Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - The Raleigh ...

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Sparrow (Johnny Depp) as they rescue the kidnapped Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) from the cursed crew of the Black Pearl, captained by Hector Barbossa  ...
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a 2003 American adventure fantasy film based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney theme parks. It was directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The story follows blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) as they rescue the kidnapped Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) from the cursed crew of the Black Pearl, captained by Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). Jay Wolpert developed a script based on the theme park ride in 2001, and Stuart Beattie rewrote it in early 2002. Around that time, producer Jerry Bruckheimer became involved in the project; he had Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio work on the script, adding the supernatural curse to the storyline. Filming took place from October 2002 to March 2003 in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and on sets constructed around Los Angeles, California. The world premiere was held at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, on June 28, 2003. The Curse of the Black Pearl was an unexpected success, with positive reviews and grossing over $653 million worldwide. The film became the first in a series, with two back-to-back sequels, Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, released in 2006 and 2007. A sequel to the trilogy, On Stranger Tides, was released in 2011. The original film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Depp.

The Score Composer Alan Silvestri was originally hired to write the score for The Curse of the Black Pearl. However, due to creative differences between the producer Jerry Bruckheimer and him, Silvestri left the project and Gore Verbinski asked Hans Zimmer, with whom he had worked on The Ring, to step in. Zimmer declined to do the bulk of the composing, as he was busy scoring The Last Samurai, a project during which he claimed he had promised not to take any other assignments. As a result he referred Verbinski to Klaus Badelt, a relatively new composer who had been a part of Remote Control Productions (known as Media Ventures at the time) for three years.

Zimmer however ended up collaborating with Badelt to write most of the score's primary themes. Zimmer said he wrote most of the tunes in the space of one night, and then recorded them in an all-synthesized demo credited to him. This demo presents three of the score's themes and motifs, concluding with an early version of "He's A Pirate" which differs from the final cue and includes a development of a melody Zimmer wrote for the score to Drop Zone.) Since the schedule was very tight and the music was needed for the film in three weeks, seven other composers — Ramin Djawadi, James Dooley, Nick Glennie-Smith, Steve Jablonsky, Blake Neely, James McKee Smith, and Geoff Zanelli — were called upon to help orchestrate the music and write additional cues. The resulting score was recorded with a group of musicians, credited as the Hollywood Studio Symphony, over the course of four days. The short time frame demanded the use of a different recording studio for each session. The Metro Voices, a male choir, was recorded in London and added to the finished recordings.

Klaus Badelt, 2007

Klaus Badelt (born 12 June 1967) is an award-winning German composer, best known for composing film scores. Badelt was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He started his musical career composing for many successful movies and commercials in his homeland. In 1998, Oscar-winning film composer Hans Zimmer invited Badelt to work at Media Ventures in Santa Monica, his studio co-owned by Jay Rifkin. Since then, Badelt has been working on a number of his own film and television projects such as The Time Machine and K-19: The Widowmaker. While collaborating with Zimmer, Badelt contributed to the Oscar-nominated scores for The Thin Red Line and The Prince of Egypt, as well as writing music for many well known directors including Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Terrence Mallick, John Woo, Kathryn Bigelow, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Werner Herzog, Sean Penn, Gore Verbinski, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg. Badelt co-wrote and co-produced the score to Hollywood box office hit Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, along with Zimmer and singer/composer Lisa Gerrard. Having contributed music to Gladiator, Mission: Impossible 2 and Michael Kamen's score for X-Men, Badelt was involved in the three most successful movies in 2000. Badelt also collaborated with Zimmer on other successful films, such as The Pledge, and 2001 blockbusters Hannibal and Pearl Harbor. One of his more famous and popular scores was for the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. He also wrote the music for the closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and was commissioned to write the opera about China's First Emperor, to be premiered in 2012.

The Raleigh Concert Band plays the original arrangement made for and premiered by the USC Trojan Marching Band. This arrangement was made by John Wasson at the time of the premier of the film at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Californiaand later at Mann’s (Grauman’s) Chinese Theater in Hollywood in June 2003. The USC Band played the music to promote the film and portions of the score were used with the actors from the film to Enhance interplay with the crowd. The arrangement includes: “The Medallion Calls” “The Black Pearl” “To the Pirate’s Cave” “One Last Shot” “He’s a Pirate”

The score received mixed reviews from critics. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com gave it one out of a possible five stars, criticizing it's similarities to past Remote Control scores such as The Rock and Gladiator. He also criticized its lack of connections to the "swashbuckling" genre, stating, "The most disgraceful part of the pounding and shouting score for The Curse of the Black Pearl is that there is really nothing swashbuckling about it. If you remove the tepid little thirty-second jig from the start of the opening cue, then this score could easily accompany a movie about alien attacks, police force raids, chases for nuclear weapons, or any other militaristic setting." The "He's a Pirate" theme has also been noted to have similarities to music from the 2002 anime series The Twelve Kingdoms and 2006 role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006). Conversely, Andrew Granade of Soundtrack.net gave the score a mostly positive review, giving it 3.5 out of 5 rating and stating, "Pirates of the Caribbean is over the top in both movie and score, yet in a good-natured way. Badelt's work here is pleasing without being too heavy and is fully melded with the onscreen action."