Bear McCreary

Bear McCreary
Portrait photograph of Bear McCreary
at San Diego House of Blues 2009
Background information
Born (1979-02-17) February 17, 1979 (age 33)
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States
Occupations Composer
Years active 1998–present
Labels La La Land Records

Bear McCreary (born 17 February 1979) is an American composer and musician living in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series.

Biography

McCreary was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and spent most of his formative years in Bellingham, Washington. He is the son of author Laura Kalpakian and professor Jay McCreary of University of Hawaii. He is of Irish and Armenian descent. He studied under the renowned film score composer Elmer Bernstein at the USC Thornton School of Music, during which time he reconstructed and re-orchestrated Bernstein's 1963 score for Kings of the Sun. Their collaboration allowed for the complete score to be available as a soundtrack album for the first time in forty years.[1]

From 1998 until 2005, McCreary built up a body of work scoring short films. McCreary is a pianist and a self-taught accordionist, and plays in the avant-jazz band 17 Billion Miles of DNA.[2]

McCreary is married [3] to singer/songwriter Raya Yarbrough, with whom he worked on the music of Battlestar Galactica.[4]

Work

Television

Battlestar Galactica and Caprica

Main articles: Music of Battlestar Galactica (reimagining) and Music of Caprica

In 2003, McCreary worked under primary composer Richard Gibbs on the 3-hour miniseries which served as a pilot for the re-imagined series of Battlestar Galactica. When the show was picked up, Gibbs opted not to devote full time to the regular series' production, and McCreary became the sole composer. He worked on the series until it reached its conclusion in 2009, scoring over 70 episodes. To date, six Battlestar Galactica soundtrack albums have been released, and have garnered a great deal of critical acclaim[5][6] and commercial success. The soundtracks for season two and three ranked amongst Amazon.com's Top 30 Music Sales on their first days of release.[1]

McCreary composed for Caprica, a prequel series set in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe. On February 18, 2012, Bear announced that he will compose the score to the 2-hour pilot movie Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome.

Eureka

McCreary is currently the composer for Syfy's Eureka, now in its fifth season, after having taken over from Mutato Muzika starting with the second season of the show in 2007.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

He has scored both seasons of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009).

Human Target

Bear provided the score for the series Human Target (based on the comic book of the same name), on to which the pilot episode and main theme score had been recorded with a full orchestra.[7] The series has the distinction of being one of the few with largest orchestras on television today.

The score to the finale of season 1, "Christopher Chance", utilized the largest orchestra ever assembled for episodic television, and he took the opportunity to re-record the main title theme with a new orchestration with this larger ensemble.

In July 2010, he received his first Emmy nomination for the Human Target theme.[8]

In a post on his blog on July 25, 2010, Bear announced the new creative leadership brought in for season 2 had not asked him to return for it, and he would be leaving the series.[9]

The Walking Dead and The Cape

During Comic-Con 2010, Bear McCreary attended panels for AMC's The Walking Dead and NBC's The Cape to announce he would be composing the score for both television series.[10][11]

Feature films

Bear McCreary made his theatrical feature film scoring debut with Step Up 3D.[12] He has also composed the scores for several direct-to-DVD features, including Rest Stop, Rest Stop 2: Don't Look Back and Wrong Turn 2: Dead End.

Bear is currently working on The Knights of Badassdom, his second movie with director Joe Lynch (of Wrong Turn 2) and third time for actress Summer Glau.

Video games

McCreary worked on the Capcom titled video game for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, Dark Void.[13]

He has made an 8-bit rendition of the Dark Void theme, which was originally an April Fools joke. However, the theme was used for the 8-bit prequel, Dark Void Zero. He composed all the songs in an 8-bit fashion by connecting the wires on an actual NES console and cartridge to create authenticity.

Bear composed the soundtrack for SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs for the PS3, which came out in 2011.[14]

He arranged James Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd 2010 Christmas video for the You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch song parody, with orchestra and 8-bit audio elements.

Albums

Title Type Released Tracks Notes
Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries Television Soundtrack 16 March 2004 26 Credited for 8 tracks
Battlestar Galactica: Season One Television Soundtrack 21 June 2005 30
Battlestar Galactica: Season Two Television Soundtrack 20 June 2006 23
Rest Stop Motion Picture Soundtrack 12 December 2006 17
Wrong Turn 2 Motion Picture Soundtrack 18 September 2007 16
Battlestar Galactica: Season Three Television Soundtrack 23 October 2007 21
Eureka Television Soundtrack 26 August 2008 28
Rest Stop: Don't Look Back Motion Picture Soundtrack 21 October 2008 20
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Television Soundtrack 16 December 2008 24
Caprica Television Soundtrack 16 June 2009 18
Battlestar Galactica: Season Four Television Soundtrack 28 July 2009 34 2-disc edition
Dark Void Video Game Soundtrack 9 February 2010 27
Battlestar Galactica: Razor/The Plan Motion Picture Soundtrack 23 February 2010 19
Human Target Television Soundtrack 19 October 2010 63 3-disc limited edition (2000 copies) CD album, 2-disc online edition
SOCOM 4 Video Game Soundtrack 12 April 2011 19 iTunes Release, On May 10 a 2-Disc album with expanded track listing will be released
Play For Japan: The Album Charity Album May 2011 Unknown To be released on the iTunes store; features several other video game composers
The Cape Television Soundtrack 27 September 2011 49 Preview of tracks posted on Bear McCreary's blog [15]
Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome Television Soundtrack TBA TBA

References

  1. ^ a b "Bear McCreary: Biography". Bear McCreary's Official Site. http://www.bearmccreary.com. Retrieved 2009-04-13. 
  2. ^ ScoreKeeper (2006-06-07). "ScoreKeeper interviews BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S Bear McCreary!!!". Ain't It Cool News. http://www.aintitcool.com/?q=node/23532. Retrieved 2007-02-18. 
  3. ^ [1][dead link]
  4. ^ "Bear McCreary – Official site". Bearmccreary.com. 2009-02-24. http://www.bearmccreary.com/blog/?p=1536. Retrieved 2012-02-29. 
  5. ^ Alan Sepinwall (2008-06-22). "Sepinwall on TV: Michael Giacchino and Bear McCreary, score keepers". The Star-Ledger. http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2008/06/sepinwall_on_tv_michael_giacch.html. Retrieved 2009-03-18. 
  6. ^ Maureen Ryan (2008-06-16). "'Battlestar Galactica' provides some Earth-shattering 'Revelations'". Chicago Tribune. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2008/06/battlestar-ga-1.html. Retrieved 2009-03-18. 
  7. ^ McCreary, Bear (July 25, 2009). "Human Target Screens Today". Bear McCreary's Blog. http://www.bearmccreary.com/blog/?p=2532#comment-4702. Retrieved 2009-07-26. 
  8. ^ Burlingame, Jon (2010-07-08). "Emmy Music Nominations Announced". Film Music Society. http://www.filmmusicsociety.org/news_events/features/2010/070810.html. Retrieved 2010-07-08. 
  9. ^ I Am Leaving “Human Target”
  10. ^ Comic Con 2010: The Cape Casts a Mighty Shadow
  11. ^ 'Walking Dead' reveals trailer, taps Bear McCreary as composer
  12. ^ Yamato, Jen (2010-07-02). "Exclusive: 'Step Up 3D' Billboard Art Premiere!". Cinematical. http://www.cinematical.com/2010/07/02/exclusive-step-up-3d-billboard-art-premiere/. Retrieved 20 July 2010. 
  13. ^ Ocampo, Jason (April 2, 2009). "Galactica Composer Makes Video Game Debut". IGN. http://pc.ign.com/articles/969/969125p1.html. Retrieved 2009-04-03. 
  14. ^ "I am Scoring SOCOM 4 (UPDATED)". http://www.bearmccreary.com/blog/?p=4304. 
  15. ^ "Bear McCreary – Official site". Bearmccreary.com. 2003-12-02. http://www.bearmccreary.com/blog/?p=7230. Retrieved 2012-02-29. 

External links

Bear McCreary
Movie soundtrack albums
Television soundtrack albums
Computer game soundtrack
Other