I've always loved good film music, so it is my pleasure to feature the work of Thomas Newman, who amazingly enough has never won an oscar.
There’s no denying that Thomas Newman is one of the finest film composers working today. Along with father Alfred, uncles Lionel and Emil, cousin Randy, and brother David, film music runs in his blood. But with an instantly recognizable style filled with interesting orchestrations and exotic instrumentations, Newman has carved out a niche all to himself.
With 10 Academy Award nominations to his name, Newman remains embarrassingly Oscar-less. But like the other members of that talented musical dynasty, Newman’s music has more to do with quality than awards recognition. While you won’t find many blockbusters and only a handful of classic films on his resume, Newman’s intelligent music elevates every film he scores.
The films he has scored include American Beauty, The Road To Perdition, Little Women, The Shawshank Redemption and Wall-E. I'm going to walk you through the film scoring process using Pixar's Wall-E to illustrate. I've also thrown in a few other examples of Newman's work. Here's the playlist.
- Thomas Newman scoring Wall-E (documentary from Behind The Scenes)
- Define Dancing from that same film (without the movie scenes)
- Define Dancing in the context of the film
- Theme from The Road To Perdition
- Plastic bag scene from American Beauty
Comments