Bear McCreary helps the nerd steal Christmas
18-Dec-2010 -
Angry video game nerd's Christmas
special features original music
by Bear McCreary.
Hot off the airing of the season finale of AMC’s
The Walking Dead, film, television and video game
composer Bear McCreary’s latest project is a gift
to the fans. Angry Video Game Nerd’s Christmas
episode, How the Nerd Stole Christmas is
viewable at CineMassacre.
“Because I’m such a huge fan of the Angry Video
Game Nerd,” described McCreary, “I thought that
the least I could do was pitch in some music and help
him out on one of his videos. However, I never really
thought we would end up with something as cinematic,
narrative and funny as we would end up with.”
“I needed a score for this one that was very different
than the others,” said James Rolfe aka The Angry
Video Game Nerd.
Rolfe reviews really old, not-so-classic video games
on his popular site. The idea for the Christmas episode
was to create a take on Chuck Jones’ classic animated
version of the Dr. Seuss story How the Grinch Stole
Christmas. In How The Nerd Stole Christmas, the nerd
steals all of the new video games and replaces with
them with the, well, crappier video games from his
childhood.
“This whole thing sounded like a lot of fun, so I dove in,”
said McCreary. “I had a blast with the classic video game
sounds in this score. I’ve had projects with 8-bit music,
but few opportunities to mix these sounds together with
live, orchestral music. The results were often surprisingly
effective.”
In addition to mixing in the sounds of classic video games,
McCreary incorporated a new arrangement of the classic
song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” with lyrics written
by the Angry Video Game Nerd. Doug Lacy.
He also incorporated other holiday references, as Bear
describes: "I even tucked several musical quotations into
the score itself, including a Christmas classic, ‘Dance of the
Sugar Plum Fairies’ by Tchaikovsky. I used this quote while
The Nerd snuck into the village of Gameville to steal games.
However, when he descends down the chimney, James
added a well-known sound effect from Super Mario Bros.
Taking that reference to its next logical level, I scored the
following scene with a quotation of the underground music
from Super Mario Bros, combining it with ‘Dance of the
Sugar Plum Fairies!"
Bear McCreary was among a handful of select protégés
of late film music legend Elmer Bernstein and is a classically
trained composer with degrees in Composition and
Recording Arts from the prestigious USC Thornton School
of Music. At the age of 24, Bear McCreary was launched
into pop culture with his score to Battlestar Galactica,
"the most innovative music on TV today" (Variety).
Io9.com declared Bear McCreary one of the Ten Best
Science Fiction Composers of all time, the only composer
under 50 on the list, (he is now 30), and the only one
recognized for work in television.
To read Bear’s in-depth blog entry about the creation
of the music, and for a free download of the music,
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