adamgehrke.com

In the spring and summer of 2007 a group of wildly talented individuals from KCPQ, Q13 in Seattle, got the crazy idea to make a movie. Concepts were kicked around the lunch room, basically a bunch of guys all spewing out “what if?” and then….Eureka! A zombie film! No wait…A Mormon Zombie film! This could be interesting?! The subject started out small and simple, maybe a youtube short, or maybe something that might not ever even see the light of day. But, as the case was, we were determined to rally on a project that was our own and quickly the idea grew to something much larger than any of us had originally anticipated– a feature length film was born. How we made the film has been documented in many other places around the web, mainly on Facebook these days. While we were in production, of the many hats I wore, perhaps the most challenging and exhilerating job I had was the task of scoring of the film, creating the soundtrack. Now days creating a soundtrack can consist of many things, some films re-cycle music that already exists, others have a composer or songwriter write original music to accompany the pictures on the screen, and some combine both. In the case of The Book of Zombie, the decision was made early on to create an all original score. Awesome! Creativity, raw and pure! Years after the production had initially begun, edits were completed and the chance to start writing music that was custom tailored to the action begun. I won’t bore you with the details of it all but I basically spent the fall of 2009 and winter of 2010 in front of several computers, keyboards, a zillion instruments, and bits of paper scattered around what I call Squawking Vultures Studios. Squirreled away in solitude the process was an intense one that often required brisk walks to find further inspiration when the brain felt otherwise frozen. But, as the spring of 2010 took form, the dozens of “cues” I had written began to take shape and started to add real life to the film. Working with the directors of the film I further dialed things in, orchestrated hit points, tension points, relief and so on. Here are just a few of the cues that I wrote. Please note, given that the original files are uncompressed and that this is the internet, if you want to hear these files at their highest quality…well…you’ll have to see the film on DVD or something to that end…so it goes.
Until then, this first cue was for the opening credits to the film:
TBOZ Open
Without giving away too much about what happens in the film, this next cue was written for a scene that shows our heroes escaping danger for the first time, putting the pieces together of what exactly is happening, only to discover a hoard of zombies waiting to pull them to pieces:
Escape
This last cue was written as utter chaos is taking place, the world is devolving for our heroes as impending doom grows near. Zombies attack and our heroes fight back only to finish the scene in a loving but remorseful embrace:
Zombie Chaos
From composition to recording to mixing the whole process was completed at Squawking Vultures, truly a blast and I can’t wait to do it again, now for the right project to sign on to. Until then, guitarists just wait until you see what I’ve got in store for you, boutique guitar tube amps, designed and built by yours truly, and let me tell you, these things are sounding sweet…details to come hopefully mid to late 2012.

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