“Britain, 30 years before the Battle of Hastings when the Vikings ruled Britain. But a storm is brewing when there is word of a mass invasion from France and King Cnut sends his messenger to find the King of Scotland telling him his King wants to meet on a diplomatic mission knowing that the island is going to change forever.”
The goal for this score was to create a natural but aggressive hybrid of natural and traditional Celtic instruments to create a mysterious and barbaric quality. All of the film was shot in a highland setting during the winter season; I wanted much of the orchestration to have a similar harrowing feel, particularly for underscore segments. As the film was set before the battle of Hastings, I wanted there to be heavy use of Celtic battle drums throughout, carefully selecting instruments that have an organic and gritty tonality. As this is a Scottish set film, there are wind instruments playing much of the melodic motifs, particularly the bass recorder. However, my use of the typical bagpipe was strictly for drone purposes only as I didn’t want the bagpipe to undermine the score. I was especially proud of the final showdown sequence, scoring battle and fighting sequences are always exciting to create. During the sequence, there was natural build up to the instrumentation used which echo’s themes and instrumentation used earlier on in the film. The goal was to create a grand sonic conclusion highlighting the feel and ideas found throughout the film. In general, I was very happy on the direction the scoring sessions went, and I am particularly proud of the overall sonic tone of the music. The link to the score is attached to this post, feel free to check it out and hope you enjoy!
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