Book chapter
Hidden in the mainstream: Shirley Walker's musical contributions to feature films and animated television series
Women's music for the screen: diverse narratives in sound, pp.64-77
Routledge Music and Screen Media Series, Routledge
2021
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Abstract
Shirley Walker’s career as a composer and orchestrator in film and television spanned 25 years and was only cut short by her death in 2006 at the age of 61. From the earliest stages of her career she worked in commercial genres and collaborated with leading male composers such as Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer. Operating within the constraints and opportunities provided by scoring horror, sci-fi, and superhero productions, she developed a style that was rich and often ‘knowing’ with regard to previous film scoring conventions. Drawing on the work of Bernard Herrman, for instance, in Willard (2003), she offset dark strings with accordion passages used to represent the film’s eccentric central character, whereas her score for Black Christmas (2006) blended orchestral elements with festive bells to unsettling effect. Her music for the animated Batman television series and animated feature Batman and the Mask of the Phantasm (1993) reworked the edgy energy of Danny Elfman’s famous Batman (1989) theme into a lavish and varied score. She pioneered dynamic rock-based themes for the first three films in the Final Destination series (2000–2006) and also collaborated with John Carpenter to produce the synthesiser-based score for Escape from L.A. (1996). This varied body of work will be profiled with regard to the restricted opportunities available for women composers in Hollywood.
Details
- Title
- Hidden in the mainstream: Shirley Walker's musical contributions to feature films and animated television series
- Creators
- Philip Hayward (Author) - Southern Cross UniversityMatt Hill (Author) - Southern Cross University
- Contributors
- Felicity Wilcox (Editor of compilation)
- Publication Details
- Women's music for the screen: diverse narratives in sound, pp.64-77
- Series
- Routledge Music and Screen Media Series
- Publisher
- Routledge; New York
- Number of pages
- 236
- Identifiers
- 991012972070902368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Business, Law and Arts; Creative Arts; Emeritus Faculty
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter