Santa Monica, CA, March 9, 2009 – A world renowned creative collective for close to 30 years, Elias Arts, a company devoted to music composition, strategy and production and best known for its work in the advertising and branding industry, is currently producing original music soundtracks for an upcoming feature film, “Fighting,� and for an upcoming TV movie, “Children of the Corn.�
Regarding these two new projects, Jonathan Elias, founder, Elias Arts, said, “While many people out there know our company for our work in music for advertising, we also like to keep our hand in the ‘Hollywood’ community from time to time as well. We are just finishing up two movie projects, both of which have personal meaning to me. I was the original composer for the 1984 film ‘Children of the Corn.’ I am currently involved in updating the themes I created for that film now, 25 years later, for its remake, again working with Don Borchers. And I also have a long history with Dito Montiel, the director of the new film ‘Fighting.’ I was the composer and the producer of his first film, ‘A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,’ and I also produced his 1989 record ‘Gutterboy.’ And they say relationships in Hollywood don’t last!�
Elias Arts is producing the soundtrack for the Rogue Pictures feature film “Fighting,� starring Terence Howard and Channing Tatum, set for release April 24th. “Fighting� is a rough-hewn heroic tale about realizing dreams of glory, putting audiences ringside at high-stakes underground street fights. Tatum stars as “Shawn Macarthur,� a young man who scrapes up a living hustling counterfeit merchandise in NYC. With family tragedy in his past and his father keeping him at a distance, this outsider has little to motivate him. A chance encounter with veteran street-fighting coach “Harvey Boarden� (Howard) leads to a whole new career for Sean. The ensuing bouts get tough, especially with the criminal element horning in, so Sean gets tougher. He will fight to win, not only the prize money but also the unexpected new relationships that are strengthening him.
Elias Arts composer Dave Wittman worked on the “Fighting� soundtrack along with Jonathan Elias. About the music, Wittman says, “Since ‘Fighting’ is set in an urban environment, Hip Hop played a big role in the background of the film’s score. The storyline of this movie takes place in a number of culturally-diverse sections of New York City, so our music needed to reflect the gamut of these related musical styles. For example, we recorded Asian drums for one scene, re-mixed a number of Russian cues for another, and integrated some
Latin rock for a third. We needed to go in a number of different musical directions to get the right sense of these ethnic sounds that ultimately culminating back to Hip Hop. The instruments, musicians and talent here at Elias Arts allowed me to work closely with others to fulfill this demands of this film’s score –one that represents a diverse variety of musical components.�
Elias Arts is also producing the soundtrack for the upcoming SCI FI Channel TV movie presentation of the remake of “Children of the Corn.â€? “Battlestar Galactica’sâ€? Kandyse McClure is the female lead in this re-imagining of the original film, which was based on the Stephen King short story, Children of the Corn. McClure stars as “Vickyâ€? and David Anders (from “Heroesâ€?) stars as “Burt,â€? a couple at a marital crossroads who wind up driving into the middle of nowhere only to encounter some deeply strange and deadly kids out there among the corn rows. The movie, written and directed by Donald P. Borchers (who produced the original 1984 film,) will premiere later this year on the SCI FI Channel.
Along with Jonathan Elias, Elias Arts composer Nate Morgan is also working on the “Children of the Corn� soundtrack. Regarding the music, he says, “This was a horror film score, so obviously we needed to incorporate a lot of ‘scary sounding music.’ We took Jonathan Elias’ original themes from the first ‘Corn� movie and reworked them in a more modern way. The original themes were very ‘synthy,’ so for the new movie, we developed them into more lush, orchestral music, recording a small string section along the way. We developed over an hour of original new music, which provides even more frightening textures than the original.�
ABOUT ELIAS ARTS:
A pre-eminent and world renowned creative collective for close to 30 years, Elias Arts is devoted to music composition, strategy and production. The company has employed the emotional strength of music and sound to launch, grow and reposition the most recognized brands and companies worldwide. Elias Arts has worked with well over half of the Fortune 1000 companies, and has also helped turn numerous startups into everyday brand names. Among the clients Elias Arts has worked with are AOL, Mastercard, Sony, Columbia Pictures, Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Ebay, Honda, Intel, Visa, Yahoo, Universal Studios, Microsoft, McDonalds, ESPN and General Motors, to name just a few
With offices in Santa Monica and New York City, global resources and a renowned roster of gifted composers, producers, and marketers, the mission of Elias Arts is to constantly strive for creative excellence and distinction through the art of music and sound design. The company is the recipient of over 700 major industry awards from around the world. Please visit www.eliasarts.com
###
