Westlake Village, CA (July 16, 2012)—In the course of composing for the ABC TV series Once Upon a Time, Mark Isham turned repeatedly to GC Pro for gear, service and support.
“I have had a long relationship with GC Pro,” Isham says. “A lot of my equipment has come through there. The GC Pro branch in Hollywood has been our go-to shop for years. I love working with them, because if I want to try something out, they just get it to us. They have a great department there.”
For each episode of Once Upon a Time, a recasting of fairy tale conventions in a semi-modern setting, Isham composes in Apple Logic, adapting his established character themes and creating new ones when necessary. He records in Avid Pro Tools. A demo then gets sent to his producer and the show’s creators, who send their comments. Once the material has been approved, the show goes into production, and an orchestrator generates the full scores from Isham’s themes.
Isham’s credits include scores for such films as Crash, A River Runs Through It, The Black Dahlia, Blade and dozens more, as well as TV shows such as Chicago Hope; a number of Grammy-winning solo albums; and a number of collaborative projects.
As one might expect, the layout and components of Isham’s main writing room have been fine-tuned over the years to be conducive to creativity and productivity. A Logic/Pro Tools setup faces one wall, and a mixing console faces the opposite wall. He has multiple sets of monitors for a TV-type setup as well as a fuller theater setting. The mixing room features an Avid-Euphonix console, accompanied by a 10-way speaker system with Class A amps. He uses M-Audio digital audio and MIDI solutions, plug-ins from Universal Audio and Tannoy monitors, among other gear.
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