Graeme Revell

Graeme Revell
Born	(1955-10-23) 23 October 1955 Auckland, New Zealand
Nationality	New Zealander
Occupation	Musician, composer

Graeme Revell (born 23 October 1955) is a New Zealander 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.

Some of Revell's best known film scores include The Crow (1994), Street Fighter (1994), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Craft (1996), The Crow: City of Angels (1996), The Saint (1997), Spawn (1997), The Negotiator (1998), Bride of Chucky (1998), Titan A.E. (2000), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Daredevil (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.

Biography

Early life

Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A.

Education and training

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.

Vocational pursuits

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

Musical career

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 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.

Style

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.

Revell's music is often re-used from movie to movie 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

Revell has been assisted in sound design by dark ambient composer, Lustmord.

Awards

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

Credited soundtracks

Film

• Dead Calm (1989)
• Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)
• Till There Was You (1990)
• Spontaneous Combustion (1990)
• Child's Play 2 (1990)
• The People Under the Stairs (1991)
• Deadly (1991)
• Until the End of the World (1991)
• The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)
• Love Crimes (1992)
• Traces of Red (1992)
• Body of Evidence (1993)
• Boxing Helena (1993)
• Hear No Evil (1993)
• The Crush (1993)
• Ghost in the Machine (1993)
• Hard Target (1993)
• The Crow (1994)
• No Escape (1994)
• Street Fighter (1994)
• S.F.W. (1994)
• Tank Girl (1995)
• The Basketball Diaries (1995)
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
• The Tie That Binds (1995)
• Strange Days (1995)
• Race the Sun (1996)
• From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
• Fled (1996)
• The Craft (1996)
• The Crow: City of Angels (1996)
• Killer: A Journal of Murder (1996)
• The Saint (1997)
• Spawn (1997)
• Chinese Box (1997)
• Suicide Kings (1997)
• The Big Hit (1998)
• Phoenix (1998)
• The Negotiator (1998)
• Strike! (1998)
• Lulu on the Bridge (1998)
• Bride of Chucky (1998)
• The Siege (1998)
• Idle Hands (1999)
• Bats (1999)
• Three to Tango (1999)
• Buddy Boy (1999)
• The Matrix (1999)
• Gossip (2000)
• Pitch Black (2000)
• Red Planet (2000)
• Attraction (2000)
• Calle 54 (2000)
• Titan A.E. (2000)
• Blow (2001)
• Double Take (2001)
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
• Human Nature (2001)
• Collateral Damage (2002)
• Below (2002)
• High Crimes (2002)
• Open Water (2003)
• Out of Time (2003)
• Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
• Daredevil (2003)
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
• The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
• Walking Tall (2004)
• The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
• Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)
• Sin City (2005)
• The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005)
• Goal! (2005)
• Harsh Times (2005)
• The Fog (2005)
• Æon Flux (2005)
• Marigold (2006)
• Grindhouse - segment Planet Terror (2007)
• The Condemned (2007)
• Bordertown (2007)
• The Ruins (2008)
• Days of Wrath (2008)
• Pineapple Express (2008)
• Street Kings (2008)
• Kites: The Remix (2010)
• The Experiment (2010)
• Unthinkable (2010)
• Shark Night (2011)
• Riddick (2013)
• The Revenant (2015)
• Boss Baby (2017)

Television and video

• Bangkok Hilton (1988) (mini-series)
• Down Came a Blackbird (1995)
• Tomb Raider (1996)
• Dennis the Menace Strikes Again! (1998)
• Bats Abound (1999)
• Frank Herbert's Dune (2000) (mini-series)
• Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001)
• CSI: Miami (2002)
• Kung Faux (2003)
• Eleventh Hour (TV series) (18 episodes, 2008-2009).
• The Forgotten (2009)
• The River (2011)
• Legends (2014)
• Gotham (2014)

Video games

• Call of Duty 2 (2005)
• Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (2005)

External links

• Official website
• Graeme Revell at the Internet Movie Database