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Vivienne Chow

Success at recording foreign film's score raises hopes of new industry for Hong Kong
An initiative inspired by a PhD research paper could help turn the city into a regional centre for film music production.
The paper by Robert Ellis-Geiger,  an orchestra conductor and assistant professor at City University, has already resulted in a musical score for an international film  being recorded in Hong Kong for the first time.
The score of Austrian film The Orange Paper   was recorded  here by musicians from the  Hong Kong Philharmonic  Orchestra using advanced recording facilities at the new Shaw Studios in Tseung Kwan O.
'We can create a brand new industry,' said Professor Ellis-Geiger of the university's school of creative media.  He hoped the success of the project would enhance the city's reputation for such services and create work for musicians.
He said Hong Kong could provide the services in a much more flexible, quicker and economical way than Hollywood could.  And recording in Hong Kong  could enhance the flavour of a score of Chinese music.
Professor Ellis-Geiger wrote about the possibility of a new industry in his PhD research paper 'Trends in Contemporary Hollywood Film Scoring: a Synthesised Approach for Hong Kong Cinema' for the University of Leeds' school of music.
He said orchestral film scores could be done in Hollywood and some European cities, such as Prague, or even Beijing and Shanghai, but there had been problems.
'It's cheap to do it in Prague but musicians attending the rehearsals might not be the same musicians turning up at the recording sessions.'
London had fantastic music but it was very expensive with the strong pound sterling adding to the price, said Professor Ellis-Geiger, who composed the original musical scores for award-winning local feature After This Our Exile   and Election 2,  for which he conducted an orchestral recording session last year.
'A Hollywood composer was frustrated when he recorded the score in Beijing for The Promise   because the standard wasn't high enough and there was a language barrier,' he said. 'Shanghai also has film-score services but there's a big question mark on the quality of the musicians, as the standard has varied extremely and the facilities have been nowhere near Shaw  Studios'.'
The problem with Hollywood was the cost. According to Professor Ellis-Geiger, one day of orchestral  recording  costs about US$100,000 and only 12 to 16 minutes of music was produced. A film usually required 50 to 65 minutes of music.
Production in Hollywood was also more complicated.
An orchestral film score done in Hong Kong would be about half the cost of one done in Hollywood, he said.
Sascha Selke,  who composed the music for The Orange Paper, praised the quality of Hong Kong musicians and the recording facilities after the two-day session.  He said the city had a bright future.
'Honestly I doubt if any European orchestra could do such a good job in such a short time,' Selke said. 'The result was  a Hollywood level at a much lower cost, done within a much shorter time. The way that Hollywood works involves a lot more people and that takes much longer and allows more opportunities for mistakes.
'I will definitely recommend Hong Kong to European filmmakers whenever I have a chance. As soon as I have a new project I'd rather do it in Hong Kong.'
Wellington Fung Wing,   secretary-general of the Hong Kong Film Development Council, said the city had been producing talented people in film-score composing. He added that the market here was slowly opening.
'But it's still a long way to go for Hong Kong to become a music-scoring service centre,' Mr Fung said.
The council will soon conduct a survey on the current  trends.



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