Film Music

Film: Toy Story

Composer: Randy Newman

I chose to research Toy Story because it had a great soundtrack with brilliant songs, all of which I love. The Toy Story soundtrack was produced by Walt Disney records and was released on November 22, 1995. The soundtrack received praise for its sprightly, stirring score. The album was scored and written by Randy Newman and had great success but only scored 94 in the billboard 200 album chart. Toy Story’s signature song ‘You’ve got a friend in me’ by Randy Newman was very popular, and a CD single was released of it on April 12 1996. The single was to promote the soundtrack’s release. Randy Newman produced the song in one day. Toy Story’s soundtrack also included the songs: ‘Strange things’ and ‘I will go sailing no more’.

by Fleur Pay

Film: The Simpsons' Movie

Composer: Danny Elfman

Elfman’s brother is a director called Richard Elfman and he gave his brother the opportunity to compose the music for the film ‘The Forbidden Zone’. This film then brought Danny to the attention of Tim Burton who has asked him to work on many of his films such as Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Many people don’t know but Elfman also wrote the music for the Simpsons.

The movie I liked the best which Elfman wrote the score for was the Simpson’s movie. Elfman rewrote the theme for the movie along with the music for the rest of the film. He also wrote the lyrics for the choral version of ‘Spider Pig’.

by Max Caminow

Film: Avatar

Composer: James Horner

James Horner is a famous music composer. He was born on August 14th 1953 in Los Angeles, California. He composed music for lots of Hollywood’s famous films like: Braveheart, Apollo 13, The Legend of Zorro, Star Trek, The Missing and more. He is, probably, best known for composing the soundtrack of the film Titanic.

One of the most recent movie soundtracks which he composed was for Avatar which is one of my favourite movies and was also voted the best movie of the year 2009. Horner won the Golden Globe award and the Grammy Award for this soundtrack; he also won the Academy Award twice and has received ten Oscars nominations and a number of other awards for other soundtracks. Horner spent his early life in London and started playing piano and the age of five. In London he attended The Royal College of Music, and studied a famous Hungarian composer called Györgi Ligeti. James Horner has worked with many famous people such as Charlotte Church, Leona Lewis and more.

by Muqtadir Shah