Film Music Cubed

Canadian-based Norman Orenstein's film music has meandered through the action film genre for the last fifteen years or so, after more then twenty years effort in performing rock and blues bands. Noted primarily for his potent ambient scores for ROBOCOP: PRIME DIRECTIVES and CUBE 2: HYPERCUBE, Orenstein is making his mark in genre film music and displaying a talent worth noting.

Norman Orenstein started as a guitar player, playing in blues, rock and R&B bands beginning in the 1970s, playing guitar and writing songs. In the 1980's he co-founded a rock and soul band called Alta Moda which led to a deal with Epic Records. About that time, Orenstein had opportunity to work on some commercials, and a film called UNFINISHED BUSINESS, a 1984 coming of age film directed by Don Owens. The producers of the film wanted to use some tracks produced for Alta Moda, and the band actually performs in one scene. Orenstein was then asked to collaborate with Patricia Cullen on the film's score.

"The film score job was a great eye opener," said Orenstein. "I was always critical of scores I didn't like, but after that experience, I gained a great respect for all TV and film composers. If a composer can live through post production, compose, produce and deliver the music on time, I think that deserves some respect."

Orenstein found a few more opportunities in television films, mostly in having his band's music appear in such films as Peter Levin's POPEYE DOYLE, a 1984 TV-movie about the exploits of New York's FRENCH CONNECTION detective, and Terrence Winkless' RAGE AND HONOR (1992). He also provided new music for a Canadian television series called, PRISONERS OF GRAVITY, which used a futuristic setting to discuss modern science fiction and fantasy literature.

By the 1990's, Orenstein's band had been renamed Infidels and signed a new record deal with I.R.S. Records. But his growing interest in writing music for films became his abiding interest. "Believe it or not, in the beginning, the business people around me did not support my interest in film music," Orenstein recalled. "They wanted me to focus on the album work. I called every person I knew who was remotely involved with film or TV, and made about 200 cold calls. One of the most difficult things I have ever done. I met some people, left my packages with receptionists, met with 'yeah you're the guitar player,' and actually landed one job. I would say it was difficult, but it could have been worse."

The job was Steve DiMarco's SPIKE OF LOVE, a bizarre 1994 dark comedy about a biker/dominatrix and her wannabe serial killer boyfriend and a vengeful gang of psychos. "This was a bizarre film with a lot of very dark humor, and nothing like my previous experience," Orenstein said. "No piano, no strings, nothing slick, and nothing sexy. Steve, the director, had created this dangerous and perverted little world and the music had to be raw and disturbing as well. It was more of a cult film, but it was a joy to work on."

SPIKE OF LOVE served [IMG4R]as Orenstein's true entrance into the world of film music, leading to his composing for film and television full time. While he had no formal academic musical training, Orenstein feels his background in blues, R&B, and rock bands gave him appropriate preparation for his new filmscoring career. "I had developed a discipline as writer, producer, performer, and partner in a business (the band), and that has been an essential quality to have when it comes to film scoring," he said. "Musically, that background has been very useful in producing legitimate feeling bluesy and rocking cues. Most scores that I have worked on are more conventional, employing a mixture of contemporary, ethnic and orchestral music." Orenstein enjoys writing action music, which seems to especially take advantage of his band background. "I like to hear the sounds in an action sequence," he said. "They are not necessarily emotional, but they have a reality. I try to make them all unique, and they are all challenging."

Orenstein describes his approach to film scoring as one of meeting the needs of his director, and modifying his style to fit the current project. "I take direction," Orenstein said. "It's not my film. I try to provide music the director/producers want to hear. Of course it is discussed, and I hope to do it my way, but I will never fight too hard for <I>my</I> way. Often there is more music than I would have, if it were really up to me."

The first fantasy series Orenstein scores was Nickelodeon's ANIMORPHS, which ran on the cable channel from 1998-99, for which the composed provided a hybrid score mixing electronic and orchestral elements. "That show was fun, but hard work," said Orenstein. "The first episode was very difficult, because it set the tone for the series and established the palette. After that it was spot, compose, review, and deliver, all in a week or less per episode. It was all very corporate."

The series that gave Orenstein his first major notice, not to mention his first CD soundtrack release (on GNP Crescendo Records), was 2000's Canadian miniseries ROBOCOP: PRIME DIRECTIVES, based on the popular feature film series. The 375-minute show, which was divided into four mini-movies, required more than five hours of music, making it the composer's most ambitious and challenging assignment to date.

For the score, Orenstein developed a sonic feel that was comparable to that [IMG3R]created by Basil Poledouris and Leonard Rosenman in the first three ROBOCOP feature films, but without actually using any of their music. It was more of a stylistic similarity. "I did want to carry the feel of Poledouris ROBOCOP," said the composer. "I love his score. The director saw these films as a metallic western, about a large, powerful super cop who fights evil," Orenstein said. "It is also a story of a tragic figure who was robbed of his normal life and wrestles with justice and revenge. The brass is bombastic and the strings cry. There is a heavy handedness to it, with leitmotifs and thundering drums."

Elements of the music, at the suggestion of director Julian Grant, carried a Spaghetti Western feel, to coincide with the idea of the concept as a metallic western. The music makes perfect metaphoric sense, and lends a unique and refreshing tonality to the action music. "At first I wasn't sure how it would work, but when I tried it and Julian loved it, so that was what it was going to be," said Orenstein. "I had to manage the degree to which this would be used. It is not subtle and over use could have been a problem. It mostly appears at victorious Robo action moments and in the face of death."

One of Orenstein's most notable efforts was his score for CUBE 2: HYPERCUBE, Andrzej's Sekula's 2002 sequel to the popular 1997 multidimensional horror fantasy. As he did with the ROBOCOP series, Orenstein entered a pre-existing project and set his own voice to it. The film's otherworldly setting prompted a stylish musical approach. "The reality in HYPERCUBE is not normal," Orenstein explained. "Physics are different and the whole time and place is a mystery. The idea was to create music that was not overly familiar. I tried to mix something primitive with something futuristic. It was largely an electronic score, with a lot of played metal percussion and heavily effected electric guitar."

The music in HYPERCUBE effectively enhanced the otherworldliness of the film's concept and visuals through an ambient, atmospheric musical design using a degree of electronics, while including enough acoustic instruments to keep the world of the Cube entrenched in reality. "Melodies are sparse and do not evolve in a big way," he said. "The music is not focusing on emotion, but rather sitting as waves of ambience. The music is almost more about the environment than the characters in the cube."

Orenstein refrained from adopting an approach similar to

CUBE 2: HYPERCUBE

© 2003 Lions Gate

Orenstein returned to the maze-milieu of the cubeworld in his most recent film score, CUBE ZERO. Again, Orenstein choose a new approach to this film, referring to his HYPERCUBE music in only a few moments. "This is yet another cube in a different time," he said. "The score is more orchestral with a lot of sound design quality. The challenge in CUBE ZERO was for the music to sit right, with the filmmakers, and with me personally. It is always rewarding when it feels right."

In 2001, Orenstein composed the scores for a couple of seafaring thrillers. DANGER BENEATH THE SEA was a made-for-TV political thriller involving an American submarine lost near North Korea. "This was a more traditional story and called for a more traditional musical approach," Orenstein recalled. "The Navy feel was strong on scenes of submarines, seamen and officers, and I shifted to more emotional music when it came to the individual characters." THE SEA WOLF, a modern day pirate story, included vague references to the cinematic legacy of classic swashbuckling film scores. "I did try to tap into that," Orenstein admitted. "It was an electronic score, except for some acoustic guitar and melodica [a wind keyboard instrument]."

2001 brought Orenstein another sequel score with the direct to video thriller, AMERICAN PSYCHO 2: ALL AMERICAN GIRL. Again, Orenstein eschewed any relation between his score and that of the first film (The music for 2000's AMERICAN PSYCHO was written by former Velvet Underground bassist and solo rock multi-instrumentalist John Cale), and approached the film as a distinct entity. For this more modern, suburban dark comedy, Orenstein was initially inclined toward a dark, horrific ambience, but was asked to rework it in order to mesh with the pop songs that were incorporated into the film. "I actually had a score drafted that was more traditionally horror, but that changed," he said. "There are a lot of songs in the film so I had to have the score work with those songs coming and going. I tried to help tell the tale of Rachael (Mila Kunis), with a looking back-feel kind of feel. The tune was a kind of klezmer ode with no lamenting."

Where does Orenstein see himself, as a composer, in another five or ten years? "Still learning, still looking at the next scoring gig, and maybe some video game work," he said. He's currently writing music for the Discovery Channel's documentary, THE SEX FILES. "I'm also starting the second season of a very cool series, F2: FORENSIC FACTOR, and I'm also in the middle of my first animation scoring assignment," he said.

Orenstein's work in film music started as a mixture of features and television scoring, a trend that has remained fairly constant throughout his career. "I enjoy keeping busy," Orenstein said. "Every time, there's more to learn. To generalize it, TV is fast, direction heavy, and very demographic based. Film gets more under your skin and has more emotional consideration."

"The composer's job is to provide a service (a very important service) to the producers," added Orenstein. "It is the producer's show. The best I can do is to serve up what is desired and hopefully exceed those expectations. I will always present my thoughts and try to artistically do it my way, but also never forget that I am providing one component of a very large collaborative effort."

For more information on Norman Orenstein see the composer's web page, at www.NormanOrenstein.com