Wake Wood (2011): The Score

Wake Wood is the one solitary score Michael Convertino has been credited with since 2004. As everything about the man is a mystery, the reasons for his disappearance and reappearance are completely unknown. It’s true that he had worked before with the director (on The Last of the High Kings in 1996), but that was a long time ago and the project hadn’t been the scene of a major Convertino score. And it’s also true that his main collaborators that may have tempted him back have been just as quiet recently. Randa Haines is all but retired from the big screen and Alan Mindell, Convertino’s most frequent hirer of late, hasn’t made a squeek since Milwaukee, Minnesota in 2003. Based on announcements made on release of We Don’t Live Here Anymore, Convertino had a photography exhibit and was planning to direct. Maybe with his sights elsewhere, he didn’t have the time to devote to scoring any more and was perhaps financially secure.

But offered a job in Wake Wood he was, and come back he did. Based on details online, it appears the film may have been complete (with / without score?) as early as 2009, but wasn’t released until 2011. If Convertino had scored it as early as 2009, that means that he was already long since gone again by the time anyone was aware of his comeback. 

It’s a horror score, but done in electronics instead of grand symphonics. Although I’m a fan of orchestral horror (Goldsmith’s Final Conflict, Young’s Hellraiser, too many Howard Shore to mention), there’s no doubt that Convertino’s approach is effective and suits this particular film. Sadly there was no accompanying CD release, but much of the score can be isolated via the DVD and it does sound tremendous on its own. The use of rhythm immediately identifies Convertino as composer, as well as several other flourishes.

Film score fans on the internet seem to spend half their time identifying where a composer repeats himself (or worse, someone else). And it’s true that Convertino does re-employ some old tools. The bells from Mother Night’s ‘Leichentrager Zur Wache’ re-appear for at least the second time (see also Straight Into Darkness) and for a scary moment it sounded like Convertino was going to repeat the track in its entirety (piano and strings also follow Leichentrager for a few notes before it goes off on its own). To be totally honest, I would have preferred not to hear these bells again. Personally, they take me right back to Nick Nolte’s 1960’s New York, although that’s obviously not going to be the majority experience

Wake Wood most definitely continues where he left off. A highly percussive horror score that sounds modern and melodic with no signs of rust. Depending on the source, he’s either around 58 or 51 years old, so no reason for him to be retiring any time soon. Time will tell.

Note: Credits at the end mention a Daniel Newman for 'additional music and music editing'. The score sounds very consistent so I'm unsure if this was something done separate from Convertino, or if Newman assisted him directly. It's also perhaps worth noting that this is another Newman collaborating with Convertino. Is he one of the Family Newmans that have worked with Convertino over the years? I don't know if Convertino is still friendly with any of the Newman clan. Although it will be the subject of the post of its own, Convertino co-wrote a rock album with Thomas 'The Shawshank Redemption' Newman and a few years later scored Tim Burton's Frankenweenie with his brother David. It could, of course, just be a co-incidence.

The following link gives many more details on the film including the note below on the score:

http://www.wakewoodmovie.com/WakeWood_ProductionNotes.pdf

Director David Keating: "The musical score plays a very important role in the film and we've had really positive feedback about it so far. The score was composed by Michael Convertino, an LA based composer who scored films such as Bull Durham, The Last of the High Kings and Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead. I'd worked with him before and we have a really good, collaborative working relationship. He was onboard well before we began shooting and we spoke a lot about the music and about aural reference points. Some of the reference points we used included ethnographic recordings from a Romanian mental institution and recordings of the theremin (an electronic instrument) being played. We listened to a lot of strange, old traditional music but in the end we went for a much more modern feel. I tend to record stuff myself and at one stage my son brought three of his girl friends home from school and we recorded them singing and screaming at the same time. Sounds strange, but it really was the most fascinating creative process."

Wake Wood (2011): The Film

A few unkind words about my opinion of horror films.  They are product, lowest common denominator films made for a quick buck. The genre doesn’t have to be like that, but that’s how it has panned out. It’s not too far from the Adult Movie genre. Films popped out on a conveyer built with laughable scripts, cardboard characters and the appropriate amount of ‘money shots’.  Horror films that also work as ‘proper’ films are few and far between.

It’s not particularly badly made, and above average for the genre, but Wake Wood similarly has very lowly ambitions. Firstly, the film is very obviously a Frankenstein’s Monster, a patchwork of three other horror films – Pet Semetary, The Wicker Man and Don’t Look Now. And the characters are barely two dimensional. Much has been made in the publicity that this is a ‘Hammer’ horror film. It has no significance all these years later. It amounts to nothing more than a sticker on the box.

On the plus side, the cast have a solid pedigree. Aiden Gillen is such a rising star of stage and screen that I’m surprised he said yes to this. I’ve seen him do Mamet in London and Pinter in New York (and oddly enough sat next to him in the audience somewhere else altogether for a one-man play about Richard Burton). He made his name on the  British version of Queer As Folk. That series caught some flak for casting three hetero actors as the gay leads. Which is absolutely ridiculous, of course. Of the three, it was Gillen I was mostly surprised about, given he nailed every single gay mannerism without resorting to anything remotely resembling ‘camp’. That’s what I thought at the time, anyway. But his character here – straight and married – has some of the same ticks. Shoulders pulled way back as he walks, etc, so maybe that was just luck. Like most Celtic actors, he’ll also happily do an American accent but will avoid doing English at almost any cost. Cast Gillen, Peter Mullan or Ewan McGregor in anything English set, and they’ll try to keep their own accent, even if it makes little sense. Cast Gabriel Byrne as an Eskimo, and he’ll argue that his particular Eskimo grew up with a video cassette of The Commitments and somehow has developed an Irish Accent. At least here, Gillen’s supposed to be Irish.

Timothy Spall is simply one of the UK’s finest actors, although has been known to ham it up occasionally. Most famous for his collaborations with Mike Leigh (and in the UK for his single most spectacular turn in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet), he doesn’t even attempt the Oirish accent. Instead he gives a highly restrained performance that seems to be channelling Richard Attenborough of all people. Eva Birthwhistle was an actress I wasn’t familiar with. Again, she has little to work with, but acquits herself just fine. And thankfully the kid – who predictably becomes a demon child from hell – is good and doesn’t destroy the picture (The Omen remake didn’t survive the kid, and Birth was fatally hampered by an unconvincing Cameron Bright).

It’s also been blatantly filmed on digital cameras which don’t do it any favours, especially for a film that has to thrive on atmosphere. Digital looks cheap, pure and simple, except when used on the most expensive Hollywood blockbusters. I can only hope that the money saved here was what allowed them to hire Michael Convertino for the score.

Wake Wood isn’t a total disaster (helped in large part by Convertino himself), but it’s too blatantly derivative to be noteworthy. It’s hard to believe, but it even recycles the hand-from-the-grave template from Carrie, the most overused scene in horror. Even the final ‘twist’ isn’t well handled, with Gillen breaking the fourth wall to look at the audience. Not sure why he does it, and I’m not sure he is either.

This film was viewed on the UK DVD. It is also available on a Region 1 DVD and USA Blu-ray with identical extras. The extras - interviews and deleted scenes - have no Convertino content.

Michael Convertino: An Introduction

Almost nothing is known about film composer Michael Convertino. No interviews are available online, and I can find no references to any in print either. Even anecdotal material from his many collaborators over the last 25 years is extremely thin on the ground. And there is one solitary photograph of the man himself available (as shown above). I'm not even sure how old he is. The main sources claim he was born in 1953, at least one other (possibly more accurate) claims 1960.

Needless to say he has no web presence at all. Which meant that when buying a dotcom address for this here blog, www.michaelconvertino.com itself was ready available. But the man himself remains a mystery. I suspect that he may have done additional work under other names (in music and possibly elsewhere). But any detective work will come much later.

I will be having a look at the films - 32 features and 3 shorts - as well as the scores as only 12 of the scores have been released (3 as 'promos') on CD. Film composers don't have the luxury of hand picking their films like actors and directors. Projects offered are based on their standing in the industry and existing relationships with producers / directors. And Convertino has never reached the very top echelon of Hollywood composers. No real reason for this other than luck. He seems to have a good reputation both amongst his peers and certainly in film music fandom. But when you score an Oscar favourite like Children of a Lesser God with nothing less than searing beauty and don't even get a nomination... maybe the stars aren't in your favour.

For the uninitiated, you could do worse than sample three decades of Convertino with Children of a Lesser God (1986), Mother Night (1996) and We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004), the latter sadly being only available as a 'promo' (it can be found online).

I adore the music. But the quality of the films is variable to say the least. I wont go be going easy on 'em, so be warned.

In addition to the 12 full length CD soundtracks (and a few others with just one or two 'cues'), Convertino's management have released 2 promo CD sets (one 2 disc, and one 3 disc edition). Huge thanks to STACE for providing copies of these which are impossible to find.

Before we get to Wake Wood (2011), his latest score, it's worth noting that this is Convertino's only soundtrack since 2004. With talk of photography exhibits and directorial debuts (which may or may not have taken place), Convertino appears to have retired from film scoring, barring this one return. Which is obviously a real shame, especially as Wake Wood continued where he'd left off in 2004, when he was completely at the top of his game with We Don't Live Here Anymore. But Wake Wood appears to have been complete and waiting release since 2009. So rather than a comeback, it looks like Convertino was already gone again long before this saw the light of day. I will cling to the hope that he changes his mind.