{"id":5184,"date":"2025-05-02T14:08:01","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T14:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/02\/bear-mccreary-the-composer-shaping-the-sound-of-entertainment\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T14:08:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T14:08:01","slug":"bear-mccreary-the-composer-shaping-the-sound-of-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/02\/bear-mccreary-the-composer-shaping-the-sound-of-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear McCreary: The Composer Shaping the Sound of Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_1550871\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1550871\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1550871 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/Bear-McCreary_01_CreditTedSun-e1745957109864.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"\" width=\"970\" height=\"933\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1550871\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Composer Bear McCreary: \u201cI\u2019m just a fan of all these things that I\u2019m working on.\u201d <span class=\"media-credit\">Ted Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the interconnected worlds of sci-fi, fantasy and horror, composer <a href=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/person\/bear-mccreary\/\" title=\"Bear McCreary\" class=\"company-link\">Bear McCreary<\/a> is everywhere. He and his studio have produced the original soundtracks to blockbusters like <i>Godzilla: King of the Monsters<\/i>, the popular <i>God of War<\/i> video game series, a slew of Blumhouse horror flicks, and a shocking number of concurrent genre television series, from <i>Outlander<\/i> to <i>The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power<\/i>. And last year he branched out with a metal-leaning concept album, <em>The Singularity<\/em>, featuring contributions from System of a Down\u2019s Serj Tankian, Slash and Rufus Wainwright, among others.<\/span><\/p>\n<section class=\"wp-block-observer-newsletters observer-newsletters--in-content\">\n<\/section>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Film soundtracks aren\u2019t always supposed to stand out. In today\u2019s Hollywood, an original score is there to compliment sound design, to create an atmosphere rather than send the audience home with a tune stuck in their heads. McCreary\u2019s music is there to be noticed. His themes are bold and memorable, mashing together sounds and sensibilities from traditional orchestra, world music, and epic metal. This intensity has made him the rare soundtrack composer who has a large and vocal fanbase who will reliably tune in to his releases even when they have no interest in the media for which they were composed, and he\u2019s recently embarked on a <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/bearmccreary.com\/events\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">20-city concert tour<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> across Europe, North America, and Australia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"lKyMF1R1p-4\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bear McCreary ft. Serj Tankian - Incinerator (Official Lyric Video)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lKyMF1R1p-4?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like so many success stories, McCreary\u2019s career was sparked by a collision between hard work and blind luck. He set his sights on becoming a film composer as a middle schooler in Bellingham, Washington in the early 1990s, worshipping the likes of John Williams and James Horner. Still just a kid, he spent nights and weekends hammering away at a feature-length score to a film that he\u2019d written (but not actually produced) with a school friend. In 1996, as a high school junior, he accepted a Student of the Month award at his local Rotary Club, where he happened to meet an acquaintance of legendary film composer Elmer Bernstein. Bernstein became his mentor, writing his recommendation letter to USC\u2019s Film Scoring program and allowing him to audit his Senior-level classes for three years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bernstein\u2019s mentorship was invaluable, but it also served as a rude awakening as McCreary got a front-row seat to a transformation in the way film scores were composed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI say this with all love and respect and pride,\u201d McCreary tells Observer, \u201cbut Elmer Bernstein was fired more times in the \u201890s than any major composer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"RnJRUMtEvMI\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Great Escape Track 1. \u201cMain Title\u201d Elmer Bernstein\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RnJRUMtEvMI?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Bernstein\u2019s heyday of the 1950s and \u201860s, during which he composed the earworm themes to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Magnificent Seven<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Great Escape<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, it was common for a composer to write a score by hand without feedback from the filmmakers, who typically wouldn\u2019t hear any of it until it was recorded on the scoring stage. Today, technology allows composers to be more flexible and to produce a higher volume of work, responding to continuous input from filmmakers and typically employing a team of assistants and apprentices to execute the agreed upon vision. With more hands onboard, a composer can accommodate more frequent revisions to a score with less notice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Detractors of modern film scoring see this as an industrialized workflow that\u2019s damaged the quality of film music in the 21st century, but McCreary compares this criticism to similar complaints about the VFX industry. If a filmmaker or a producer knows they have the ability to change their mind about a sequence, a visual effect, or a music cue at the eleventh hour, they\u2019re going to do it, even if it means the composer has to scramble the troops.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cNo single human being can rewrite an entire score overnight,\u201d says McCreary. \u201cThis is where having a team is useful. It\u2019s not that the composer is like \u2018I have other things to do,\u2019 it\u2019s that there\u2019s things that just cannot be done.\u201d McCreary credits his ability to personally compose the score to every note on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to its producers settling on a vision early and then sticking with it, providing him with the maximum time to work on each episode.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rather than downplay his reliance on his team at Sparks &amp; Shadows, McCreary says he\u2019s been driven to make their contributions more visible. On the latest seasons of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Foundation<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Serpent Queen<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Halo<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, as well as the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Valhalla<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> DLC for <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">God of War: Ragnarok<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the music is not credited to Bear McCreary, but to Sparks &amp; Shadows. When the score to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Percy Jackson &amp; the Olympians <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">won a Children &amp; Family Emmy last year, it wasn\u2019t McCreary, but 27-year-old Brian Claeys who <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DHXSE2kvj6V\/?img_index=3&amp;igsh=cnNueXZ2dWx5aGtw\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">gave the acceptance speech<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> alongside five of his Sparks &amp; Shadows teammates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">McCreary feels that this may be the only way for new composers to gain a foothold during this period of industry contraction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cEveryone is afraid,\u201d says McCreary. \u201cWhen you\u2019re afraid, you don\u2019t take risks. When you\u2019re afraid, you hire names you know. No one is gonna get mad at you for hiring Michael Giacchino. But that means that, for young people, it\u2019s harder to break in today than ever before. So, when producers come to me or my peers who are \u2018safe,\u2019 our names put you at ease because we\u2019ve done so much. We can say \u2018Hey, check out my crew at Sparks &amp; Shadows. This is my guy Brian Claeys, who was my lead writer on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Percy Jackson<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, he\u2019s a huge asset to the show.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">McCreary owes his own success to such a recommendation. After graduating from USC, he got a job assisting relatively unknown Hollywood composer Richard Gibbs, who\u2019d booked the job writing the score to a 2003 pilot miniseries rebooting <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Battlestar Galactica<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. When <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Galactica<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> got picked up as a series, Gibbs was unable to fit it into his schedule, so he offered the gig to his assistant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Battlestar Galactica<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> went on to become a cult hit, and its young composer quickly attracted the attention of its passionate audience. Honoring the creative direction of showrunners Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Battlestar<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> sounded nothing like any space sci-fi show Hollywood had ever produced, incorporating an eclectic mix of instruments from the duduk to the hurdy-gurdy to an army of taiko drums under electric guitar and string orchestra. Beginning with the release of the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Battlestar Galactica <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Season 2 soundtrack album, McCreary led live concerts of the show\u2019s music for increasingly larger audiences. Meanwhile, the composer kept his fans engaged via regular blog posts, essentially annotating his entire body of work as it was released and interacting with his enthusiastic comments section.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"FVkiI9Vm7mE\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"So Say We All: Battlestar Galactica Live - &quot;All Along the Watchtower&quot; (feat. Katee Sackhoff)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FVkiI9Vm7mE?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Though he doesn\u2019t see this as a marketing tactic, in hindsight McCreary was an early adopter of the now-obligatory model of curating a close relationship with one\u2019s fans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIf you were the kind of person who watched <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">BSG<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on the Sci-Fi Channel and noticed the music and cared enough about it to find out who scored it, go to their website, go to the blog, read the blog, and ask me a question, then you\u2019re my kind of person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAs the series went on, those interactions became really valuable. Sometimes they\u2019d ask me questions that would make me think about the way I\u2019m writing the show. The show was produced so quickly. By the time we got to Season Four, an episode would air, and someone would make a comment about a character theme, or maybe ask a question about what a theme is doing, and I would think \u2018Well hey, there\u2019s a good idea in there! I should do that! I\u2019m only two episodes ahead, I\u2019m gonna do that and see if they notice.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This sort of interactivity between artist and audience has since become the engine that drives the entertainment industry in the 21st century. McCreary leaned fully into \u201cprocess as product,\u201d and he continues to publish detailed breakdowns of his scores as they hit screens. Consequently, the number of young composers who could name him as a teacher or mentor goes far beyond his pupils at Sparks &amp; Shadows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">With or without a team behind them, every artist has limits. In 2019, at what should have been the pinnacle of his career, Bear McCreary was nearing a breaking point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He found himself getting everything he\u2019d wanted\u2014two of his four film scores that year were in the top ten at the box office simultaneously\u2014but it was all making him less happy, not more. \u201cIt was starting to gnaw at me,\u201d he says. \u201c My mental health was cratering.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Relief came not in the form of less work, but rather different work. For the closing credits of 2019\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Godzilla: King of Monsters<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, McCreary recorded a thunderous cover of Blue Oyster Cult\u2019s 1977 single \u201cGodzilla\u201d with his orchestra, System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian, and friends from the parody metal band Dethklok. The process brought back the exhilaration he\u2019d experienced as a teenager playing keyboards in rock and metal bands, something he gave up in order to be taken seriously as a film composer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"lOO8Um_jmLI\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Godzilla: King Of The Monsters Official Soundtrack | Godzilla (feat. Serj Tankian) | WaterTower\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lOO8Um_jmLI?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI had this odd feeling when I recorded it,\u201d says McCreary. \u201cI had so much fun, but I was also sad because it took me 15 years of my career to get these guys together and record a metal song that I loved. And I thought, \u2018God, is it gonna take another 15 years?\u2019 It occurred to me that maybe that\u2019s what was missing. What if I don\u2019t wait for a movie for an excuse to do the thing I want to do?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">McCreary began work on an original suite of music that utilized his entire sonic palette, from epic metal to traditional classical to Celtic folk. While most of his work is guided by parameters set by other storytellers, this time there would be only one: It had to be fun to play live.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The production of the resulting concept album, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Singularity<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, helped McCreary revive the sort of creative spirit that drove his younger self to hang up fliers around campuses, looking for collaborators and offering to score student films. Only now, the people answering the call were Serj Tankian, Rufus Wainright, Mega Ran, Joe Satriani and Slash.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After a single concert of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Singularity<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles last year, McCreary found he could not shake the bug to perform. Instead, he began planning the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Themes &amp; Variations Tour<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, on which he and an orchestra of traditional and eclectic instruments will perform music from across his discography. For the first time, fans on three continents who could only read on Bear\u2019s Blog about the occasional Los Angeles <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Battlestar Galactica<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> concert will get to participate in McCreary\u2019s music, live and in person.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAt the core of it, I\u2019m just a fan of all these things that I\u2019m working on,\u201d says McCreary. \u201cI want to be able to just be in a room with people who love all the stuff that I love, and I\u2019m not gonna be Ziggy Stardust, here. I\u2019m just me, playing the music I love. I\u2019m playing some <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Battlestar<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> pieces that go back that far. You\u2019re gonna know what I went through writing it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/bearmccreary.com\/events\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Themes &amp; Variations Tour<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> comes to New York\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/concerts.livenation.com\/event\/00006229FC8D435F\">Gramercy Theatre on May 22nd<\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" itemprop=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/Bear-McCreary_01_CreditTedSun-e1745957109864.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"Bear McCreary: The Composer Shaping the Sound of Entertainment\" style=\"display:none;width:0;\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n\t{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n\t\tif(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n\t\tn.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n\t\t'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\tfbq('init', '618909876214345');\n\tfbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Composer Bear McCreary: \u201cI\u2019m just a fan of all these things that I\u2019m working on.\u201d Ted Sun In the interconnected worlds of sci-fi, fantasy and horror, composer Bear McCreary is everywhere. He and his studio have produced the original soundtracks to blockbusters like Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the popular God of War video game [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-usa-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}