Wednesday 10 June 2015

Ghastly self-promotional blog post disguised as public service announcement

In an unlikely and quite possibly ill-advised turn of events, I find myself in the position of preparing to conduct a Q&A session with five-time James Bond score composer David Arnold this weekend. This will be the second time I've done a Q&A, the first being memorable primarily because I got the guest's job title wrong and ended up looking like an amateur who knew nothing about the subject matter in question, which definitely might not have been the case.

In order, therefore, to avoid looking like a clueless dolt in front of one of my genuine heroes and a room full of people, it would be great if anyone out there has any Qs they would like me to pose to David Arnold for him to A. I ask this not because I can't be arsed to think of my own questions, but rather that crowdsourcing might result in fewer instances of me asking David Arnold why he is so great, why his scores are so great, why his shoes are so great and so on.

If you'd like to come along and thrust a Q at David Arnold yourself, then feel free, which conveniently brings me to the public service announcement part of this thinly-veiled advertisement for my own unique Q&A-hosting skills. (Oh, you want me to do a Q&A with all the Bond actors / Ryan Gosling / Kristen Wiig in a bathtub? I'm sure I can make myself available, just get in touch!) The venue for this meeting of minds is London's sexually devastating Prince Charles Cinema, and it will take place this Sunday, June 14th, just after 8pm. Through a miracle of planning synergy, the Q&A is followed by a screening of Casino Royale (the good one), for which Mr Arnold wrote some well good music, and some may say the film is an even better reason to buy a ticket than the Frost/Nixonesque episode which precedes it.

You can buy tickets for the screening and Q&A here, and you can post questions in the comments below if you like. Don't suggest anything that might compromise my integrity as a professional asker of questions because that integrity is pretty goddamn fragile as it is and I need every last shred of it.

3 comments :

  1. Why didn't DA stomp his feet and insist KD Lang's Surrender should be the title song for Tomorrow Never Dies as all Sheryl Crow wanted to do was have some fun, but I have a feeling she was the only one.

    Also, is DA now a bit sorry for all the bleep-bleep-whoop-whoop-dingle-dingle-zip-zip bits he splashed rather brazenly across the score for The World Is Not Enough?

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  2. With the Bond theme so integral to all the films, how much studio involvement is there in the placement of the music? Is the studio more invested in the musical backing than other projects?

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  3. Typed this out earlier into my and got the impression it ate it; if this is a duplicate feel free to delete.

    So, boringly obvious questions:

    What are his three favourite cues from his five Bond scores. And indeed from his entire scoring oeuvre? I've always felt that "Medal Ceremony" from the 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony is criminally underrated.

    Secondly, what are his three favourite Bond cues by Barry?. You may wish to remind him that Monty Norman has spies everywhere...

    Finally, and I appreciate this may come under your "compromise integrity as professional asker of questions" exclusion. SPECTRE obviously sees the return of Quantum, for which he wrote some memorable motifs; as someone who was so respectful of Barry, how would he feel if Newman were to build on his own motifs?

    Of course, I doubt Newman will do anything as subtle. Most likely they'll just license "The Name's Bond, James Bond" again and be done with it...

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