This is Haunted Halloween!

Collection CD art...
"This is Haunted Halloween" collection CD art...

A festive two hour collection of holiday tunes, debuting on October 1, 2010!  –

Disc One is packed with a selection of macabre party hits, from a new extended mix of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to Sheb Wooley’s campy “The Purple People Eater.”  Disc Two follows with pieces reflecting the darker side of Halloween.  Here, spooky film themes, ghoulish classical favorites, and other grisly tunes mix it up with creepy sound effects perfect for a stormy night.

Produced by Jason Pittman and Kali Pappas, this collection offers new presentations of old classics alongside several fun surprises.  But beware — this is not your average Halloween mix tape.  Listen and share!  If you dare…

Available for download NOW:

Audio files:

– Disc 1 – 17 .mp3 files, tagged and labeled. (128kbps LAME MP3)

– Disc 2 – 14 .mp3 files, tagged and labeled. (128kbps LAME MP3)

Expanded notes on the collection and the various tracks:

Liner Notes.pdf

– Liner Notes.rtf (text only)

Artwork:

3 .psd files, complete with gutters and ready for conversion/printing (CYMK)

– 5 .jpg files, at screen resolution for viewing (RGB)

– 1 .jpg file, 800×800 pixels, for use as cover art in your preferred media player

LINKS:

http://tinyurl.com/hauntedhalloween

http://bit.ly/hauntedhalloween

Mirror:

http://tinyurl.com/strangebeat

http://bit.ly/strangebeat

Emma DVD Review

So, my Emma 2009/2010 DVD arrived today via Amazon, and I’ve perused the special features.  As far as I know, this BBC DVD version from Amazon is the same as the DVD that ShopPBS.org will ship next month.

Disc 1 includes featurettes on the Emma filming locations and costumes, bringing you short interviews with crew and cast about the visual side of the production.

Emma Design Board
Design board for the Squerryes Court dining room.

The “Locations” piece primarily covers Squerryes Court as Hartfield and Loseley Park as Donwell Abbey, describing the crew’s intent to use space as a metaphor for the various characters’ existences and as an indicator of each character’s social station.  Emma, for example, inhabits an elegant home with an easy, unobstructed floorplan which represents her personality and life experience:

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”

Donwell Abbey, by contrast, is more venerable in size, style, and age, which very much suits the character and social status of Mr. Knightley:

“The house was larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular, with many comfortable, and one or two handsome rooms. It was just what it ought to be, and it looked what it was; and Emma felt an increasing respect for it, as the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted in blood and understanding.”

The featurette also briefly covers decor choices and the tricks involved in shooting winter scenes in June(!).  While the snowscape longshots at Squerryes Court were indeed filmed during winter, the Knightleys’ rear garden snowball fight was shot on a 27-degree C day!  This recalls the snow scenes from the 1995/96 Pride and Prejudice adaptation, which were filmed in July of 1994, if I’m remembering correctly.

Snow in June at Squerryes Court!

The costume featurette was of particular interest to me.  There were several conversations with costume designer Rosalind Ebbutt, who shares various elements of the design process.  Ebbutt brainstormed ideas via collages of period images, fabric swatches, and color samples for each character.  Frank Churchill’s even included a photo or two of Mick Jagger, whom Ebbutt felt captured the dashing worldliness of the character.  In addition to remarks from the designer, we also hear from the actors.  Romola Garai, Louise Dylan, Blake Ritson, Tamsin Greig, Rupert Evans, Laura Pyper, and Jonny Lee Miller all comment on the collaborative design process, how fashion reveals character status, personality and transformation, and the nuts and bolts of wearing period fashion.

Harriet and Emma:  Twins!
Harriet and Emma: Twins!

Tamsin Greig, for example, describes Regency underpinnings (chemises, custom corsets made specifically for each actress, and in some cases, a “bustle” pad).  Romola Garai shows her little chatelaine watch as an example of a costume accessory that denotes Emma’s status as “lady of the house.”  Louise Dylan describes how Harriet Smith’s wardrobe begins to mimic Emma’s as the older girl’s influence grows.  And Jonny Lee Miller discusses Mr. Knightley’s practical yet elegant wardrobe as an outward manifestation of the character’s personality.  “I can see myself gambling in this,” he jokes, indicating his beautiful brocade waistcoat and velvet tailcoat.

Disc 2 contains the music featurette and an interview with Sir Michael Gambon (Mr. Woodhouse), filmed on location at Squerryes Court.

The Music piece includes interviews with composer Samuel Sim, Director Jim O’Hanlon, and Producer George Ormond, and generally overviews the process of scoring a television series.  Director O’Hanlon describes Sim’s Emma soundtrack as having “one foot in the period and one foot in today,” allowing the film to sound historically-appropriate while maintaining a freshness accessible to modern ears. Sim and O’Hanlon also discuss how Emma’s main theme, or motive, is reiterated over the course of the miniseries to accentuate onscreen moods and actions.

"Spotting" Emma
Samuel Sim and Jim O'Hanlon "spot" musical cues.

In addition, we learn a little about the planning or “sketching” period, during which the composer creates the main theme and ideas for the various musical cues that will be required in the finished miniseries.  We also get to glimpse a “spotting” session with the composer, director, and producer, which involves watching the film, matching up extant music cues with the footage, and coming up with plans for additional cues not yet written.  The featurette concludes with a recording session at the legendary Abbey Road Studio of Beatles fame.  This is totally off-topic, but it’s worth noting that the score for the upcoming “World of Color” show at Disney’s California Adventure was recorded just a few weeks ago at Abbey Road.

I haven’t yet watched the DVD version of the miniseries itself, but I understand that it DOES include various short scenes that aired on the BBC but not on PBS.

In all, I think the bonus features were worth the DVD purchase price (I paid around $23, via Amazon).  The packaging is a beautiful, book-style box – gatefold, I guess you could say? – with photos of Garai on the cover and on the discs themselves.  There’s a panorama of the Box Hill picnic on the inside.

Related information:

Barack Obama records for the Hall of Presidents…

From the White House, Barack Obama’s recording session for the NEW Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World.  His apparent lack of knowledge regarding audio animatronics indicates that Dude needs to get his butt to a Disney theme park, STAT!

Disney Theme Park Audio: Adventureland Veranda and George Bruns

Updated: See part two of this saga here!

Okay kids.

Awhile ago I bought an old, rare-ish LP of Hawaiian string exotica arranged by famed Disney composer (and traditional jazz trombonist and tubaist) George Bruns. This is the guy who wrote the tune part of “Pirates Life for Me” (X Atencio wrote the lyrics). The album’s called “Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii,” and it includes several tracks from the later Adventureland Veranda restaurant area loop at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom (I know of two different loops playing in that location; this material is from the second incarnation, ca. 1980s-1993). The title track – “Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii,” one of three tracks on the album that are original Bruns compositions – was actually featured in the International Gardens area loop at the 1964-65 World’s Fair’s Ford Pavilion (You can buy a copy of the “Walt Disney at the World’s Fair” CD set, which includes the fair version of the piece, here).

I’m not sure if the “Moonlight Time” track actually made the Adventureland Veranda (update: it did), but if you remember hearing it playing in situ, please tell me. So far, I’ve IDed a grand total of three songs from the album as AV area loop definites. If you know more, TELL ME. 😀 If you have even crappy snippets of live audio from your vaycay videos, pleeeease let me know!

I’ve bolded the three tracks that I know were used. Side one, tracks 2 and 3 apparently ran in order in the AV loop.

Side One:

1. South Sea Island Magic
2. Hawaiian Paradise (the tailend of this track shows up at the beginning of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkYXoCgXqwA)
3. Moonlight and Shadows (it’s the track that comprises the bulk of this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkYXoCgXqwA)
4. To You, Sweetheart, Aloha
5. Paradise Isle
6. Song of Old Hawaii

Side Two:

1. Blue Hawaii (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZEBkZUb0uw – the piece in the video is obviously Blue Hawaii, even if it doesn’t match the album version…but it seems to)
2. Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii (seems identical to the Ford Pavilion/International Gardens version released on the WF box set…no clue if the track was ever part of the AV loop)
3. Sweet Leilani
4. Aloha Nui Hawaii
5. My Tane
6. Ka Pua (The Flower)

Anyway, you can download my full album rip as a torrent via Mousebits.com, here.  For individual tracks, see this torrent.

Groovy Adventureland Veranda area loop links:

Have fun!

Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii - Front
Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii – Front
Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii - Back
Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii – Back
Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii - Rippy!
Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii – Rippy!