The Critics' Choice
(1995) 9:00
(Wind Band: pc223 bcl,2/2atb sx/443euphtb/5 perc.)
Commissioned by the Rhode Island Commission on the Arts, Christie MacAuliffe Foundation, and premiered by Rhode Island College Wind Ensemble, Francis Marciniak, music director
Level: College/ Professional
I. Logo Music
II. The Lonely Girl
III. The Nervous GuyTrouble's Brewin'
IV. On the Run
V. Endings: A. Happily Ever After "Tough City Love"; B. Everybody Dies; C. Projector Breaks Down
The Critics' Choice is a movie score. Unfortunately, the movie has not yet been written, scripted, cast or produced. In fact, only the roughest ideas of the movie plot are available; they are the titles of the various "scenes": "The Lonely Girl," "The Nervous Guy (Trouble's Brewin')," "On the Run," and the various "Finales."
The score begins with the brief "Logo Music," music which, at the beginning of the film, traditionally accompanies those wonderful vignettes that identify the production company or studio (lions, winged horses, cats and even dogs).
Scene one follows the logo music, "The Lonely Girl." One hears the clock strike twelveand then a woman wanders through the deserted inner-city streets, alone, anxious, sad, depressed. She meanders, she skips, she waltzes, but all in a bizarre way, in a scene lit only by street lamps and carlight. She spins dizzily at times, swinging on lampposts, and her lethargic progress is broken by manic bursts of happiness that occur when, as the result of drink or dreaming, the sad reality of the present is forgotten for a moment. Here and there one hears the hint of the tune, "She's Only A Bird In A Gilded Cage," suggesting that her story is indeed a sad one. The scene ends with her gentle collapse and one hears the sound of her dropped-bottle breaking against the concrete.
Now, enter "The Nervous Guy," a hyper-dude, paranoid and scared, moving quickly through the streets. Secretly terrified of his own shadow, this Barney Fife-like guy's desperate desire to be hip can be heard in the jazzy (but not quire correct) clichéd melodic fragments that accompany his frantic scampering from corner to corner and alley to alley. "Trouble's Brewin'" for sure; one can imagine him looking over his shoulder as he scurriessomething is wrong, he's convinced that someone is after him! He works up courage and steps out time and again, only to scare himself by disturbing some pigeons, stumbling over a garbage can, and imaging footsteps behind him. The scene ends with the Nervous Guy stumbling over the Lonely Girl; their motives join and they team up to benervous and lonely together.
Enter the Bad Guys. They show up and chase the two protagonists (hey, the Nervous Guy was actually correctsomeone was after him!). In "On The Run," the chase weaves in and out of the urban landscape and comes to a close in some kind of no-way-out situation, perhaps a dead end, perhaps the top of a skyscraper, perhaps on the bank of a river.
At this point, the composer provides three possible endings: Ending One: "Everyone Lives Happily Ever After-Tough City Love," a tender but unsettling romantic ending; Ending Two: "Everybody Dies," complete with the sounds of guns, sirens, police whistles and other aural clichés that signal the ultimate dispatch of all of the players; Ending Three: "The Projector Breaks Down," an ending that begins with Everybody Dies music, but never finishes; mechanical things begin to go wrong, the film stutters on the scene, the soundtrack winds down, catches and begins again, but peters out with the thump of metal and woodthe last gasp of the protagonists refusing to go "gentle into that good night."
(1995) 9:00
(Wind Band: pc223 bcl,2/2atb sx/443euphtb/5 perc.)
Commissioned by the Rhode Island Commission on the Arts, Christie MacAuliffe Foundation, and premiered by Rhode Island College Wind Ensemble, Francis Marciniak, music director
Level: College/ Professional
I. Logo Music
II. The Lonely Girl
III. The Nervous GuyTrouble's Brewin'
IV. On the Run
V. Endings: A. Happily Ever After "Tough City Love"; B. Everybody Dies; C. Projector Breaks Down
The Critics' Choice is a movie score. Unfortunately, the movie has not yet been written, scripted, cast or produced. In fact, only the roughest ideas of the movie plot are available; they are the titles of the various "scenes": "The Lonely Girl," "The Nervous Guy (Trouble's Brewin')," "On the Run," and the various "Finales."
The score begins with the brief "Logo Music," music which, at the beginning of the film, traditionally accompanies those wonderful vignettes that identify the production company or studio (lions, winged horses, cats and even dogs).
Scene one follows the logo music, "The Lonely Girl." One hears the clock strike twelveand then a woman wanders through the deserted inner-city streets, alone, anxious, sad, depressed. She meanders, she skips, she waltzes, but all in a bizarre way, in a scene lit only by street lamps and carlight. She spins dizzily at times, swinging on lampposts, and her lethargic progress is broken by manic bursts of happiness that occur when, as the result of drink or dreaming, the sad reality of the present is forgotten for a moment. Here and there one hears the hint of the tune, "She's Only A Bird In A Gilded Cage," suggesting that her story is indeed a sad one. The scene ends with her gentle collapse and one hears the sound of her dropped-bottle breaking against the concrete.
Now, enter "The Nervous Guy," a hyper-dude, paranoid and scared, moving quickly through the streets. Secretly terrified of his own shadow, this Barney Fife-like guy's desperate desire to be hip can be heard in the jazzy (but not quire correct) clichéd melodic fragments that accompany his frantic scampering from corner to corner and alley to alley. "Trouble's Brewin'" for sure; one can imagine him looking over his shoulder as he scurriessomething is wrong, he's convinced that someone is after him! He works up courage and steps out time and again, only to scare himself by disturbing some pigeons, stumbling over a garbage can, and imaging footsteps behind him. The scene ends with the Nervous Guy stumbling over the Lonely Girl; their motives join and they team up to benervous and lonely together.
Enter the Bad Guys. They show up and chase the two protagonists (hey, the Nervous Guy was actually correctsomeone was after him!). In "On The Run," the chase weaves in and out of the urban landscape and comes to a close in some kind of no-way-out situation, perhaps a dead end, perhaps the top of a skyscraper, perhaps on the bank of a river.
At this point, the composer provides three possible endings: Ending One: "Everyone Lives Happily Ever After-Tough City Love," a tender but unsettling romantic ending; Ending Two: "Everybody Dies," complete with the sounds of guns, sirens, police whistles and other aural clichés that signal the ultimate dispatch of all of the players; Ending Three: "The Projector Breaks Down," an ending that begins with Everybody Dies music, but never finishes; mechanical things begin to go wrong, the film stutters on the scene, the soundtrack winds down, catches and begins again, but peters out with the thump of metal and woodthe last gasp of the protagonists refusing to go "gentle into that good night."