Music, Sound, and Audio Technology

Composer Mark Petrie Today Releases First Album of Epic Trailer Music: 'Genesis'

By StudentFilmmakers.com
posted Sep 10, 2012, 11:49

(Los Angeles, CA) - Today, New Zealand-born composer Mark Petrie, known for music featured in blockbuster film trailers, released his first album 'Genesis'. The album features 27 tracks, many in the modern, epic orchestral hybrid style showcased in his work in trailers for: The Amazing Spider-Man, The Green Lantern, Twilight - Breaking Dawn Part 2, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and Battleship. The album contains new remixes of the popular tracks 'Kara Kul' and 'Richat,' as well as a handful of more ambient tracks from Mark's scores for films and documentaries.

The music is available through a wide range of online stores, including CD Baby, iTunes, BandCamp, Amazon MP3 and Google Music Store.

Trailer music, the heavy hitting, epic background music that accompanies movie trailers, is rarely derived from the score of the film being advertised (which often isn't even written by the time a trailer is airing). Writing music for trailers has become a specialized job over the past decade, because of the growing importance of movie trailers and the fundamental differences between trailers and films. Film 'underscore' music has ample time to gradually develop over the course of an entire film and the composer works delicately in step with on-screen action, dialog and subtle shifts in emotion. Whereas trailer music, on the other hand, has very little time to do its job: grabbing the audience's attention, creating an emotional connection and inspiring them to watch the film when it comes out. This time constraint means that trailer music is much bigger, more intense and more emotionally charged than film music can almost ever afford to be.

While most people will know the names of some of today's best known film composers - icons like John Williams and Hans Zimmer - musicians that compose trailer music have had, until recently, a mostly underground following amongst hardcore film fans and gamers. However, in recent years, popularity for trailer music has escalated to the point that fan-made YouTube videos of tracks have accumulated hundreds of millions - if not billions - of views. This overwhelming demand from fans has shifted the music's availability from strictly professional use in trailers and commercials to purchasable tracks for the general public, and now with CD releases and sold out live performances, leading trailer music producers like Two Steps From Hell and Immediate Music have developed a huge worldwide following.

Fan-made videos of Mark's music surfaced on YouTube several years ago, some having collected over a million views each. There are literally hundreds of fan made videos featuring his music today, his SoundCloud account has accumulated over 120,000 plays and his Facebook page has over 7000 'likes'.

"I'm so grateful for the recent attention my work has been getting from trailer music fans all over the web." Mark says. "Not only does each kind message from a fan encourage and inspire me, knowing that the trailer music I write will be under intense scrutiny pushes me to work harder than ever to do the best job I can possibly do!"

Now based in the Los Angeles area, Mark grew up in Auckland, New Zealand and received his early musical training while boarding for eight years at the all-expenses-paid Dilworth School. Two years worth of savings from working at McDonald's and performing in restaurants combined with numerous scholarships allowed him to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, where he completed a degree majoring in film scoring. Chosen as a recipient of the Pete Carpenter Fellowship, Mark moved to Los Angeles to learn from legendary TV composer Mike Post. After writing for TV shows and independent films, Mark's entrance into the trailer world happened in 2007, when he teamed up with PostHaste Music, for whom he eventually composed dozens of tracks.

In addition to his work in trailers, Mark's music can be heard every day in TV shows, major sporting events, commercials, and films worldwide.

On future releases, Mark says: "Depending on the demand for this first album, there could be more releases in the not-so-distant future. There are still tons of tracks I'd like to share with the public, and there's brand new music for trailers, films and TV shows that I'm working on all the time."





Resources:

www.markpetrie.com