Oscar nominations for best original score

The night of magnificent gowns, golden statues and a star-studded red carpet is coming up as the 86th Academy Awards quickly approaches. Many are waiting to see which actress and actor will take the shiny, gold Oscar home. However, some people tend to forget the less popular categories that still are just as deserving as recognition because they help make a movie come together and give it character. Much like the costume design and cinematography, the musical score of a film gives it life and character.
Without the brilliant minds of film score composers, many films wouldn’t have as much emotion and life to the story lines. Music sets the mood for a film and although usually in the background for much of the film, one would definitely notice if the music weren’t present. This year several well-known composers such as John Williams and Alexandre Desplat will be in the running for an Oscar as well as other composers Steven Price, William Butler and Owen Pallett and Thomas Newman. Here is the list of the nominated composers and the movies that they helped bring to life with music.
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[new page= John Williams for ‘The Book Theif’]
John Williams, the master of film scores. Williams has been composing scores for films for over six decades. His music has a very specific sound to it and many know right away that it is a score by Williams just by listening to the first few seconds of the score. This year the war-drama film, The Book Thief will be up for best score by John Williams. The score sounds very similarly close to two of his past works, Hook and the Harry Potter films. Williams has been nominated for an academy award 49 times and is the second most nominated man (number one being Walt Disney). With those statistics, it might be easy to say that Williams has a good chance of winning the Oscar.

[new page=Steven Price for ‘Gravity’]
The film Gravity is up for the Oscar gold this year for quite a few categories. It’s score, by Steven Price, is also nominated as well. Price hasn’t composed too many films on his own, however he has done the music editing for major blockbuster franchises such as the The Lord of the Rings and the Christopher Nolan's Batman series. His score for Gravityis very fitting for the film as it features dramatic and fast paced music to match with the anxiety that the film brings to viewers. At only 36 years old if Price were to win the Oscar, it would be a great success for him, as this was one of his first major films he has composed the full score for.

[new page=William Butler and Owen Pallett for ‘Her’]
The edgy sci-fi romantic comedy, Her, directed by Spike Jonze, featured a brilliant cast of actors and a brilliant set of collaborators for the musical score. Canadian indie-rock band, Arcade Fire, created the musical masterpiece for the film. Band member, William Butler and collaborator Owen Pallett put together a simplistic yet great score. Using synthesizers and futuristic sounds the music almost has a calming and happy sound throughout the film. Rather than just one composer, it was smart of the film to use an indie band for such an indie movie.

[new page=Alexandre Desplat for ‘Philomena’]
The French composer, Alexandre Desplat, wrote the score for the dramatic comedy, Philomena the story about a mother’s 50 year long journey to finding her son. Desplat has composed scores for various popular films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and The King’s Speech. The score for Philomena is very soft orchestra style music with light piano and wind instruments. It sounds similar to some of Desplat’s other works and although Desplat has been nominated for an Oscar six times, this year might be his lucky year.

[new page=Thomas Newman for ‘Saving Mr. Banks’]
The film Saving Mr. Banks was a nostalgic look into the era of Walt Disney and P.L. Travers and the journey into turning her beloved books into the popular Disney film, Marry Poppins. American composer, Thomas Newman is no stranger when it comes to Disney films; he composed the scores for Finding Nemo and WALL-E. The score for Saving Mr. Banks brought back memories of the original Mary Poppins film, by putting some of the original music from the film into his score. A hauntingly memorable piano rendition of the song “Chim Chim Cher-ee” from Mary Poppins was prominently heard throughout the film. The score altogether really captured the magic of Disney as well as brought back some of the old songs that we have all come to know and love. Disney lovers will surely be rooting for Newman to win.