Soundtrack for the film Birdman

Hello all and welcome to my first blog post.  My name is JP and this is JPAudio by design.  Today I want to talk about a movie that I just recently watched called Birdman.  You know the one movie with Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis and Emma Stone. 

I watch a lot of movies, mostly ones released on Netflix and every great while I will go to a movie theater for a big picture.  I want to start this blog off by pointing something out in the film that has never been really done before and turned out to be pretty phenomenal and that is the drum soundtrack.

For example when Michael Keaton’s character is upset or angry you hear a wide assortment of drums playing in the scenes he is in.  This isn’t quote unquote something that the character hears.  There are two scenes in which you see a drummer just playing a jam. To me the actors don’t see the drummer yet the drummer is playing the emotions of Keaton’s character.  Usually drums are used to heighten emotions in films.  Like leading you up to something.  But in this whole movie it’s drums and percussion.  To be honest I don’t think there are any other instruments in the whole film.

So the Director Alejandro G.Inarritu, and Sound designer Martin Hernandez got together and hired on a Jazz drummer named Antonio Sanchez who is also a Grammy award winner. According to Sanchez this type of drumming for film has never been done and he was up for the challenge.  At first Sanchez had to read the script and get an idea of how the movie would play out.  This is what you call your test stages of the soundtrack.  Once the movie was recorded Sanchez could see a better picture and was able to perform some amazing works or art. 

I would recommend this film to a friend to watch.  Not just for the amazing drum and percussion works.  But for the over all film in general.  It has been a while since the soundtrack of a film has impressed me.  Normally the sound design and Foley of any film is what I normally stick to.  But I feel that this was an amazing feat and hopefully you will agree with me or see the film for yourself.