Television

Tonight, the Season Eight premiere of The Walking Dead airs on AMC, marking my 100th score for the series’ 100th episode. This season promises “all out war,” as Rick and his armies battle to free themselves from the iron-fisted rule of Negan and his Saviors. These upcoming episodes will live up to this promise, and more, as they deliver all the intense action, drama and revelations...

The Walking Dead returns to AMC tonight, for the premiere of its sixth season! I am incredibly excited for fans to see and hear what’s coming, because I think this is probably our strongest season yet.  The creative model for this series has been to reinvent itself every eight episodes, with each run taking on a unique tone, and following our characters on a specific...

After a thrilling third season, “The Walking Dead” returns for a fourth season! The third season finale built to a climactic confrontation between Rick and The Governor, each the leader of their own ragtag armies. For that episode, I pulled back on some of the horrific and dissonant elements in my score and pushed for a more thematic approach, composing an elegant...

The third season of “The Walking Dead” followed sweeping new story arcs, brought our heroes to the brink of desperation and introduced new players on both sides of a classic showdown between good and evil. To keep pace, I expanded the sound of the score from the earthy, intimate timbres of the first two seasons.  Tonight brings us “Welcome to the Tombs,” the final episode in...

The first half of “The Walking Dead” Season 3 draws to a close with tonight’s epic Made to Suffer. In addition to writing score to bombastic battle cues and gut-wrenching emotional moments, I contributed a piece of source music for the first time in this series. The cue, my arrangement of a two-hundred year old English lullaby called “Bye Bye Baby Bunting,”...

Until now, the third season of “The Walking Dead” has been structured as two parallel stories: Rick and his crew at the prison, and the Governor and his crew at Woodbury.  In last week’s Hounded, that boundary was finally broken. Tonight, in When the Dead Come Knocking, these two worlds are irreversibly careening towards one another and inevitable conflict....

Tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead”, Killer Within, is among my favorite hours of television I’ve ever scored.  This episode also contains one of the more challenging cues I’ve ever had to write in my career.  I detail the process of writing it and the various themes I used in this week’s video blog.  But, be warned… MAJOR SPOILERS...

This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” introduces us to the screen version of one of the most memorable characters from the comic, The Governor.  Tonight’s video blog is all about how I wrote his theme: SPOILERS BEYOND: “Walk With Me” lays the groundwork for the major story arcs of the season. This episode is important not just because...

SPOILERS BEYOND: The last two minutes of the season premiere left us with some pretty jarring cliffhangers: Herschel had his leg chomped on by a walker, chopped off by Rick and then Daryl discovers that the prison has human survivors. Picking up immediately where we left off, Seed, starts with an adrenaline-laced scene as they rush to treat Herschel. (more…)

The wait is finally over!  The third season of AMC’s hit series “The Walking Dead” begins tonight! I don’t want to give away some of the surprises in the premiere, so I’m welcoming you guys back with a relatively spoiler-free video blog about the score. This season you will hear new sounds and themes, in response to the new characters and locations....

MEGA-SPOILERS AHEAD: “Beside the Dying Fire”, the Season 2 finale of “The Walking Dead,” is the biggest episode of the series thus far in every sense.  It features the most action, the most zombies, main characters slaughtered, a highly-anticipated new character introduction, and was viewed by over 9 million people last night, making it the most watched...

“Better Angels,” the penultimate episode of “The Walking Dead” season two is the most emotionally gripping and thematic score I’ve ever written yet for this series.  The episode was ripe with creative opportunities: stunning revelations, long character arcs resolved, as well as intimate character moments and a thrilling new threat around the corner....

In tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” Judge, Jury, Executioner, Carl takes his first steps to controlling his own destiny, and his choices impact the group in unexpected ways.  The episode gave me an opportunity to write Carl his own theme, as detailed in this week’s video blog: MAJOR SPOILERS BEYOND: The Carl Theme is used to underscore his flirtations...

In tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” 18 Miles Out, the brewing conflict between Rick and Shane finally erupts.  There are zombies everywhere, but the real tension comes from these two friends battling one another in the midst of the mayhem.  I strove to keep the score out of the way, to allow the incredible performances from Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal...

In Triggerfinger, the threat facing our heroes in “The Walking Dead” continues to expand beyond the realm of the undead.  Despite the external threats from other humans, we also get the sense that the greatest growing danger may in fact be coming from Shane.  For that reason, you will hear new developments tonight in the Shane Theme, as detailed in the video blog:...

“The Walking Dead” returns to close out an amazing sophomore season with tonight’s episode, Nebraska.  This week’s video blog discusses a new character theme heard in Nebraska, Herschel’s Theme: This scene is one of the most powerful in the episode because it gives us a glimpse into Herschel’s conflicted past, and without using a single word...

I’m a bit late posting this week’s blog entry because I needed some time to absorb the episode’s impact, and to get fan reactions before I offered my own commentary.  Because the music I wrote for Pretty Much Dead Already is some of my most powerful yet for “The Walking Dead,” I didn’t want to trivialize it by cutting it up into excerpts,...

Tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” Secrets, allowed me to further explore the exotic folksy instrumentation of the score.  One of the instruments I featured was the hurdy gurdy, as detailed in this week’s in-depth video blog: The hurdy gurdy was not the only unusual instrument I used for this score.  I also wrote for Paul Cartwright on the electric...

SPOILERS BEYOND: This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” Chupacabra, is one of my favorites because it lets us really explore Daryl, one of my favorite characters.  He is ever determined to find Sophia out in the woods and continues to search for her on his own.  Unfortunately, he accidentally falls into a ravine where he is stabbed by one of his own arrows...

SPOILERS BEYOND: A significant subplot in Cherokee Rose involves our heroes discovering a zombie floating in a well and fishing it out.  This was my only chance for intense action scoring this episode, so I wrote a heart-pounding percussion piece featuring Jonathan Ortega on exotic stringed percussion instruments, as featured in this week’s video blog: The autoharps,...

SPOILERS AHEAD: This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” Save The Last One, focuses on the group’s efforts to save Carl’s life.  The story follows two different narratives.  The first takes place at the farmhouse where Rick and Lori wait with growing impatience while Herschel tends to his wounds.  The second storyline follows Shane and Otis as...

This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” finally takes us to Herschel’s farmhouse, a location that fans of the original comic book have been waiting for. Carl’s life hangs in the balance, so the entire score is infused with a tense, percussive backdrop that increases intensity throughout the episode.  One of the most featured instruments this...

Tonight is the long-awaited return of “The Walking Dead” for its second season.  What Lies Ahead is an appropriately-titled episode because this season will build on the momentum and character arcs established in our six-episode first season, and also expand into new settings, new trials and new characters.  Similarly, my original score is rooted in the stylistic...

Tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” TS-19, brings the first season to an exciting conclusion.  To celebrate the completion of our first season, I’m doing something I’ve never done before!  We’ve been collecting little snippets from our video blogs that have been hitting the proverbial cutting room floor, and tonight I’ll share...

The “Walking Dead” blogs thus far have focused on my creative process and the instrumentation.  But, bringing a score from imagination to reality requires the time and energy of many other people on the music team.  They are integral to the creation of the score, and work tireless hours to ensure my ideas are translated to the final recording (and frequently improve...

Tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead” proved to be my biggest challenge yet on the series.  There were so many opportunities to create a dark, rich and bottom-heavy sound, I decided to make our string ensemble even more unusual.  I wrote the score for Vatos with an orchestra made up entirely of celli and a single contrabass, as shown in this week’s...

Some of the most unique and characteristic sounds in “The Walking Dead” score come from bluegrass instrumentation, including electric banjo, dulcimer, autoharp, dobro and guitars.  This week’s video blog focuses on these unusual instruments and how I use them in the score: Ever since my first meeting with producers Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd, I knew...

This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” appropriately entitled Guts, expands the cast and the world of the series.  Rick encounters a group of survivors, some of whom are more helpful than others, and we experience some intense action scenes as well.  The music, too, develops and the orchestration has become more layered.  This week’s blog video takes...

Tonight, celebrate a spooky Halloween with the world premiere of my newest series, THE WALKING DEAD.  Welcome to the first of six in-depth video blogs that will go online with each new episode.  The first focuses on the piece of music that I’m sure you all noticed tonight, The Walking Dead Main Title: (more…)