John Ottman - Pumpkin (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) '2002

Tracks list

The complete and fully orchestrated soundtrack composed by John Ottman and
performed by the HOLLYWOOD STUDIO ORCHESTRA & VOICES for the 2002 feature film
tragic comic satire entited PUMPKIN Directed by Anthony Abrams & Adam Larson
Broder and starring Christina Ricci (The Addams Family), Hank Harris (Mercury
Rising), Brenda Blethyn (Anne Frank) Dominique Swain (Lolita) and Marisa
Coughlan (Super Troopers). This film score is in the same gothic and dark style
of such composers as Bernard Herrmann, Danny Elfman and Ennio Morricone.

Tracklist:
01 - John Ottman - Lofty Goals (3:11)
02 - John Ottman - Pumpkin (2:02)
03 - John Ottman - Outcasts (2:21)
04 - John Ottman - Separation (4:19)
05 - John Ottman - First Day (3:55)
06 - John Ottman - Im In Love (2:04)
07 - John Ottman - Bad World (1:26)
08 - John Ottman - A First Step (2:09)
09 - John Ottman - To Class (1:16)
10 - John Ottman - Torn Souls (4:26)
11 - John Ottman - Im Not Retarded (2:53)
12 - John Ottman - Goodbye, Cruel World (2:29)
13 - John Ottman - Friends And Family (4:42)
14 - John Ottman - Destiny (3:50)
15 - John Ottman - Carolyns Poem (2:33)
16 - John Ottman - Lofty Goals Reprise (2:18)



JOHNS THOUGHTS
A Strange Whirlwind

I was hired on the first of April to have 54 minutes of music on the stands in
two weeks. The irony is that I had met on the film a few months prior to being
hired. I went to film school with directors Adam Broder and Tony Abrahms, and
recognized them in the meeting. Its funny 12 years after graduating to walk in a
room and say, Hey, I know you. Whats up?!

The film interested me because I loved the script, but found out in our meeting
that there was no budget to record a score. (How DOES this happen?) Anyway, a
synth score was out of the question since my current synth set-up was not up to
par to give them a quality product. So we kind of shook hands to work again
together, and talked every so often about editing or musical ideas, etc. God
knows I have a soapbox on hand at all times for both subjects!

Because I was frustrated not to be able to take on this low budget film, I
decided to upgrade my studio for such ventures and for more technical
flexibility. So I hired my engineer, Casey Stone, to bring the studio up to 2001
standards so I could feel comfortable taking on a different array of projects --
and also to save me the frustration of having to kick things to get them to work
and agonize why buzzing or static was happening, etc. So after a buying spree,
the new studio was barely up and running when the folks from Bubble Boy wanted a
synth demo in order for me to be considered for the film. Talk about timing! I
still had wires hanging out everywhere as I wrote the demo in a panic, barely
knowing how to work the new studio. Even though I was given a few days to write
the demo, I really didnt have things running until 48 hours before it was due.

After getting signed on Bubble Boy, I began doing synth mock-ups for its early
cut, but the production went into a re-editing hiatus a few weeks later. It was
at this moment I started getting calls from the guys at Pumpkin again. One day,
Tony Abrams showed up on my doorstep with a copy of the film to look at. (The
production was so low budget, they couldnt even afford messengers!) They needed
to dub the film in about 3 1/2 weeks, I was on a break from Bubble Boy, and I
had this new studio which could supplement a VERY small ensemble of strings. I
wasnt sure I could pull it off in time, but they were up against the wall, and
the film did something for me. So I resigned myself to living on caffeine and 4
hours of sleep per night for the next three weeks. I lost a few pounds for sure,
which is not a good thing for a skinny guy already! But the decision to hire me
still didnt come down until a week later, further crunching the time into the
surreal.

The Creative Approach

Its no wonder I was the third composer on the project, given the strange and
counter-instinctual requests Adam and Tony were making musically -- and I say
this lovingly, guys! So my goal was to somehow create music that played both
sides of the coin, bringing us into consensus while still serving the film.
Acoustically we could afford about 13 strings, a clarinet and a flute, and four
sessions to record it all in. Yikes. As I said, the requested creative approach
to the score was quite unconventional, which made the process even more
difficult and worrisome! Deemed philosphy #1 was to make many scenes feel like
they were not scored to picture. They wanted the scenes to almost feel a little
muscially off, as if we layed some music over a scene for hit and miss value.
UGH. Adam even said one night, I want it to seem like the music doesnt work
totally perfectly, like it almost doesnt belong. I thought to myself, oh boy,
what am I putting myself through this for if Im going to be a laughing stock!?
Fortunately, I convinced them to warm things up and to loosely tailor most
scenes to the major nuances on screen; for the most part Im happy with the
contributions made to the scenes. As eclectic as the score would be, it needed
to add a vestige of humanity to the film. In this regard I think the film
benefitted greatly, especially for the themes for Pumpkin and Carolyn. However,
I remain a bit dubious of just a couple sequences where music I had written for
general use was edited over sequences in, uh, interesting ways. Oh boy.

Like Cruel Intentions, Pumpkin is about troubled/wrong love. In Cruel, Sebastian
feels somwhow wrong falling in love with Annette, just as in Pumpkin, Carolyns
love for him is taboo and confusing for both of them. Those familar with my
Cruel Intentions score will recognize some influence. It just seems to work so
well for tortured love! Its dark yet moving tones work because if its too sappy,
a scene between a sorority girl and a retarded boy would be laughable, yet if
not emotional enough, the music would wrongly convey some darker unintentional
subtext. Im probably happiest with Carolyns sad/rejection theme (Outcast and
Carolyns Poem), which is sort of a minor key version of the sorority song I
adapted to introduce the film. Then I added a saddened girls daydreaming voice
reflecting Carolyns state of mind.

Even after recording the score, it was a marathon getting the music to the dub
stage. There was no money for a profesisonal music mix, so I did it myself at
home, getting the cues to the dub stage in the nick of time. What a blur the
whole thing was.

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