Clinton Shorter, the composer for the much discussed film ‘District 9‘ - which is produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp, recently emailed us, “I just wanted to let you guys know how much I love Omnisphere and that it was used quite frequently and effectively in the score.”
Eager to check out the unique sci-fi film ourselves, we contacted Shorter to find out more details about how he used the instrument in the score. “I picked up Omnisphere just before I started working on the film and was blown away. The variety and quality of sounds was stunning and I knew instantly that it would play a big role in the sound of District 9.”, Shorter explained.
Commenting on the way he’s used Omnisphere so far, he says, “I do a lot of tweaking with effects, filters and envelopes. I’m salivating at the synthesis potential of Omnisphere for future projects too. I love the Granular, FM, Unison and Harmonia features.” Clinton also utilized the powerful appreggiator in Omnisphere in the District 9 score.
“With District 9 I knew from the beginning that I was going to go with more of a hybrid score of live and synthesized instruments. Without giving too much away there’s a ‘mutation’ of sorts in the film and I wanted to have that mirrored in the music. Omnisphere was the perfect tool to help me attain this,” stated Shorter.
The latest version of Stylus RMX with the unique new “Time Designer” feature was also used throughout the film, Shorter says, “I do love the fact that with Time Designer, I can now select odd time signatures in RMX as there were several of these in this score.”
Describing the process for creating the score and collaborating with the director, Neill Blomkamp, Shorter delves into the details of his scoring process, “Neill and I spent the first 3 weeks experimenting with every African instrument I could think of. Neill was really pushing me to keep it African but the percussion and mallet instruments from the southern part of the continent weren’t sounding big and dark enough for him. Most of the rhythms from the south weren’t aggressive enough either so it was quite a task to maintain an African feel but give the film the darkness and edge it required. In the end we settled on using African male vocals with some percussion from the region but took some serious liberties with everything else.” Because of this approach Clinton said that Spectrasonics’ Heart Of Africa sample library proved useful at several times in the score.
“Once all that was sorted out it was a blast scoring the film. The score was done on one Apple Mac Pro with Logic. I don’t use any extra computers for samplers, I prefer to use the one machine. I switched over to this workflow a few years ago and I will never go back. Edit wise I spent the first 6 weeks working on various edits but the last 6 weeks I had a locked cut, it was pretty hairy,” concluded Shorter with a laugh.
We had heard there was an earlier short film that District 9 was based on, Shorter says, “I had known Neill for a few years leading up to that short. A friend of mine worked at the same CG house that he was working at, Neill was only 22 at the time but everyone at the office could see the talent and felt one day he would be a super star. For the short, we hired a singer and used various orchestral libraries. The sound for the feature film is quite different.”
Clinton Shorter, a gifted West Coast composer, is bursting onto the scene with what Kirk Honeycutt describes as a “magnificent score” for the much anticipated sci-fi action thriller District 9. Shorter has had close ties for several years with Peter Jackson’s protege director Neill Blomkamp, it was this alliance that afforded Shorter the freedom to align his unique musical vision with such an innovative concept. A prolific and versatile composer, Shorter is currently based in Vancouver, where he’s busy working on several other projects.
Visit Clinton Shorter’s impressiver list of scores at IMDB and contact him through his website
Check out the Sony Pictures official District 9 website