VALIANT – George Fenton

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Valiant is a CGI animation co-produced by the creators of Shrek that follows the fortunes of a little wood pigeon as journeys from being just a lowly, though patriotic, wood pigeon to full-blooded World War II hero. Notable as being the first CGI-animated feature produced in the UK and featuring a “stellar cast” of voices (including Ewan McGregor, Tim Curry & Hugh Laurie), cinema audiences weren’t too enthused about cartoon avian heroes pitting their wits against the dreaded enemy and the movie only recovered a fraction of its budget. George Fenton was brought on board this project and provided a score that services the movie well but just isn’t very original.

What is obvious from the start is that Fenton’s score is designed establish the listener (and viewer) firmly in World War II; and specifically in the World War II of Ron Goodwin’s wartime movies and Eric Coates’ The Dambusters.

DEEP BLUE – George Fenton

Original Review by Alan Rogers

The BBC has a long tradition of producing quality natural history programming for television, which showcases various aspects of the planet’s flora and fauna. Composer George Fenton, over the years, has been called upon to score several of these major documentary series; for example, The Trials of Life, Life In The Freezer, etc. in 2001, Fenton accepted the challenging task of providing the underscore for the breathtaking visuals captured for The Blue Planet, a series of programmes highlighting the wonders of the deep. Three years later, the BBC took the best bits from The Blue Planet and spliced them together into a ninety-minute, documentary, entitled Deep Blue, that was given a theatrical release that showed off the spectacle and grandeur of the oceans on the big screen. For this, Fenton was given the opportunity to revisit his score for The Blue Planet, using this music as the basis for the re-edited images. The composer was also given the opportunity to record this new score with the world-famous Berlin Philharmonic.

For Deep Blue, Fenton has composed a series of set-pieces, musical vistas if you will, each one underscoring a particular aspect of everyday life in the oceans captured on film. This score highlights Fenton’s expert ability in capturing the unfolding drama – usually in the form or a predator-prey encounter – and it is this particular aspect of the score that stays with the listener well after the last bars of the music have finished.