Tag Archives: Joe Kraemer

This year’s Emmy music races

It’s only a matter of weeks after Oscar season ends that Emmy season begins. I know, it’s hard to believe, but within the industry — especially the many publicists we deal with on a daily basis — the calendar year has become one long awards season. Still, Emmy season is a great way to catch up on the many fine shows that now grace the small screen, and in this first of a series of stories about Emmy-worthy work in music for television, we look at a handful of potential nominees in the series- and limited-series-scoring categories. In this second story, the role of music in current science-fiction series is examined. A third story looks at the music for four of the season’s top limited series, including Howards End and Patrick Melrose. And a fourth story looks at the odds of documentary scores, including The Vietnam War and Blue Planet II, attaining Emmy glory.

Contenders for best score, part three!

My editor at Variety came up with an interesting angle, and one especially relevant in today’s world of sequels, spinoffs and reboots: what’s the role of music, and how do composers decide when and where to apply themes from previous films or TV shows? For this final story in our pre-nominations Oscar-music series, I received fascinating answers from John Williams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Thomas Newman (Spectre), Michael Giacchino (Jurassic World), Christophe Beck (The Peanuts Movie), Ludwig Goransson (Creed) and Joe Kraemer (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation).

The role of classic TV themes in big-screen movies

JBwithUNCLEposter2015Variety posed an interesting question: If you’re remaking a classic TV series, what role — if any — does the musical theme of that series play? Should you remind the audience of the series’ origins via its music? Is it key to a marketing plan? If the theme is not iconic, should it be jettisoned altogether in favor of a new musical approach? With The Man From U.N.C.L.E. having just opened, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation still playing strongly, and The Peanuts Movie on the horizon, I talked to the composers of all three films (Daniel Pemberton, Joe Kraemer, Christophe Beck, respectively) about the importance of music from the small-screen originals.

Talking “Mission: Impossible” with Joe Kraemer

JoeKraemerJBParamountFun last night doing a Q&A with composer Joe Kraemer, who scored the fifth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Rogue Nation (already on track to outpace the four previous films). The film wowed the Society of Composers & Lyricists audience at Paramount, and Kraemer was both informative and funny while regaling the crowd (mostly composers and songwriters) with the ups and downs of scoring a big summer popcorn flick. I was pleased to be able to tell him that Lalo Schifrin (composer of the original Mission: Impossible themes that Joe brilliantly applied throughout the score) loved what he had done.