Composer Commentary: The Good Wife by David Buckley

In our recent SoundCast interview with David Buckley, we mentioned a brand new feature ... a special COMPOSER COMMENTARY.  We figured ... why should DVDs and Blu-rays have all the commenting fun?  David Buckley was kind enough to sit down and comment through five of his compelling pieces found on his recently release soundtrack for THE GOOD WIFE.

Track 1 Commentary - The Good Wife (Theme)
Track 6 Commentary - "Partner Vote Sting"
Track 8 Commentary - "Plaintiff's Partita"
Track 11 Commentary - "Felon's Fugue"
Track 19 Commentary - "Countdown to Execution"

We hope you will take a listen and appreciate the insights he provides.  Please do check out our interview with him to get even more details on the story behind the TV-series' score and the soundtrack release.  And if you like this new feature, we'd appreciate you taking a moment to let us know in the comments below, hitting the like/heart button above and sharing it with others!

We'd love to do more of these and your feedback will go a long way to determining if we do!

Soundcast Interview: David Buckley (The Good Wife)

Interview: David Buckley (The Good Wife)

Composer David Buckley talks about his work on one of television's most popular series, THE GOOD WIFE.  He shares specifically about how he came on to the show, the evolution of the music over the five seasons, the impact the dramatic shift in musical style made, not only on the show, but on the fans, and what fans might expect in the hotly anticipated season 6.  He also talks briefly about one of his next big projects:  BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT.


Episode Highlights

00:00 - Introduction
02:24 - How did you come on to The Good Wife?
04:40 - The evolution of the music
07:11 - How did you approach this score?
10:16 - The new theme of season 5
11:34 - Working with the showrunners
14:54 - Reaction to the music of season 5
16:35 - To release or not release
20:50 - Emmy Consideration
26:42 - Batman: Arkham Knight
29:40 - What can we expect in season 6?
32:15 - Contact us
33:04 - Composer Commentary by David Buckley

Music Selections

00:00 - "The Good Wife Theme" (The Good Wife) by David Buckley
09:00 - "Felon's Fugue" (The Good Wife) by David Buckley
10:42 - "Countdown to Execution" (The Good Wife) by David Buckley
16:43 - "Peter the Penitent" (The Good Wife) by David Buckley
17:06 - "Wanna Kiss Peter Florrick" (The Good Wife) by David Buckley
31:37 - "Plaintiff's Partita" (The Good Wife) by David Buckley

Notes:

Listen to the The Good Wife Soundtrack Composer Commentary at Mixcloud

Follow David Buckley on Twitter - @djsbuckley


Support Tracksounds:

Buy THE GOOD WIFE soundtrack by David Buckley at Amazon.com


Most of the  soundtracks mentioned in this episode can be found at Amazon.  Your purchases through these links help us to keep on keepin' on!  Thank You!

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2013 BMI Film & TV Awards - Composer Interviews

On May 15th, BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) held their annual awards gala, The Film & TV Awards, where they honor the composers of the years top-grossing films and top-rated television programs.

As they have done of late, they offer short videos with many of the top composers in the industry via their Youtube channel.  They've created a playlist of them all, which we offer to you above.  Interviews included are:  Christopher Lennertz, John Williams, Brian Tyler, Mark Isham, Cliff Martinez, Mike Post, David Buckley, Nathan Barr, Theodore Shapiro, iZler, Blake Neely and more!

As always, its great to see and hear from the people behind some of the past year's best music.  In addition to Cliff Martinez (this year's recipient of the Richard Kirk Award winner), Christopher Lennertz shares about playing the role of James Bond as a 9-year-old.  John Williams talks about scoring Lincoln (and looks great... strong enough to pull the ears off a gundark...or score a Star Wars film or something.).  Mark Isham shares about scoring the weekly "Once Upon a Time" and biopic "42." while David Buckley shares about scoring season-to-season on The Good Wife.  Brian Tyler talks about scoring a "post-Avengers" film, Iron Man 3, and iZLER reveals how gratifying and hair-raising it is to score two TV series at one time:  Revenge and Shameless.

Give the entire playlist a listen above and you can see a list of ALL the winners below:


RICHARD KIRK AWARD

CLIFF MARTINEZ

ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS

MYCHAEL DANNA
Life of Pi

ADELE (PRS)
"Skyfall," from Skyfall

BMI FILM MUSIC AWARDS

ALAN SILVESTRI
The Avengers

THOMAS NEWMAN
Skyfall

DANNY ELFMAN
Oz the Great and Powerful

JOHN WILLIAMS
Lincoln

DANNY ELFMAN
Men in Black 3

BRIAN TYLER
Iron Man 3

ALAN SILVESTRI
The Croods

MARK MOTHERSBAUGH
Hotel Transylvania

NATHANIEL MECHALY (SACEM)
Taken 2

ALEXANDRE DESPLAT (SACEM)
Argo

CHRISTOPHER LENNERTZ
Identity Thief

DANNY ELFMAN
Silver Linings Playbook

MYCHAEL DANNA
Life of Pi

ALEXANDRE DESPLAT (SACEM)
Rise of the Guardians

ALEXANDRE DESPLAT (SACEM)
Zero Dark Thirty

ALAN SILVESTRI
Flight

CHRISTOPHER LENNERTZ
Think Like A Man

THEODORE SHAPIRO
The Campaign

BRIAN TYLER
The Expendables 2

JOE KRAEMER
Jack Reacher

DANNY ELFMAN
Dark Shadows

AARON ZIGMAN
Madea's Witness Protection

STEVE JABLONSKY
Battleship

ALAN MENKEN
Mirror Mirror

JOHN OTTMAN
Jack the Giant Slayer

THEODORE SHAPIRO
Hope Springs

MARK ISHAM
The Lucky One

HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS
Total Recall

LYLE WORKMAN
American Reunion

AARON ZIGMAN
Escape From Planet Earth

BMI SPECIAL CITATION OF APPRECIATION

LAURA DUNN

BMI MINISERIES MUSIC AWARD

TONY MORALES
Hatfields & McCoys

BMI TELEVISION MUSIC AWARDS

BRIAN KIRK
NCIS

CHUCK LORRE
Two and a Half Men

BLAKE NEELY
Golden Boy

JOS JORGENSEN
America's Got Talent

ANDY LOVE
America's Got Talent

BLAKE NEELY
The Mentalist

PETE TOWNSHEND (PRS)
CSI

CHRISTOPHER FRANKE
The Amazing Race

VAUGHN JOHNSON
The Amazing Race

LEE SANDERS
The Amazing Race

MARK MANCINA
Criminal Minds

ROB SIMONSEN
Blue Bloods

ROB CAIRNS
The Bachelor

GEORGE RITTER
Rules of Engagement

BERT SELEN
Rules of Engagement

CHRISTOPHER LENNERTZ
Revolution

KEITH POWER (SOCAN)
Hawaii Five-0

BRIAN TYLER
Hawaii Five-0

CARIM CLASMANN (PRS)
Grey's Anatomy

GALIA DURANT (PRS)
Grey's Anatomy

PETER BJORN AND JOHN (STIM)
2 Broke Girls

JOHN FRIZZELL
The Following

PETE TOWNSHEND (PRS)
CSI: NY

BILL BROWN
CSI: NY

KEB' MO'
Mike & Molly

DAVID BUCKLEY (PRS)
The Good Wife

JOS JORGENSEN
The X Factor

ANDY LOVE
The X Factor

SCOTT KIRKLAND
Bones

KENNETH BERRY
Undercover Boss

EHREN EBBAGE
Undercover Boss

MATT KOSKENMAKI
Undercover Boss

JOHN NOONEY
Undercover Boss

CRAIG OWENS
Undercover Boss

CHAD FISCHER
Scandal

iZLER
Revenge

CARTER BAYS
How I Met Your Mother

CRAIG THOMAS
How I Met Your Mother

MARK ISHAM
Once Upon a Time

MIKE POST
Law & Order: SVU

BLAKE NEELY
Arrow

BMI SPANISH-LANGUAGE TELEVISION MUSIC AWARDS

JOSE ANGEL
La Patrona

MARLU
La Patrona

PACO PANIAGUA
La Patrona

JUAN CARLOS RODRIGUEZ
La Patrona

ALEJANDRO SIRVENT BARTON
Abismo de Pasión

BMI CABLE TELEVISION MUSIC AWARDS

TREE ADAMS
Perception

JIM JOHNSTON
WWE Raw

MICHAEL BOLGER
SpongeBob SquarePants

SAGE GUYTON
SpongeBob SquarePants

EBAN SCHLETTER
SpongeBob SquarePants

JEREMY WAKEFIELD
SpongeBob SquarePants

JACE EVERETT
True Blood

NATHAN BARR
True Blood

CHARLIE CLOUSER
American Horror Story

CESAR DAVILA-IRIZARRY
American Horror Story

DAMON CRISWELL
Fish Hooks

ANDY STURMER
Fish Hooks

BRANDON KINDER
Bering Sea Gold

J.G. QUINTEL
The Regular Show

JOHN ENROTH
The Regular Show

ALBERT FOX
The Regular Show

MARK MOTHERSBAUGH
The Regular Show

CRAIG OWENS
Dance Moms

RONNIE VAN ZANT
Mountain Men

JACOB SHEA
Mountain Men

ROLFE KENT
Dexter

DANIEL LICHT
Dexter

iZLER
Shameless

Find out more at the official BMI site

Gone (Soundtrack) by David Buckley - Review

The Thrills are Gone
Review by Edmund Meinerts

Flying under the radar even by February’s standards is the thriller GONE, in which nobody believes Amanda Seyfried when she says she was kidnapped and nearly killed. Few people saw it and fewer still liked it – at the time of writing, it had barely made back a third of its $22 million budget. Brazilian director Heitor Dhalia, in his first Hollywood venture, sought the services of DAVID BUCKLEY to compose the film’s score. A protegé of the rather better-known HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS, BUCKLEY only has a handful of solo projects to his name. Chief among these is the enjoyable, mostly-orchestral, Oriental-tinged THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, but hopefuls expecting any of that quality in GONE are likely to walk away disappointed.

Instead, and unsurprisingly, BUCKLEY mostly channels his mentor’s thriller style for this assignment. If you’ve heard any of GREGSON-WILLIAMS’ scores for either Tony Scott (MAN ON FIRE, UNSTOPPABLE etc.) or Ben Affleck (GONE BABY GONE and THE TOWN, the latter co-composed by BUCKLEY), you can probably already guess what GONE sounds like: a mostly low-key affair with strings and piano for the character moments, and plenty of synthetic percussion and effects for the suspense and action sequences. It’s an effective style, but hardly original; nor does it make for particularly interesting listening when divorced from the visuals.


READ THE FULL REVIEW 

Composer David Buckley Scores From Paris with Love

Composer David Buckely (The Forbidden Kingdom) is fnishing up his score for the upcoming film, FROM PARIS WITH LOVE. The film is directed by Pierre Morel (Taken). This new film stars John Travolta and Jonathan-Rees-Myers. It is being produced by well-known director/producer, Luc Besson.

Certainly this score will have a different flavor to THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, but, by the looks of the teaser trailer, could be some good, French, fun.

Breaking News! THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM SOUNDTRACK RELEASE

Composer David Buckley's top-notch score for THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM will be released very soon! The score will be released in two formats: a digital download and an Amazon.com exclusive CD release sometime in early July 2008.

Our review of the promo for THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM has been the most read soundtrack review at Tracksounds in the last month, so this news should make a lot of new fans happy.


The official track listing:

01 The Mountain of Fruit & Flowers    1:43
02 The Peach Banquet    1:46
03 Monkey Business    4:31
04 China Begins    4:11
05 Hops' Shop    3:07
06 J&J Temple Fight    5:34
07 The Legend of the Temple Staff    1:59
08 Two Tigers - Two Masters    2:49
09 Tea House Fight    5:07
10 The Tyranny of War    5:23
11 Don't Forget to Breathe    0:52
12 Ni Chang & Her Cult Killers    4:35
13 Drunken Master Wounded    3:40
14 The Seeker of the Prophecy    5:05
15 Let the Journey Begin    2:37
16 Monkey King Released    2:27
17 Battle of the Bride    3:01
18 Her Destiny was Written    4:12
19 As one tale ends...    2:46
20 ... Another tale begins    1:35

Stay tuned for more details on purchasing options and exact release dates!

The Forbidden Kingdom (Soundtrack) by David Buckley - Review

The Keys to the Kingdom
Review by Christopher Coleman


For martial-art film fans, THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM has been a dream come true. Even beyond their prime, Jet Li and Jackie Chan are still tops in the business. For this Lions Gate release, the two play iconic roles: a monk and a drunk respectively. They become the co-masters of a young, displaced Bostonian, Jason Tripitakas. Not only is Jason in the wrong place, but he's in the wrong time...and universe. The young, kung-fu-film-fanatic, has come to possess a golden-staff, that legend says, was once owned by the mythic Monkey King. Before being deceived and imprisoned by the sinister Jade Warlord, the Monkey King hurled his staff from his world into ours - awaiting the time when "the chosen one" would find and return the staff to him; thereby setting him free. Jason begins his quest with the prized staff in hand and along the way is joined by the monk, the drunk, and a young girl bent on vengeance against the same Jade Warlord who murdered her family. THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM doesn't quite live up to some of Asia's top Wuxia films but is easily the best effort I've seen come a Hollywood studio in a very long time. It is a well-rounded film that doesn't take itself too seriously which allows for a wider palette of emotions than normally expected for such a film. To keep pace with frenetic action sequences, fantastic settings, romantic flirtations, and sporadic humor, newcomer-composer, David Buckely was hired to pen the score.

David Buckley has come a long ways from his days as a choir-boy in the United Kingdom. Traveling a road that lead through Cambridge University, as both student and later professor, Buckley longed for more than the composing of high-brow, post-modern pieces could deliver. Writing scores for many television documentaries and British commercials, he eventually connected back with an old acquaintance, composer HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS. That working relationship lead to THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM for Buckley as composer with Gregson-Williams as the score's producer. Serendipitously, it was a rejected piece of music, from another project, that was a key in opening the door to THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM - a piece that eventually became a part of this score.


Read the full review here

The Forbidden Kingdom Soundtrack is Coming to iTunes!

Just got word that the soundtrack for THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, composed by DAVID BUCKLEY, will get an initial release on iTunes. So you "tuners" rejoice!

Looks as though there will be some 19 tracks released, so that bodes well that the most important themes and sequences will be covered. No other details were available.

Of course, I had high hopes for a full-CD release and I guess that possibility still exists, but for now we'll have to go to Steve Jobs' kingdom, for THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM.

The movie premiere's on April 18, 2008, by the way, so let's hope for a release around that time. As soon as I get more deets on this, I'll post them here.

Interview with composer DAVID BUCKLEY

Rushing from L.A.X. (if that is actually possible), I made my way to Wavecrest Studios, where composer DAVID BUCKLEY had just finished a meeting with director JOEL SCHUMACHER. I was, most generously, welcomed in and, over the next hour, I was treated to a tour of the state-of-the-art facility. I talked with David Buckley about how came into the film-music business, his work-relationship with Harry Gregson-Williams, and his two new projects: THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM and TOWN CREEK.

Check out our interview which includes 3 EXCLUSIVE TRACKS FROM THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM!

What's Going On?

Yes...looks like not much is happening on the site, but there's quite a bit going on. So here is a quick update. With the holiday weekend, I've dropped into a lower gear, but I'm about to shift it up again.

Now, to commemorate the season, we've resurrected (not sure if that pun is intended or not) the special feature: FAITH AND FILM MUSIC. When you're winding down your day of services, family and friends , check it out. And if you are simply on "spring break" in some tropical locale somewhere...sober up for a minute and have a read.


There are a ton of things coming very soon, so here are a few teasers:



- THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM - We should have our interview with composer DAVID BUCKLEY (The Forbidden Kingdom, Town Creek) up as early as today...with a few exclusive sound clips from this exciting score!



- E.S. POSTHUMUS' CARTOGRAPHER - Look for a special announcement regarding your chance to ask E.S. POSTHUMUS (UNEARTHED) with LUNA SANS the questions you've been dying to. If your question is chosen to be a part of our interview, you'll win a copy of their latest CD, the 2-disc, CARTOGRAPHER! Details on the interview itself will come soon too.



- TYLER BATES - And even more interview-goodness...Be on the lookout for our interview with composer TYLER BATES as he shares about his work on DOOMSDAY, RISE OF THE ARGONAUTS (VG), WATCHMEN, and THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.



- THE BIG WRAP UP! Cue Awards - I know. It's taken much longer than I thought, but the BWU will be posted in the next couple of days...and you'll want to make sure you see just how close the competition was this year. Also...we reveal our "special guest" judge.



...and there's more where that came from. Stay tuned.

Where are The Updates?

For those of you asking, "Where are the updates? Where is the Cue Awards: Big Wrap Up? Where are new reviews? Where? Where?"

Well, let me tell you...

I've recently returned from a working-vacation in the L.A. area (emphasis on the vacation part...it was much needed). The vacation-side was full of eating out, watching flicks in state of the art movie theaters, checking out the USS Midway in San Diego, rock climbing (of the indoor variety) and other niceties. Yes...some fun stuff...but that's not all...

On the "working" side of things, I interviewed composer DAVID BUCKLEY, who was written the score for the upcoming flick THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM as well as Joel Schumacher's TOWN CREEK. David Buckley has been working with HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS for a number of years and has additional music credits on a number of well-known HGW projects. He's flying solo now and let me tell you his work for THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM is going to pleasantly surprise many of you! While I was not all that enthused with the film's concept and even initial trailer, having seen a good bit of footage with the score track, I have to say that it's going to be pretty decent film and a very entertaining score. Look for the interview in a week or so. Hopefully we'll be able to stream a few tracks from Buckely's score on the interview page.

I was also able to sit down with composer CHRISTOPHER LENNERTZ for a few minutes. Chatting in his studio, he was certainly happy with the box office success of one of his most recent projects ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS, but not more happy than with his first child - born a few weeks ago. I got a bit of a glimpse and listen to an upcoming project of his and let's just say this is probably going to be yet another hit for him and nice listening experience for us. Stay tuned for more on that project in the days and weeks to come.

Where are the reviews? - I have a number of reviews partially done so be on the lookout for 10,000 B.C, JUMPER, and THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES in the very near future.

Ok...so now you know the deal. I'll be getting to the BIG WRAP UP in the next few days as well.

Lots of cool stuff on the horizon, so keep your peepers fully peeped.