Composer Ryan Shore's podium at the Skywalker Scoring Stage.

Inside the Skywalker Scoring Stage with composer Ryan Shore.

Composer Ryan Shore

Of course, the key ingredient in this whole story is “talent” – and I’m really fortunate to know an insanely talented composer named Ryan Shore. We first met back in the late ‘90s, when he scored my student thesis project, A LETTER FROM THE WESTERN FRONT. Ryan wrote and conducted a full orchestral score performed by an ad-hoc group of New York musicians, an ambitious approach that really paid off (when SISKEL & EBERT reviewed the movie, Roger Ebert said his favorite part was the music).

We both realized early on that ARTICLES OF WAR demanded a much more ambitious sound than our earlier collaboration. Once I finished my rough cut of the film, Ryan began writing, sending me demo cues every couple of days… and slowly but surely, the movie started to feel like a capital-M “Movie.”

We worked via the Internet - he sent me files via the Internet from his home studio in California, and then I’d sync ‘em up in my home studio in New York. We knew exactly what was needed – the score had to be just as rich as the imagery, and support (and sometimes even drive) the emotional impact of the story. Nothing beats the sound produced by a full-sized orchestra.

Ryan really delivered, and I couldn’t wait to hear what his beautiful demos would sound like performed live by dozens of talented musicians. In early 2008, Ryan proposed going to Skywalker Ranch. We could record the entire score in just one session, and luckily for us, the facility champions independent productions (George Lucas, of course, is famous for self-financing all of his own projects).

The Skywalker Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryan Shore.