Graeme Revell

New Zealand musician, composer (b. 1955)

Graeme Revell

Born|  (1955-10-23) 23 October 1955 (age 68)

Auckland, New Zealand

Occupation(s)| Musician, composer
Awards|

* AACTA Award for Best Original Music Score
* BMI Film Music Awards
* The Crow
* The Saint
* Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
* Daredevil
* Freddy vs. Jason
* Sin City
* Pineapple Express
* BMI TV Music Awards
* CSI: Miami
* Eleventh Hour
* Venice Film Festival Award for Best Score

Graeme Revell (born 23 October 1955) is a New Zealand musician and composer. He came to prominence in the 1980s as the leader of the industrial/electronic group SPK. Since the 1990s he has worked primarily as a film score composer.[1]

Some of Revell's best known film scores include Dead Calm (1989), The Crow (1994), Street Fighter (1994), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Craft (1996), The Saint (1997), The Negotiator (1998), Bride of Chucky (1998), Titan A.E. (2000), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Daredevil (2003), Freddy vs. Jason (2003), and Sin City (2005). He is also known for his frequent collaborations with director David Twohy, having scored Below (2002) and the Riddick franchise. He is an eight-time recipient of the BMI Film Music Award, including the Richard Kirk Career Achievement Award,[2] and an AACTA Award winner.[3]

## Biography[edit]

### Early life[edit]

Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A. As an orderly in an insane asylum in Australia in the late 70's, he and one of the patients formed one of industrial music's first bands, SPK, as an outgrowth of his interest in music therapy. He spent the next decade making music that ranged from extreme to beautiful to academic and earning a reputation for wild stage stunts that included accidentally setting an audience member on fire with a flamethrower.[4] Revell's break came in 1989, when he scored the Australian film Dead Calm. A Hollywood agent, Richard Kraft, heard it and tracked him down. Since then, he moved to Hollywood, working with everything from 85-piece orchestras for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, to Tuvan singers and Armenian stringed instruments for The Crow, to brassy jazz and hip-hop rhythm loops for Fled, with Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin.[4]

### Education and training[edit]

Revell is a classically trained pianist and French horn player, but also graduated from the University of Auckland with degrees in economics and political science.[5]

### Vocational pursuits[edit]

He worked as a regional planner in both Australia and Indonesia, and was also an orderly in an Australian psychiatric hospital.[citation needed]

### Musical career[edit]

Revell was a founding member of the industrial music band SPK, playing keyboards and percussion. The SPK single, "In Flagrante Delicto", was the basis for the Dead Calm film score (his first) that won him an Australian Film Industry award in 1989.[5]

Most of Revell's subsequent projects were film scores. But in 1997, he teamed up with Roger Mason to create a non-film music album Vision II – Spirit of Rumi, released through New York based Angel Records. The two coproduced, supplied some of the instrumental accompaniment, and set to music 11 poems by renowned 13th century Persian poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī. Vocals were provided by Noa, Lori Garson, Esther Dobong'Na Essiene a.k.a. Estha Divine, and the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.[6]

In 2002–03, he assisted the rock band Evanescence on their debut album, Fallen, in which he is credited for doing most of the string arrangements. He has also done string arrangements for Ludus, Stefy, Biffy Clyro and The Wombats.

## Style[edit]

Revell's musical style is predominantly electronic and computer-based, yet often utilizes classical instruments or entire arrangements for certain pieces (similar to his contemporary counterparts, Hans Zimmer and Mark Isham). The orchestral scores that Revell has composed have changed throughout his career—from Bernard Herrmann-like pieces to Ennio Morricone-influenced works. "Whenever I write songs, I always have visual images in mind, and I have always changed styles dramatically. That's not good for a long-term rock career, but it's good if you want to score films."[4] "I'm trying to bring a dose of class to Hollywood," he said. "I want my music to be the real thing instead of some terrible synthesized thing thrown together in a week. I don't want to sound just like everybody else."[4]

Revell's music is often re-used from movie to movie[citation needed] and in more recent times he has collaborated with other artists on their albums. After the success of his soundtrack on Red Planet where he used the voice of French singer Emma Shapplin to back up and often lead his score, he collaborated with her on her own album Etterna, producing all of her songs. He has recently been interviewed for the independent documentary Finding Kraftland.

## Collaborators[edit]

Revell has been assisted in sound design by Brian Williams, who creates dark ambient music under the German language black humorous pseudonym Lustmord.[7]

## Awards and nominations[edit]

On 18 May 2005, Revell was honored at the annual BMI Film & TV Awards with the Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement.[8]

### Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA[9][edit]

1994  | Nominee

Saturn Award

| Best Music

Hard Target (1993)

|
|

### ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards[9][edit]

1993  | Winner

ASCAP Award

| Top Box Office Films

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)

|
|

### International Film Music Critics Award (IFMCA)[9][edit]

2008  | Nominee

IFMCA Award

| Best Original Score for a Documentary Film

Darfur Now (2007)

|
|

### World Soundtrack Awards[9][edit]

2001  | Nominee

World Soundtrack Award

| Best Original Score of the Year Not Released on an Album

Blow (2001)

|
|

### Venice Film Festival[9][edit]

1997  | Winner

Golden Osella

| Best Score

Chinese Box (1997)

|
|

### Online Film & Television Association[9][edit]

2001  | Winner

OFTA Television Award

| Best Music in a Motion Picture or Miniseries

Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001)

|
|

Best New Theme Song in a Motion Picture or Miniseries

Dune (2000)

Nominee

OFTA Television Award

| Best Music in a Motion Picture or Miniseries

Dune (2000)

Best New Theme Song in a Motion Picture or Miniseries

Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001)

### Fangoria Chainsaw Awards[9][edit]

2003  | Nominee

Chainsaw Award

| Best Score

Below (2002)

|
|

1997  | Nominee

Chainsaw Award

| Best Score

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

1994  | Winner

Chainsaw Award

| Best Soundtrack

The Crow (1994)

### BMI Film & TV Awards[9][edit]

2009  | Winner

BMI Film Music Award

| Pineapple Express (2008)

|
|

## Works[edit]

### Theatrical film[edit]

#### 1980s[edit]

Year  | Title  | Director

|
|

1989  | Dead Calm | Phillip Noyce

#### 1990s[edit]

Year  | Title  | Director  | Notes

|
|
|

1990  | Spontaneous Combustion | Tobe Hooper |
Child's Play 2 | John Lafia |
Till There Was You | John Seale |
1991  | Deadly | Esben Storm |
The People Under the Stairs | Wes Craven | "Additional Orchestral Music" credit
Until the End of the World | Wim Wenders |
1992  | The Hand That Rocks the Cradle | Curtis Hanson |
Love Crimes | Lizzie Borden |
Traces of Red | Andy Wolk |
Body of Evidence | Uli Edel |
1993  | Boxing Helena | Jennifer Lynch |
Hear No Evil | Robert Greenwald |
The Crush | Alan Shapiro  |
Faraway, So Close! | Wim Wenders  |
Hard Target | John Woo | Composed with Tim Simonec
Ghost in the Machine | Rachel Talalay |
1994  | No Escape | Martin Campbell | Composed with Tim Simonec
The Crow | Alex Proyas |
S.F.W. | Jefery Levy |
Street Fighter | Steven E. de Souza |
1995  | Tank Girl | Rachel Talalay  |
The Basketball Diaries | Scott Kalvert |
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie | Bryan Spicer |
Killer: A Journal of Murder | Tim Metcalfe  |
The Tie That Binds | Wesley Strick |
Strange Days | Kathryn Bigelow |
1996  | From Dusk till Dawn | Robert Rodriguez |
Race the Sun | Charles T. Kanganis  |
The Craft | Andrew Fleming |
Fled | Kevin Hooks |
The Crow: City of Angels | Tim Pope |
1997  | The Saint | Phillip Noyce |
Spawn | Mark A.Z. Dippé |
Chinese Box | Wayne Wang |
Suicide Kings | Peter O'Fallon |
1998  | The Big Hit | Kirk Wong |
Phoenix | Danny Cannon |
All I Wanna Do | Sarah Kernochan |
The Negotiator | F. Gary Gray |
Lulu on the Bridge | Paul Auster |
Bride of Chucky | Ronny Yu |
The Siege | Edward Zwick |
1999  | Idle Hands | Rodman Flender |
Buddy Boy | Mark Hanlon | Composed with Michael Brook and Brian Eno
Three to Tango | Damon Santostefano |
Bats | Louis Morneau  |

#### 2000s[edit]

Year  | Title  | Director

|
|

2000  | Pitch Black | David Twohy
Gossip | Davis Guggenheim
Titan A.E. | Don Bluth
Gary Goldman
Calle 54 | Fernando Trueba
Attraction | Russell DeGrazier
Red Planet | Antony Hoffman
2001  | Double Take | George Gallo
Blow | Ted Demme
Human Nature | Michel Gondry
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider | Simon West
2002  | Collateral Damage | Andrew Davis
High Crimes | Carl Franklin
Below | David Twohy
2003  | Daredevil | Mark Steven Johnson
Freddy vs. Jason | Ronny Yu
Out of Time | Carl Franklin
Open Water | Chris Kentis
2004  | Walking Tall | Kevin Bray
The Chronicles of Riddick | David Twohy
2005  | Assault on Precinct 13 | Jean-François Richet
Sin City | Robert Rodriguez
Frank Miller
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D | Robert Rodriguez
Goal! | Danny Cannon
Harsh Times | David Ayer
The Fog | Rupert Wainwright
Æon Flux | Karyn Kusama
2006  | Bordertown | Gregory Nava
Man of the Year | Barry Levinson
2007  | Marigold | Willard Carroll
Planet Terror | Robert Rodriguez
The Condemned | Scott Wiper
Darfur Now | Ted Braun
Awake | Joby Harold
2008  | The Ruins | Carter Smith
Street Kings | David Ayer
Pineapple Express | David Gordon Green
Days of Wrath | Celia Fox

#### 2010s[edit]

Year  | Title  | Director

|
|

2010  | Unthinkable | Gregor Jordan
The Experiment | Paul T. Scheuring
Kites: The Remix | Anurag Basu
Kites
2011  | Shark Night | David R. Ellis
2013  | Riddick | David Twohy

### Television film[edit]

Year  | Title  | Director

|
|

1990  | Psycho IV: The Beginning | Mick Garris
1995  | Down Came a Blackbird | Jonathan Sanger
1998  | Dennis the Menace Strikes Again | Charles T. Kanganis

### Television series[edit]

Year  | Title

|

1988  | Bangkok Hilton
2000  | Frank Herbert's Dune
2001  | Anne Frank: The Whole Story
2002–2003  | CSI: Miami
2008–2009  | Eleventh Hour
2009–2010  | The Forgotten
Dark Blue
2012  | The River
2014–2015  | Gotham

### Video games[edit]

Year  | Title

|

2005  | Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

## References[edit]

1. ^ Jason Buchanan (2013). "Graeme Revell". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
2. ^ "Graeme Revell to Receive Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement at BMI Film/TV Dinner". Bmi.com. 11 April 2005. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
3. ^ "Past Awards | AACTA". Aacta.org. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
4. ^ a b c d Strauss, Neil (4 July 1996). "The Pop Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
5. ^ a b "Graeme Revell". IMDb. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
6. ^ Carol Wright (18 March 1997). "Vision 2: Spirit of Rumi - Graeme Revell | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
7. ^ John Bush. "Lustmord | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
8. ^ "BMI Honors Composers of Top Movies, TV Shows and Cable Programs at 2005 Film/TV Awards". Bmi.com. 18 May 2005. Retrieved 28 October 2010.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h "Graeme Revell". IMDb. Retrieved 30 April 2020.

## External links[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Graeme Revell.

* Official website
* Graeme Revell at IMDb
* Graeme Revell discography at Discogs

* v
* t
* e

SPK

* Graeme Revell
* Paul Charlier
* Derek Thompson
* Brian Williams

Studio albums|

* Information Overload Unit (1981)
* Leichenschrei (1982)
* Machine Age Voodoo (1984)
* Zamia Lehmanni: Songs of Byzantine Flowers (1986)
* Digitalis Ambigua: Gold & Poison (1987)

* v
* t
* e

AACTA Award for Best Original Music Score

1975–2000|

* The Cars That Ate Paris and The Great McCarthy – Bruce Smeaton (1975)
* No Award (1976)
* The Picture Show Man – Peter Best (1977)
* The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith – Bruce Smeaton (1978)
* Mad Max – Brian May (1979)
* Manganinnie – Peter Sculthorpe (1980)
* Fatty Finn – Rory O'Donoghue and Grahame Bond (1981)
* The Man from Snowy River – Bruce Rowland (1982)
* Phar Lap – Bruce Rowland (1983)
* Street Hero – Garth Porter and Bruce Smeaton (1984)
* Rebel – Ray Cook, Chris Neal, Peter Best, Billy Byers, Bruce Rowland (1985)
* Young Einstein – William Motzing and Martin Armiger (1986)
* The Tale of Ruby Rose – Paul Schütze (1987)
* The Lighthorsemen – Mario Millo (1988)
* Dead Calm – Graeme Revell (1989)
* The Big Steal – Phil Judd (1990)
* Dingo – Michel Legrand and Miles Davis (1991)
* Romper Stomper – John Clifford White (1992)
* The Piano – Michael Nyman (1993)
* Traps – Douglas Stephen Rae (1994)
* Hotel Sorrento – Nerida Tyson-Chew (1995)
* Shine – David Hirschfelder (1996)
* Doing Time for Patsy Cline – Peter Best (1997)
* Oscar and Lucinda – Thomas Newman (1998)
* In a Savage Land – David Bridie (1999)
* Bootmen – Cezary Skubiszewski (2000)

2001–present|

* The Dish – Edmund Choi (2001)
* Rabbit-Proof Fence – Peter Gabriel (2002)
* Japanese Story – Elizabeth Drake (2003)
* Somersault – Decoder Ring (2004)
* The Proposition – Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (2005)
* Suburban Mayhem – Mick Harvey (2006)
* The Home Song Stories – Antony Partos (2007)
* Unfinished Sky – Antony Partos (2008)
* Mao's Last Dancer – Christopher Gordon (2009)
* Animal Kingdom – Antony Partos and Sam Petty (2010)
* The Hunter – Andrew Lancaster, Michael Lira and Matteo Zingales (2011)
* Not Suitable for Children – Matteo Zingales and Jono Ma (2012)
* The Great Gatsby – Craig Armstrong (2013)
* The Railwayman – David Hirschfelder (2014)
* Mad Max: Fury Road – Tom Holkenborg (2015)
* Tanna – Antony Partos (2016)
* Lion – Volker Bertelmann and Dustin O'Halloran (2017)
* Ladies in Black – Christopher Gordon (2018)
* Judy and Punch – François Tétaz (2019)
* Babyteeth \- Amanda Brown (2020)
* June Again \- Christopher Gordon (2021)
* Falling for Figaro \- Cezary Skubiszewski (2022)

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