THE BOYS OF GHOST TOWN
ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK
SOUNDTRACK DESCRIPTION
The Boys of Ghost Town is a 2009 Pablo Veliz film produced by Laguna Productions. The film was shot in
Houston and stars Marian Zapico (The Hitman Chronicles) and Manuel Garcia with support from Luis Caldeira,
Santiago Villalobos, Pedro Castaneda (recently nominated for best supporting actor at the Independent Spirit Awards),
Jason Cox, Corando Martinez, and Danny Trejo (From Dusk till Dawn, Spy Kids, Desperado).
The film's soundtrack consists of 23 original tracks including an Acoustic based song.
The score includes layers of Spanish Guitars, Violin and Viola solos - Classical Percussion - approximately a 30 piece String Orchestra (15 Violins, 9 Violas, and 6 Cellos at the biggest moments) - Electronic Pads and Synth Leads - an Upright Piano - Female Vocals by Sarah Odom - and eerie voice effects such as bending voices for Xavier, "laughing" breaths for flashbacks, and Sarah's rhythmic sounds for Danny's urgent moments.
The score was written and recorded from December 2008 - January 2009.
TRACK LISTING
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01 |
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Released from Prison |
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02 |
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Kitchen Fight |
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03 |
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Returning Home |
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04 |
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Natalie and Danny pass each other |
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05 |
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Kid with a Gun |
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06 |
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Hector's Lies |
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07 |
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A Mother's Reaction |
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08 |
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Junkyard Killer |
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09 |
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Danny and Natalie in Restaurant |
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10 |
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Busted Romance |
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11 |
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Grandpa's Death |
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12 |
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Threats and Sanity |
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13 |
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Keeping a Secret |
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14 |
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Drug Delivery |
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15 |
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Xavier's Distrust |
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16 |
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On the Run |
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17 |
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Natalie's Abduction |
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18 |
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Natalie's Sacrifices |
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19 |
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Road to Revenge |
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20 |
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Xavier's Decision |
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21 |
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End Credits |
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22 |
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Boys of Ghost Town Trailer |
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Your Eyes (Song) |
23 tracks with 68 minutes of music
$9.99 Total or $0.99 per Track
PURCHASE THE SOUNDTRACK FOR "The Boys of Ghost Town"
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PROGRAM NOTES and SESSION PHOTOS
The Boys of Ghost Town was a wonderful film to work on and to be a part of. The score (and song) needed to be delivered within 30 days, which is quick considering the fact that I don't operate with assistants and that my productions are typically not MIDI-only scores (I spend a good week or more recording instruments on feature-length scores after they are written). By the end, the score's production came out sounding really good, and I was interested to hear the composer agent for the film remark that the production value on the score was
equivalent
to $40,000+ (U.S. Union rates) because of all the Violin, Viola, and Cello tracks that were recorded.
So
finding myself between scoring jobs at the moment, I decided to write out some quick thoughts on the scoring process to The Boys of Ghost Town.
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DANNY'S THEME
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The score has several important themes, with the first one belonging to the lead character, Danny (played by Manuel Garcia). While working on ideas for Danny’s theme, I battled through several thematic versions before finding one that seemed to have a great melodic structure with good length. I felt the specific note order helped to represent Danny’s multiple layers as a character, while maintaining the ability to tilt either towards the epic or intimate side of his persona. At second thought, the theme seemed that it might be too big for some of the opening scenes, but by removing a majority of the chord changes (and playing the theme on the Classical Guitar and Violin), his theme worked quite nicely even during those smaller moments.
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The first part of Danny’s theme was important, and it successfully escapes any minor or major implication. This gives the theme a more 'open' kind of feel, and in a literal sense... helps to represent the fact that his character doesn’t know how to feel after being released from a long prison term. It isn’t until the theme drops to the 6th degree that one could begin to hear the type of key at which the theme is in.
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A technique commonly used to express different emotions by using the same melodic theme is by supporting it with different chord sonorities. Even though one can take the same theme and create different moods by using various chords, Danny’s theme had one little extra fun fact about it- the 6th degree of his theme was movable by a half-step. So depending on the scene, the 6th degree of his theme could be a flat 6th which makes the theme sound in a natural minor key - or the 6th degree could be raised and sound to be in a major key. In other words, with a single half-step difference for one note in Danny’s theme, the score could sound darker, uneasy, or sadder compared to hopeful, confident, and optimistic- all without considering chord options! Oh how much of a dork am I to think that’s exciting. |
| So Danny’ theme, as just mentioned, flips between these two 6th degree options throughout the film depending on the mood needed from the score. However, I thought it would be fun to use them both within the same melodic passage at the start of the end credits- both of which are heard on the Guitar. I enjoyed the idea of this ‘emotionally unstable’ 6th so much that I sometimes opened Danny’s theme with the 6th degree instead of the tonic, such as the very beginning of the film. This became useful when the scene needed a feeling of uncertainty or a similar type of mood. Sometimes I delayed the 6th well into the theme as it was originally written, which meant opening his theme with the leap from the tonic to the 5th. This is a much more powerful and confident way to bring a melody in, thus the scene has to somehow represent this same feeling in order for the music to work well. All in all it was exciting to have this half-step option when writing music for his scenes- it helped support the vast emotional sides and situations that this character finds himself in. |
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Instrumentation: Danny’s theme was represented by many instruments, with the most important being the Classical Guitar at the start of the film, and eventually the Solo Violin towards the end. I used a healthy amount of Piano for some important moments with his family, such as his mother and his grandfather. For the ‘going crazy’ moments, as I like to call them, Sarah Odom breathed rhythmically along with the percussion to help create a sense of urgency. Of course, after doing this many times over, she nearly fell over! I also added some of my own vocal effects to some of Danny’s scenes, such as ‘laughing whispers’ during some of the flashbacks or conversations that talked about his past. I found myself losing my breath and nearly falling over too. |
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NATALIE'S THEME
Natalie (played by Marian Zapico) is arguably the second most important character in the film. Including the fact that she is Danny’s romantic interest, nearly every major event that happens to him is either directly or indirectly related to her. It’s because of this and other specific events throughout the film that I knew her theme was going to be nearly as important- if not as important- as Danny’s. |
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The film clearly showed me that Natalie’s theme needed to be extraordinarily simple, yet I couldn’t help but want to link it to Danny’s theme. I began developing her theme opposite of that from his- by starting out with just two notes that are a half-step apart. Her theme was instantly supported with a major I chord, a major IV chord, a minor vi chord, and finally back to the major IV chord. It was around this time that I realized why I liked this idea. Aside from it just feeling right to me and the melody being able to swing from gentle to romantic to slightly dangerous (such as when Natalie pulls out Carlos's gun), I really liked it because of the one beautiful, serious, and suggestive minor chord in the midst of her major chords. There are many times throughout the score that her half-step theme is played under different chord sonorities, but for me her theme didn’t feel perfectly foreshadowing without the original progression - which I was careful to save for the important moments. |
During Natalie’s scenes with Danny, I found an additional relation about her theme to Danny’s theme. The half-steps used within hers was the exact musical interval as the lowered/raised 6th degree half-step that also made Danny’s theme 'emotionally unstable'. Relating this even further, Natalie’s only minor chord is the minor vi.
I’m afraid that this score has become too ironic. |
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After writing Natalie's theme, I knew that it would be perfect to try and turn her theme into a song. I started writing the song on the Guitar with a click track, as I usually do, but was having some difficulty trying to find the right feel for the scene. I found that the song needed more rubato than I realized, which is why the song wasn't recorded with a click track. In case you don't know, rubato is a natural slowing and speeding of the tempo (a technique used often on Classical Piano pieces).
Instrumentation: Natalie’s theme used mostly soft and subtle Synths, a Piano that only played single melodic notes at a time, a String Orchestra, and of course, Sarah Odom’s voice (pictured). There are key moments in the score and film that Sarah’s vocals really add quite a bit to the music. Without her, the score wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful, emotional, and engaging as it is now. |
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YOUR EYES (song from the film)
Despite being comfortable writing music for film, writing songs for Guitar/Piano, or playing instruments along with other people’s songs, I have a difficult time singing lead vocals and writing lyrics for my own songs. I felt that the idea of using a song during the romantic scenes carried a bit more weight than just having a nice, romantic score (especially since several romantic cues were already written for some of the other scenes). I picked up my A&L Acoustic Guitar and tried out Natalie’s theme as a chorus in several different keys before falling into E major. Then the verses came rather quickly- so now it was just a matter of coming up with some vocal lines and lyrics. |
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Just before the song plays in the film, Danny talks about how he has feelings for Natalie that he doesn’t know how to explain, except to say that he has had them for a long time. When the director of the film heard the song I wrote using Natalie’s theme, he said he loved it and we eventually began talking about bringing a female vocalist in to sing along with me- representing both Natalie and Danny. When Sarah came on board, we recorded her leading the first chorus and backing me up on the second. However, I really enjoyed her vocal performance so I flipped the choruses during mix so that she lead on the final chorus.
Instrumentation: Vocals, Acoustic Guitars, Synth, two Violins, two Violas,
and
two Cellos. |
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DARK THEMES |
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Xavier (played by Danny Trejo) is clearly a character that called for a darker theme, which was carried out with mostly half-step Synth bends. Later, I doubled the Synth parts with my voice, singing with a strange vowel sound to match the Synth’s sonic quality. Low Percussion also played a bigger role in his theme than any other, and I was adamant about not using the Classical Guitar for his theme.
Nando (played by Jason Cox) doesn’t appear very often throughout the film, but his significance and role in the film is important. Being that he is the one to hand over Danny and Natalie to Carlos, I found it important enough to make his theme a bit darker than it was already sounding in it’s standard 4/4 time signature. For this reason, I placed his theme in the odd time signature of 5/4. |
Carlos (played by Luis Caldeira) required his theme to be dark, yet also religious in nature. I first wrote the theme with a String Orchestra earlier in the film when Xavier was talking about Carlos. I remember having difficulty with Carlos’s theme, and I asked Pablo for some inspirational help. He offered up his religious take on Carlos, which helped me to find the rest of Carlos’s sound. In later scenes that feature Carlos, a subtle Pipe Organ can be heard playing the theme that the String Orchestra had introduced earlier.
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RECORDING THE SCORE
Recording the score for The Boys of Ghost Town was like most feature film scores for me- quite an undertaking but by far the best and most rewarding part of creating music. The music seems nearly lifeless to me until real instruments are recorded. Suddenly everything starts to come together in a beautiful way.
I initially made mockups for Pablo to listen to using MIDI triggered samples, and even though they are some of the best samples out there, orchestral emulations and orchestral samples are never anything to brag about. Even though Pablo liked it, I kept promising him that everything would sound so much better later on once we enter the recording process. The Guitar parts were not all that easy for me to record simply because I am a Pianist, Violinist, Violist, and THEN a Guitarist, followed lastly by Cello- so I’m not as good nor as confident on the Guitar as I would like to be. That being said, I am very happy with how the Guitar parts turned out on this soundtrack- even a friend of mine (a really talented Guitarist) took an unsolicited listen to the score and was quite impressed with the Guitar parts.
Sarah’s vocals took approximately 6 hours to track. She was visiting Pablo in San Antonio and they traveled together just to track the vocals at my studio. We started about 9pm and continued on through the night until they had to leave early in the morning. The most memorable experience about the recording was how powerful she was belting out her notes at 3 in the morning (end credit music).
Recording the Piano went a lot faster than I thought it would. I was able to record on a fantastic Steinway Upright that blended well with the score. I have some excellent Piano samples that I used while writing and showing the score to Pablo, but the quality of the real Piano was much nicer and natural. I don’t think even a Grand would of sounded as good and personal as that Upright did for this score.
The String Orchestra was mostly divided up into four standard parts: Violin I, Violin II, Viola, and Cello. However, there were brief moments in the score that I wanted an additional Viola part or Cello part- so I created three extra parts: Violin III, Viola II, and Cello II. I felt it necessary to track at least 3-5 lines of instruments per part- which when done individually takes quite a while to do. I would start with one Cello part and record a single line of Cello into the score, then I would do it again and again- layering one line on top of another to create a authentic sounding 30 piece String Orchestra (approximate). I spent the first day recording Sarah, the second day on Cello, the third day on Viola, the fourth and fifth days on Violin, the sixth day on Guitar, the seventh day on Piano, and the
eighth
day on Violin/Viola Solos and my own vocals. This is as difficult to do as it sounds! :) However, my love for authentic sounding classical instruments is obviously too strong for me to ignore.
Time wise: I was contracted to do the work within 30 days, and I worked really hard to make it within that time period. We originally guessed that there would be about 45 minutes of music to write for the film, as opposed to the 60+ minutes that made it into the score. I would have to guess that it took me about 21 days to write the score and 9 days to record and mix all the parts. I was extremely relieved that we had negotiated an extra 5 days to make up for when I was out of town during the winter holidays. Whew!
Well, that’s it for now. You can purchase the soundtrack for The Boys of Ghost Town either at CD Baby or iTunes. Feel free to send me your questions, comments, or thoughts on the score.
Take care,
Douglas
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