Blockbusters and science-fiction productions have long looked to comic books and graphic novels as source material. In 2014, movie-goers enjoyed their favorites storylines in cinematic form with comics that have inspired big-budget films, such as Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier,The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Transformers: Age of Extinction, among others, with releases of
Ant-Man and
Fantastic Four scheduled to hit screens in 2015.
As the world of comic books populates the big screen and other formats, there becomes more to its storytelling than compelling heroes, storylines, and graphics – it’s the sound that creates the perfect mood for a character’s heroic action, a villain’s lair, or for an epic battle scene.
With a mind toward serving this need in the production community, FirstCom Music, the Dallas-based global music solutions company, has unveiled a first of its kind music licensing catalog, dubbed FCAnimated, designed to provide sonic scoring tools for editors and producers of comic-book movies, online graphic novels, video games, sci-fi productions, digital media, animation, and graphic arts.
“With this collection, we set out to provide a unique solution for the production community. FCAnimated is the soundtrack for modern myths and fantastic adventures,” says Ken Nelson, FirstCom Senior Vice President and Executive Producer. “This is the music of cinematic superheroes, mythical creatures, and sci-fi worlds, all of which are texturally described in sets of cues designed to work together to support plot devices, segments, and storytelling. Whether a project needs an adrenaline jolt of musical energy, an over-the-top heroic theme, or a creepy sonic environment, this collection serves as a one-stop solution.”
For FCAnimated, FirstCom tapped composer and sound designer Wendell Yuponce, well known for his work on Madefire Motion Books. Yuponce has earned a following as an audio expert bringing to life the pages of motion books and graphic novels. Yuponce is also a successful composer for TV, commercials and films.
In FCAnimated, Yuponce delivered a collection that features an editor-friendly thematic layout. Interconnected, key, tempo related cues, drones, risers, themes, and transitions can be used alone or easily mixed and sequenced to create dramatic soundtracks for action-adventure, animation, or family friendly projects.
“These are the user-friendly sounds that editors and producers need for effectively blending musical cues and elements in a fast and effective way to tell their story with impact and vision,” commented Nelson.
FCAnimated was released as an initial series in five volumes this month:
Singularity: Interconnected, key, and tempo related cues, drones, risers, themes, and transitions that can be used alone or in combination to assemble dramatic adventure soundtrack.
Dragons, Fairies and Witches:
Family adventure, magic, sprites, mythology, animation, children, fairy tale, fantasy suspense, storytelling.
Regions of Darkness:
Unifying theme and underscores, accents, terror, horror, tension, suspense, ethnic winds, orchestra, supernatural, fantasy horror.
Retro Creature Features
: Fun Saturday-morning retro TV, campy horror, old time sci-fi sounds and 8-bit video game goodness.
Gods and Heroes:
Heroic, mythological, larger-than-life themes and transitions for scoring action, adventure, animation, competition, sports, and trailers.
FirstCom plans two further releases for July and September 2015, with updates in subsequent years.