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The Bear McCreary Thread


Taikomochi

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Oh he does to some extent - he said in a Droughtlander podcast that his team is basically to help out when anything unexpected comes in, or to help when he needs to spend more time on a piece and make revisions.

 

But probably not to the extent that he explicitly plans to only write a certain amount. It sounded like he does what he can himself.

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I feel McCreary has always been very open about projects where he has help from assistants at Sparks&Shadows, and he either mentions them in his blog posts or in a tweet when they announce the project, plus they are credited on the actual credits of the movie or show. Many composers have additional help, specially if they're as busy as McCreary, so as long as they're credited and the music remains of the same quality, I don't really mind.

 

For example, I thought the music in Season 2 of Foundation was even better than the first season, and that was mostly handled by his team, and something similar is happening with S2 of Masters of the Universe, which so far sounds really great! I hope they release an album soon.

 

As for Percy Jackson, I feel the album doesn't really do justice to the score, and feels too short and missing some important thematic pieces, and I feel I appreciate the music a lot more while watching the show than listening to the album on its own. I mean, I wouldn't have realized that Grover and Annabeth have themes because they're almost completely missing from the album!

 

 

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I did wonder just now whether TWD, at least its earlier material, is largely done by assistants, given how little music is released overall. It's one show where we need just a straight up session leak because the promo is basically the official album with a few extra bits.

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Quite an in depth video as well.

Good choice that when he talks about the character themes you actually hear them. Really wonderful insight. And I always love Bear's enthusiasm.

 

 

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4 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said:

Good choice that when he talka about the character themss you actually here them.

 

Hear them.

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42 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

I find it charming the way he impersonates the professional film music composer and the passionate fan at the same time.

 

Yeah, I get that. I mean, Williams describes his musical procedures in the various making-ofs of the films he makes and in interviews, but one, its less in-depth than Bear's blog which really feel like Bear is being his own Doug Adams/Mike Matessino; and two, something about Williams' mannerism works for me better in that regard than Bear's.

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9 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Its strange seeing a composer congratulate himself on "This awesome chord progression!" :lol:

Is he congratulating himself, or is he geeking out that he got to use a tool he thinks is cool?

 

 

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Contrary to what Bear's detractors want to hear, he never actually says that that theme/progression is awesome in that video. He just says they came up with some chords and decided it would work as the Percy theme, not that it's the most awesome thing anyone's ever composed.

 

I still don't find it an overly interesting piece and the Avengers shadow is there, but a composer who has enthusiasm for what they're doing? Not gonna fault that.

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I like Bear’s music mostly, but think his self promotion online has always been a little much.  It’s a double-edged sword, because he’s the only composer who gives that level of access and if you’re a fan it’s a great resource - but it definitely smacks of a lack of humilty.

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That's too bad! Yeah, not releasing anything would be really weird, because I think all of his scores from the last few years have been released, even if they were handled by his team, like Foundation S2 or Percy Jackson.

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Yeah, I love McCreary and his work but he needs to slow down a bit, because he's gonna get oversaturated.

 

And this announcememt does kinda scream a "Music By Sparks & Shadows" credit. So I'd actually rather have that the composers themselves get credited instead of the company

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13 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

McCreary getting flooded with assignment shows that there is a great demand rising for that kind of more classical recognizable scores. And that is a good development for the art of film music in Holywood. Maybe the era of generic melodyless techno driven chord carpets à la Zimmer is coming to a pause.


one can hope!

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  • 2 weeks later...

One of these projects is probably RoP Season 2, right? And the announcement he's talking about is probably the trailer with the release date (or at least the release window).

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Plenty of notable 2024 films have no announced composer yet.

 

The First Omen (April 5)

The Watchers (June 7)

Inside Out 2 (June 14)

A Quiet Place Day One (June 28)

Despicable Me 4 (July 3)

Project Artemis (July 12)

Longlegs (July 12)

Twisters (July 19)

Trap (August 2)

Alien: Romulus (August 16)

 

Etc

 

As for TV/streaming series... There's so many of those these days, wouldn't even know where to begin

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41 minutes ago, Jay said:

Plenty of notable 2024 films have no announced composer yet.

 

The First Omen (April 5)

The Watchers (June 7)

Inside Out 2 (June 14)

A Quiet Place Day One (June 28)

Despicable Me 4 (July 3)

Project Artemis (July 12)

Longlegs (July 12)

Twisters (July 19)

Trap (August 2)

Alien: Romulus (August 16)

 

Etc

 

As for TV/streaming series... There's so many of those these days, wouldn't even know where to begin

 

The First Omen is scored by Mark Korven

 

Abel Korzeniowski scores The Watchers

 

And I think Heitor Pereira is the best shot to continue with Despicable Me.

 

I'm hoping for Giacchino for Inside Out 2 and Mancina for Twisters

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He must surely be in the depths of RoP now. Perhaps his announcements of stuff he's working on includes things S&S is doing for which he's taking a producer role.

 

Or this could be an early indication that he decided not to do RoP 2 solo. Who knows.

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This year we'll get two sequels to Mancina-scored movies, Twisters and Moana 2. But he seems somewhat retired with only four movies over the last 10 years: Planes: Fire & Rescue, Moana, Cry Macho and The Sea Beast. I don't think he'll work on two movies on the same year, but who knows.

 

I wonder if the director of Twisters will collaborate with Emile Mosseri again, they were both Oscar-nominated for Minari.

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21 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

Or this could be an early indication that he decided not to do RoP 2 solo. Who knows.

 

Pretty sure he's doing that solo.

 

Season three, though...who's to tell?

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His T-shirt reminds me of the long tail from the alien in the Alien franchise. 

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So he's scoring either the Alien Romulus movie instead of Fede Álvarez's frequent collaborator Roque Baños, or he's scoring the Alien TV series instead of Noah Hawlye's frequent collaborator Jeff Russo?

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https://bleedingcool.com/comics/bear-mccrearys-graphic-novel-the-singularity-for-may-2024/

Inspired by, and a companion to, Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning composer BEAR McCREARY's first-ever original concept album of the same name, THE SINGULARITY sees a cavalcade of comics' greatest artists join with writer MAT GROOM (INFERNO GIRL RED) to tell a sweeping, cosmic story about the lessons that loss can teach us. Retail: $17.99 In-Store Date: 5/8/2024

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Yes, I agree. Looking forward to what McCreary can do with a more free-form concept album, especially if it's tied to science fiction ideas. He has great track record when it comes to lofty science fiction.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Another day, another score where 🐻 is credited with the themes and his guys with the rest:

 

image.jpeg

 

1. The Chauncey Song (2:06)
2. Imaginary Friend (2:48)
3. Jessica (1:35)
4. Alice’s List (5:09)
5. Friendly Ritual (4:43)
6. Carousel of Terror (4:10)
7. Bear Beast Battle (6:16)
8. Never Ever (5:35)
9. The Chauncey Jingle (0:43)

 

Weirdly, it hasn't appeared on my Spotify yet and today is friday...

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Ah.

 

Gotta look at what you submit after you submit a post, you do that kind of stuff a lot!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, the 2nd Masters of the Universe from earlier this year has also not been released. So there's really no telling. It kinda feels like Bear is so busy with his concept album, that they're forgetting there's other music people like to hear.

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Yeah, I've kind of lost hope on a Masters of the Universe release. It's a shame because there was some great bits of muisc in the new season but I don't think a release is coming. Which is weird since recently they released an album for Imaginary, which in my opinion is much less interesting than MotU S2.

 

But I also thought there wasn't going to be a blog post about Percy Jackson and we got it two months later, so who knows...

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