My daughter just introduced me to a new musical group that is just perfect background music for writing action scenes, especially fantasy. She played a few songs for me the other day, and while I liked it, I thought it sounded a lot like generic movie music. Then I did a little research and found out that’s exactly what it is: generic movie music. More accurately, it’s movie trailer music.
Ever notice how, while thrilling and dramatic, the music for movie trailers doesn’t often match up with the actual soundtrack when the movie comes out? I thought they just borrowed it from some other movie, as the soundtrack probably wasn’t finished when they cut the trailer. Sometimes that’s precisely what they do, but other times they hire a music production company to create a musical snippet to match the length of the trailer.
Ever seen the movie “The Holiday”, where Cameron Diaz’ character produces movie trailers, and Jack Black writes the music to go with them? That’s evidently a real job.
The company’s name in this instance is “Two Steps from Hell” (a rather unfortunate name for many reasons, not the least of which being that many people already consider the two-step to be its own special form of eternal punishment). I’m working my way through their album Invincible
If I had to compare it to someone, it would be “Adiemus on Red Bull”.
But probably the best thing I can do is leave you with a sample: