Danny Elfman - What a guy!!!

I did my final dissertation at the Conservatoire on Danny Elfman and his film scores.

For those who don’t know, he’s done the music for the big hitters like The Simpsons and Desperate House Wives but really I love his film music. Batman, Spiderman, the Frightners, Nightmare before Christmas, Beetle Juice and so many more. He’s well worth reading about if you don’t know anything about him. Especially his collaborations with Tim Burton (if it’s got a halloween feel it’s most likely Burton and Elfman).

Thankfully for me, my film studies lecturer (Steve Halfyard) is one of the leading authorities on Elfman as she literally wrote the book on him. It was therefore quite intimidating to know she would be marking my essay. Having said that Steve leant me loads of background reading for my work and I was able to get a great incite into Elfman as a person and into his working formula.

This is a video I’ve put onto my virb page for a laugh as it was the closing of my final presentation where we discuss our working thesis in progress. My Thesis was along the lines of Danny Elfman’s working formula when scoring superhero films (he spans many genres and this music is the most exciting for me). It’s called: The Secret of Elfman - and was something I made for a laugh to close my presentation with.

If you’ve read this please download some of his music (iTunes) or rent a music cd from the library. It’s brilliant music with themes that (if you understand them) actually foreshadow what comes next in the film.