Congratulations John Powell! Remembering his best movie soundtracks
The British composer, born in London in 1963, John Powell, is also a conductor and has been recognized as one of the great creators of film scores. This September 18 we celebrate the birthday of this musical artist, who turns 60, with more than that number in compositions for film soundtracks, some of them unmemorable, such as Ice Age, The Bourne Identity either X-Men: The Last Stand.
After training at Trinity College of Music in London, Powell rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s, thanks to his compositions for animated and live-action films for directors such as Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass. It was established in Los Angeles in 1997 and He has composed music for more than 60 films. Its composition for How to Train Your Dragon It earned him his first Oscar nomination, in 2010, in its 83rd edition.
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Who is John Powell?
For a time he was a member of the music studio of Hans Zimmer, Remote Control Productions, known as a team of film music composers who possess a style that incorporates elements of traditional orchestral music and more modern synthesized elements. There he frequently collaborated with other composers in the studio, such as Harry Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer himself. Back in 1995, he co-founded the music company Independently Thinking Music, based in London. This company produced the music for more than 100 commercials and independent films, both British and French.
Remembering John Powell's awards
Powell has received a total of three nominations for the Mundo BSO awards and one for the Oscars. Specifically it was the Oscar for Best Score for How to Train Your Dragon, in 2010, for which he also received a BAFTA nomination. Previously, in 2003, he won the ASCAP Film and Television Music Award for Best Original Score for his work on the film The Bourne Identity. In 2019, he was nominated, along with John Williams, for the Grammy Award for best instrumental composition for Mine Mission, performed by both composers, in an instrumental composition from the film Han Solo. In total, he has received 2 ASCAP awards, 3 nominations for the BAFTA and Mundo BSO, 2 nominations for the SATELLITE and one nomination for the OSCAR and the GRAMMY.
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Best films and soundtracks by composer John Powell
Powell's first soundtrack was for the series Star Lucky, from 1990. After moving to Los Angeles, he worked on his first major film, Face/Off, by director John Woo, starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. That same year he composed the original music for the film Antz, written in a lemony way by Harry Gregson-Williams and Powell himself. It was the first animated film produced by dreamworks, where the two composers worked together on several productions.
This was the case two years later, with the collaboration of the two musicians for the soundtrack of Chicken Run, animated film (Stop-Motion), also from Dreamworks and inspired by The great escape. Its score is very fun and lively and is full of satirical references to classics of the past and full of action and frenzy. Despite the overload of references, all of them are perfectly justified in the moments in which they are applied in the film. In this video we can see the FSO performing one of the pieces.
Come 2002, John Powell increased his fame with his work in the music of The Bourne Identity. After having presented his credentials with the aforementioned soundtracks and others composed for In search of El Dorado along with Zimmer or I am Sam by Jessie Nelson, the result in this film was not expected as it finally was: music that became the undisputed protagonist, acting as a shadow of Jason Bourne himself. Shadow, precisely because it rigorously accompanies the state of mind that the protagonist feels at all times. It superbly mixes string and wind instruments with metallic noises or synthesizers, each passage reminiscent of a specific scene from the film.
With the soundtrack of Ice Age: The Meltdown he returned to animation, this time for Blue Sky Studios. Its score, between slap and slap of the characters, beautifies the atmosphere of the scene and provides an undeniable dynamism. This is a very fresh and pleasant work with leitmotifs clear and outlined at different times, with a very relevant point of maturity and versatility. Its exquisite and heterogeneous orchestration is combined with a brilliant recording, under the baton of director Pete Anthony. Some of his best songs are The Waterpark, Vulture of Doom either Foggy Balance.
In 2006, the British composer was in charge of the soundtrack for X-Men: The Last Stand. In this Marvel proposal, full of entertainment and action, critics place its musical quality above its cinematic quality, with a score that flows incredibly between the dramatic and the solemn, with some really good main themes. Jean's theme stands out especially, a tremendously beautiful and dramatic melody; but his best song is Phoenix Rises, for its choruses, its intense melody and its variations.
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In Happy Feet, Powell collaborated with Warner Bros earning a nomination for Best Original Score for an Animated Feature at the BAFTAs. Its soundtrack is characterized by reusing famous songs from the past (as did the film Moulin Rouge, which also featured Nicole Kidman). These songs are modified and covered to match the plot, the setting or the emotional state of the characters.
Besides, Kung Fu Panda, a 2008 film, was a perfect occasion to reunite Hans Zimmer and John Powell. Although neither of the two composers were Chinese, the Original Soundtrack demonstrates an effort to learn about the country's musical culture to incorporate it into the film. A fact confirmed in the use of different instruments typical of Chinese culture in a traditional way. It also stands out for its leitmotiv, associated with the most important characters in the plot, such as the hero's song, dedicated to Po.
Best John Powell Soundtrack: How to Train Your Dragon
Definitely, The most valuable soundtrack created by John Powell is the score of chow to train your dragon. The soundtrack won Film Score of the Year and Best Original Score for an Animated Feature at the IFMCA, an Annie Award for the Best Music in an Animated Feature Production, as well as numerous other nominations at the BAFTA, the Saturn Awards and the World Soundtrack Academy. Likewise, it was nominated for the Oscars for Best Score in 2011, which it finally won. The social network, with music by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor. It was also nominated for Best Animated Film.
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This soundtrack has a distilled Celtic influence that Powell uses in his songs, as shown when the bagpipes play in The Downed Dragon. The score features mainly wind and percussion instruments, with some string accompaniments. However, there are issues that stand out such as Forbidden Friendship, since it mainly has a xylophone and a harp, accompanied by different wind instruments.
John Powell has enjoyed great recognition throughout his career as a film composer. In addition to the aforementioned works, he has also collaborated with Paul Greengrass on the film United 93 of the year 2006, in the soundtracks of Jumper, Hancock and bolt in 2008 and in the third installment of the saga Ice Age in 2009. Fundamentally marked by his work for animated films, he is one of the great directors and composers to emerge from the hand of Hans Zimmer, as is the case with Lisa Gerrard, Klaus Badelt or himself. Ramin Djawadi.
