COMPOSER SITES: TV Composers

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:24 pm

Inspired to crate my own thread.

I'll ad one site each day for December. First off is Jamie Dunlap.

Dunlap (along with Scott Nickoley) took over as the main composer on "South Park", after the producers decided not to pay Delerue protege Adam Berry more.

http://www.jamiedunlapmusic.com

There are two long sutes from the series there.

scorehead · **Posted:** Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:25 pm

What a cool little site. Love the variety of sound clips and also finding out about a composer that I knew little to nothing about (I don't watch SOUTH PARK, but was familiar with his EMMY nominated music for The History Channel's, RWANDA).

Here's one for you - http://www.michaelbaconmusic.com/ Let's see if you guys can guess who he is just from his picture.

Thanks for the heads up!

~ Scorehead

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Tue Dec 05, 2006 3:39 pm

Why ... he's Michael Bacon. Looks just like his photo. :wink:

Kevin Bacon's brother?

2nd composer to mention:

James L. Venable:
http://www.venablemusic.com

Venable (with Paul Dinletir) scored every episode of the short lived "Samuria Jack".
The scores ranged from themey, to percussion, to just weird, and soft orchestra. While not many have heard any of it, it's still some of TV best scoring, and something sadly missing from CD.
Many episodes have SFX-less scenes where only his score dorve the on-screen visuals (a thing many directors have forgotten about).
The two sound clips on his site are short and really no indication of what he did from episode to episode.
I asked about a CD and MV Gerhard said Cartoon Network had no interest. Why? Who knows. So you do know I wasn't the only one thinking about it being released.
Won an Annie for his score to the first episode.

While the TV series was 50/50 at times, Venable rarely ever faultered. If you ever have the chance to watch some of the show, do so for the scoring. And then tell me he wouldn't be a good choice for "Spider-Man 3".

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Wed Dec 06, 2006 1:21 pm

#3

Michael McCuistion / Lolita Ritmanis / Christopher Karter
http://www.DynamicMusicPartners.com
(sounds clips coming soon, hopefully)

Normally work together as a trio (which makes up for missing days in December, since I said one each day).
Under the wing of hte kind and generous Shirley Walker, these guys and gal broke their way in: additional scoring, orchestrating, and such, on suck project as: "Batman: The Animated Series", "Superman: TAS", X-Files: Fight the Future, The X-Files, and more.

While they have been stuck in TV doing superhero related cartoons, and using synthasized orchestras -- as assposed to B: TAS, they still produce good scoring. I'd upload sample clips if it didn't get me in trouble.

Check out the three parter "The Last Son of Krypton" (each composer doing one), is excellent.

Also, McCuistion scored a Spiderman-Man game, and has been getting into orchestrating (maybe not anymore) with Elfman.

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:25 am

#6:

Velton Ray Bunch
http://www.VeltonRayBunch

Ray bunch seems to have started off as a Mike Post/Peter Carpenter protege, doing additional score on several of the shows they worked on, including "Magnum, pi" and "The Rockford Files".
Eventually, after Post left "Qauntum Leap", Ray Bunch took over as the series regular composer. There he provided good underscoring, and the popular "Lee Harvey Oswald" episode where he created a bittersweet, and later in the piece -- ominous sound.
(http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Leap-Velt ... B000001P1G)

Bunch worked on various TV series, including "Walker, Texas Ranger", "ST: TNG", and "The Pretender" before he became a regular composer on another TV seires -- "Enterprise", the last Star Trek show.
Many people have expressed how much they enjoyed his score to "Silent Enemy", and he even won an Emmy for "Similatude". The last cue in that episode is beautiful, too bad ther is no official release for either.

One can only hope he'll get more assignements in the future.

http://www.buysoundtrax.com/pretender-cd.html

Yavar Moradi · **Posted:** Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:46 am

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:42 am

#7

Robert Duncan
http://www.DuncanMusic.com

While his credits aren't exactly long and fruitful, he got his biggest break working on the world cult series, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", as the series regular composer for season seven.
I defy anyone to go to his site, click on music than Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then "Choosen (longer version)" and not hear that he has talent waitng to be given a chance.
Today MusicFromtheMovies.com reports that he has scored "BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL" -- a film where a family's daugher is kidnapped, and the parents forced to do bad things to get her back.

Yavar Moradi · **Posted:** Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:36 pm

Robert Duncan's music for Buffy season 7 is FANTASTIC! (There was also another composer early on in the season that he sort of beat out for the spot, but that guy went on to Angel and did some great stuff...I forget his name.)

I really don't care much for Buffy's main title theme by Nerf Herder. It's just lame. I wish Buffy could have had a main title theme like the one heard in Chosen (actually it's a theme you hear a number of times in those final episodes). Of course such a powerful theme would have been inappropriate for the early high school years, probably.

Some of Duncan's cues for Tru Calling are really excellent as well...I'm thinking of the season 1 finale in particular.

Yavar

Yavar Moradi · **Posted:** Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:37 pm

I rather wish he'd get around to that long-promised update on his site and include some Tru Calling music so you guys can hear what I'm talking about. Tru Calling had a lot of pretty crappy electronic music much of the time (don't know how much of it Duncan was made to write...there were a lot of other composers earlier on), but some cues really stand out as more fantastic stuff by "the Buffy season 7 guy".

Yavar

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:38 pm

That other BTVS composer was Douglas Romayne Stevens, and you can download a few cues of his representation's site: bleujean.com

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Sat Dec 09, 2006 4:45 pm

# 8 & 9

Garry McDonald & Laurie Stone
http://mcdonaldandstone.com/

Australian composer dou who've done score (which you can hear samples of at their site) for "Time Trax", "Ocean Girl", and the series "The Lost World".
It doesn't appear they've worked since 2002 season of "The Lost World", but hopefully they'll start up again.

Cindylover1969 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 11, 2006 12:18 am

Thanks for that link! I've liked them ever since Robbery Under Arms - great to see they've got Thunderstone and Flipper up as well (their second-season theme for the latter was the best thing about that show, apart from a 15-year-old Jessica Alba...). They always seem to go for BIG sounds, but a lot of the time it works (The Flying Doctors, Time Trax and especially The Lost World) - if only they had more albums out, even a themes promo.

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:00 pm

#10

Scott Gilman
http://www.ComposerBase.150m.com/ScottGilman.html

Gilman took a break from scoring, but is now looking for work.
Contacting him via e-mail, we were going to make his page, but he took his break during then (first spending a long while helping build a studio for another composer) and I haven't been able to reach him since.
He has a MySpace page too now.

His work on the TV series "7 Days" is a combination of his jazz background, modern sound, and good orchestra synths. Sadly the GNP Records CD didn't sell very well, to the point where it's not even listed on their site, but I encourage you guys to at least go to the Barnes & Noble site and listen to at least 10 samples.

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:41 am

#11

Ron Jones
http://www.ronjonesproductions.com/pages/MainPage.html

Most of you know him for his highly praised by the fans work on "Star Trek: The Next Generation", where he provided many of fans favorite themes anmd episode scores, including the two-parter, "The Best of Both Worlds" (GNP Records).
Another protege of Mike Post & Pete Carptenter, and also Lalo Schifrin, Jones worked "Magnum pi" and other known shows in the 80's.
Other people know him for his work on the animated disney cartoon, "Ducktales" (which you can hear a suite of on his site), and the revived TV series "Famiy Guy".

While it seems he's been denyed a chance to score bigger, more prodominant Hollywood films, he still cranks out the good stuff for TV.

Another voice lost when Remote Control (previously Media Ventures) unleash about 50 composers on us, who then took all the jobs.

If you do one thing today, go buy the Trek score mentioned above.

tharpdevenport · **Posted:** Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:35 am

#12

Dennis McCarthy
http://www.DennisMcCarthy.com

Worked on popular TV series "McGyver" and "V", and then once again reached fame when he scored the second Trek series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation".
Since then he has gone on to score other Trek spin-offs and some miscellaneous projects.
Checking his other credits on IMDB, it shows he was an assistant to Alex Nroth on "Wise Blood".

Currently scoring the TV series "Related", one can only hope he gets something better and movie-wise.

His score for the ST: TNG episode, "Yesterday's Enterprise", cue-for-cue, is to me the best episode score of any TV series I have seen, yet.

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