TV composers Wendy & Lisa had princely education Fri Nov 02 03:25:30 UTC 2007 LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - For Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, a.k.a. Wendy & Lisa, working with Prince in the 1980s as members of his band the Revolution was the perfect preparation for a career in composing for film and television.
The duo, who work together scoring NBC's "Heroes" and "Bionic Woman" and previously collaborated on "Crossing Jordan," spoke about their experiences during the Billboard/Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference on Thursday. "Our experience as touring musicians helped us score live to picture," Coleman said. Prince would "give us little hand gestures and signals and dance moves, and we would know what each little thing meant. It became a game sometimes. If you missed it, believe me, you heard about it later. "It was great training for me in scoring because I can watch the screen go by and ... hit (scenes) with musical punctuation and accents," she added. Melvoin and Coleman's big break in the film world was 1995's "Dangerous Minds." Composer Mark Isham asked for their help in revising his score, which producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer had deemed too "jazzy." The project was eventually turned over to the women. Having worked with the Purple One brought opportunities but also baggage when it came to getting work and "whether we really had the goods or whether we were just performers with Prince," Coleman said. Trying to start a film and television scoring career 20 years ago in a male-dominated field -- and as women who were associated with fishnets and heavy breathing onstage -- also "gave us a certain amount of notoriety that wasn't necessarily good," she said. But the two now have as much work as they can possibly handle -- and unlike many Hollywood composers, they don't use ghostwriters to do work for them. "Scoring is the gossamer art," Coleman said. "You really have to not be there, but if you weren't there, the scene would suddenly be just a play." Reuters/Billboard This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided by your colleague have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Reuters. Your personal details have not been added to any database or mailing list. If you would like to receive news articles delivered to your email address, please subscribe at www.reuters.com © Copyright Reuters 2006All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. Quotes and other data are provided for your personal information only, and are not intended for trading purposes. Reuters, the members of its Group and its data providers shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the quotes or other data, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. © Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. ________________________________________________________________________ Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.aol.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- NewPowerNewYork Mailing List website: Www.NPNY.Org ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe? Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED], in body place npny ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions/Help?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
