" metal in the air, there's actually very small % of people who can "smell" the effects radation has on particles around. It's truely a disgusting smell, unfortunatly one of the ones who can "smell" it. If you've ever took a wiff of trioxygen, it's very similar.
 
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sorry - that conversation was 15+ years ago and back then I didnt know Arvo Parts music at all
When I get some free time I will have a hunt for it...

Ah a quick search found this, presume thats what she was referring to:

https://fauxmat.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/arvo-parts-fratres/
Ah, thanks. I see, so specifically the bell like piano thing. I guess I wouldn't consider it to be a huge influence after listening to both the Part and Newman, but I can see how I might be wrong. Both are great composers anyway.
 
Both are great composers anyway.

They are indeed... To my ears the piano voicing and phrasing of the Newman cue is almost a sound-alike of the Part piece... But when I say "almost" can never actually know if it was a reference, an influence or just a coincidence.
 
The series was absolutely brilliantly made and the score was spot on! Absolute fantastic job.

The show really tugged on a my heartstrings and stirred up some horrible memories. Especially the scene with fire-fighters... I've had radiotherapy treatment, it's really not nice. After 4 weeks the split skin and searing burns set in. When those guys looked into the core, they literally cooked from the inside out, instantly, but there would be a delay before a surge of pain hit. You don't feel it happening until your skin burns and splits. The pain must have been unimaginable pain. You continue to cook for days and weeks, the firefighters in the hospitle really got it bad.

What I liked about the show is the small details. Like when one of the firefighters could "taste" metal in the air, there's actually very small % of people who can "smell" the effects radation has on particles around. It's truely a disgusting smell, unfortunatly one of the ones who can "smell" it. If you've ever took a wiff of trioxygen, it's very similar.

I'd love to see a documentary on how they filmed this. Some info here.
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a27699064/where-was-hbo-chernobyl-filmed/
 
Superb tv and perfect score to match. That bleak threnody at the end of the fourth episode is beautifully performed.
 
I'd love to see a documentary on how they filmed this. Some info here.
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a27699064/where-was-hbo-chernobyl-filmed/

I would suspect they used a mix of drone footage and drone photography to capture scenes that are keyed. That way the actors would be safer and they would do the usual, stick a few green-screens up (in a similar looking location) then do the composites in post.

There are a few David Attenborough documentaries on Netflix called "Our Planet" one of the episodes had a segment about wildlife returning to Chernobyl. Lots of cool drone footage in that. No 8 headed deer though...
 
Much of it was filmed at a different power plant in Lithuania.

Production design was amazing though:

3m6pph2fhs231.png
 
I'm going through the podcast now - highly recommended. About 50 mins per ep, there's no flab - quite a lot of detail on their production methods, and the writing process. Most importantly, given the show's theme of the importance of truth, writer Craig Mazin is very keen to point out where any dramatic liberties have been taken (very few times), and lots of additional background information on what really happened.
 
Just finished it and this show is a stunning piece of art. The setting, writing, acting, cinematography and the score are just so brilliantly symbiotic. Even the custom font design makes it a total package in a rare way. I just can’t imagine it sounding any other way after watching, which I think is a real testament to how well the score fits the visual material et al.
 
Givemeenoughrope: I watched the series and was obsessed with the score throughout. I found it to be audible and listenable (and really interesting.) Perhaps there was something up with your viewing conditions if you couldn't hear it.

That said! The soundtrack has been released to streaming services and it is an even better listen there. Chris Watson is a personal hero so it is amazing that he was involved. I've had it on while working quite a bit. I think that this is less an issue that "they recorded the building" than a belief in process art. Take environmental sounds and make them into the soundtrack for a series set in that environment... obsess about the look of every scene to make it authentic. Focus on the humanity of the performances such that you drop the fake accents because they get in the way. This was a work of singular focus on the portrayal of the reality of the event and the aftermath. A focus on process makes sense. You could say that a conventional score would be less appropriate because it instructs the viewer on what to feel -- the people on the ground in the series had no cue and their feelings were irrational and disrupted. Instead the score emphasizes the site, the inhumanity, the machines. It works for me -- especially since I found the soundtrack to be successful.

Also, there is a fair amount of conventional composition present: Vichnaya Pamat is a slavic choral piece, and is amazing.

Not sure what the emphasis is on a negative review. NBD who likes things, right? I do think it is weird to observe that it was barely there, though -- could it be that you're listening to the center or front stereo channels of a decoded 5.1? Point being that if you didn't hear it... that sounds like something was off.

Soundtrack reminds me of Zoviet France, which I love since I always thought that their kind of feel would make great music for picture. My 2 cents.
 
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Also -- Johan J's most successful score (and a solid case for how Process art works well for scores) might have been for Mother. He wrote for months and then advised the director to go without a score, which is what happened. The movie is striking for the absence, I think.
 
I've only seen the first three episodes, will finish over the next days. So far it's an incredible piece of film making, Jared Harris is absolutely brilliant, and the score is a large part of why it all works so well. It's unnerving, I think it would have been very different without it.

There were a few times when the score and diegetic sound seemed to get a bit confused with each other (the scene that comes to mind is when the three guys have to go into the plant to open the valves to empty the water tanks under the plant) but for me it only served to heighten the mood. It's actually amazing that the overlap happened as little as it did.

Bravo all around.

For the record, I'm anti-nuke. It's far too dangerous. Every gvmt on the planet should be working night and day to switch to renewable energy. Should have been for decades now.
 
Also -- Johan J's most successful score (and a solid case for how Process art works well for scores) might have been for Mother. He wrote for months and then advised the director to go without a score, which is what happened. The movie is striking for the absence, I think.

That whole Mother thing just seemed like the score didnt work and he flipped it into PR. The first headline about that that I saw looked like something out of The Onion.

And again, just not enough music for me. No motifs except whatever that scrapping sound was. I listened to it on Spotify a dozen times. I gave it a fair shake. Cool to hear what I believe to be Slate and Ash Auras in there though. Great library...the future really.

I’m watching Too Old To Die Young now and everything about it is incredible. No one except CM could do a score for a show (read:9 hour movie) like this. Or at least very few.
 
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