June 14, 2019
David Stone Hamilton’s Symphonic Score for SF Thriller SOLIS Released
MovieScore Media’s latest discovery takes listeners on an unexpected journey to outer space with a thematically rich, symphonic score by up-and-coming composer David Stone Hamilton. MSM’s digital soundtrack album is available now (see link below) and will soon be offered on CD by Perseverance Records.
Written and directed by Carl Strathie, SOLIS is a suspenseful space bound story contemplating the dangers mankind is willing to take in the name of exploration. After a space mining operation gone bad, Troy Holloway (Steven Ogg) is in an emergency escape vehicle drifting towards the sun. He gets radio contact with possible help but will they get there in time?
Although its genre is technically a thriller, it also has a very human story to it, as Troy, through the help of his rescuer, Commander Roberts (Alice Lowe), comes to terms with a loss in his past – the death of a loved one – and the subsequent isolation from his family that it caused. The film premiered on the festival circuit last year, and is currently available on DVD and streaming on Amazon.
“SOLIS is a survival space thriller, with the main character in a race against time to meet his rescuer,” explained composer David Stone Hamilton about the score. “We wanted to create a score that would reflect the increasing tension and impending doom with a musical “ticking time bomb” employed in different ways. Sometimes it’s literally a ticking clock, and other times we use modernist percussion effects or col legno strings [striking the string with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings] to give this effect. Our Solar theme represents the grandeur and almost hypnotic allure of the Sun as well as the existential threat it poses to our protagonist. Another prominent theme was the rising half step or minor second interval, which is a nod to John Williams’ brilliant JAWS score to create the inherent tension with this dissonant interval. We also reserved some moments for a Korean instrument named the haegeum, which has a truly otherworldly sound to it.”
Emerging L.A.-based composer David Stone Hamilton has already shown his diversity in film scoring through projects like the horror Gremlin, the family adventure The Adventures of Jurassic Pet and the (unrelated) dinosaur-themed action film Jurassic Games. His upcoming projects include Carl Strathie’s DARK ENCOUNTER and Scott Slone’s MALIBU HORROR STORY.
For details and sample tracks, see moviescoremedia.
Listen to a 6-minute visual suite of Hamilton’s SOLIS score below:
