PREPARE FOR GLORY: THE MUSIC OF “300”

PREPARE FOR GLORY: THE MUSIC OF “300”



Warner Bros.




February 8, 2007



Production Notes - Part 5



Co-writer/Director Snyder engaged Tyler Bates, his collaborator on “Dawn of the Dead,” to write and produce the score. Snyder asked Bates to develop a compelling overall sound that would heighten the audience's emotional reaction to the Spartans’ heroism and sacrifice. To do that, Bates created a sweeping orchestral and choral soundscape, recorded at the Beatles’ famed Abbey Road Studios, that embraced a tonal palette unusual for studio films. Iranian-born singer Azam Ali - whose haunting, exotic vocals have also graced various television and film soundtracks, including, most recently, “The Nativity Story” - supplies the voice of Sparta and the Persian threat.

“My intent was to stay true to the inspiration of the film and that of the Spartans’ freedom and will,” Bates says. “The greatest challenge was to bead a musical thread throughout the film’s ever-changing landscape of visual art, while sustaining its epic and emotional qualities. I had to approach it in a style as inventive as the film itself.”

Snyder has nothing but praise for Tyler’s score. “It moves the film into mythology,” he says, “cauterizing the images as you view them, making them something they could never be alone.”

Snyder concludes, “There were a lot of challenges in bringing this work to the screen, but no one involved even once blinked at anything that was asked of them. From the cast to the producers and everyone working behind the scenes—they were always there for me and for the film, physically, emotionally and creatively. The movie wouldn’t look like it does without them. They were all amazing.”





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