Overhearing Film Music

<p><b><b>Three generations of famous movie soundtrack composers reveal the secrets of their art and success.</b></b></p><p>Beginning with a quick history of film scoring and then taking the reader backstage to interview a dozen major screen composers, <i>Overhearing Film Music</i> represents three generations of movie soundtrack music. Ranging from groundbreaking composers who scored classic 1940s melodramas such as <i>Laura</i> and the <i>Thief of Bagdad</i>, to the jazz-influenced modernists who worked on <i>Rebel Without a Cause</i> and <i>The Pink Panther</i>, and into the symphonic renaissance represented by films like <i>Star Wars</i> and <i>Harry Potter</i>, Caps asks the seminal questions: How did this kind of active movie scoring evolve from silent films-and where is it headed? These interviews provide a master class in how and why to score a film. Interspersed among the interviews, Caps's single-subject essays provide concise histories of the use of choral music in films, African American and female film composers, and digital composing software for a new era.</p>