ROUGE IN LOVE – George Shaw

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Rouge In Love is a 10-minute YouTube video directed by Evan Jackson Leong and Michelle Phan, starring Michelle Phan who plays a girl visiting Paris where she comes to the aid of an unknown guy who falls at her feet after having been seen fleeing from an unknown peril. What then transpires is the usual boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then boy trying to find the girl again. At its heart, the film is a love story and it calls for an effective, romantic score particularly as – save for one single word – the film has no dialogue. The directors turned to talented composer George Shaw, who succeeds in giving the film an emotional heart with a lushly romantic score for string ensemble and piano that is based around a strong main theme.

Shaw’s theme is first heard right at the outset as a sparse statement in the opening track, “Single Status Update”. It’s a short track (lasting only 20 seconds) but the theme is so strong that it immediately grabs the attention. It is heard again in the next cue, “Win A Trip To Paris”, but this time it is accompanied by a piano countermelody that sits alongside the theme, adding an emotional depth. These two tracks – as it turns out – are not taken from Rouge In Love but are, in fact, from a “prequel” companion film, The Sweetest Thing. This latter film documents how Phan’s character ends up winning a trip to Paris. A quote of the theme on accordion then a full statement on strings and piano signal her winning the competition. Then a statement of the theme on celeste as we see Phan standing by a particularly ornate Parisian building adds a fairy-tale quality to the scene. “Win A Trip To Paris” highlights how Shaw moulds his versatile theme into several different forms by varying both orchestration and tempo to achieve the desired effect. A versatility in the music is particularly important in a film such as this: one that is so heavily reliant on the music (remember, there is no dialogue). However, some may find that, upon viewing the video, the music is a bit over-the-top in terms of signposting what’s happening on-screen (e.g., the appearance of accordion music when we see the Paris competition poster, fairy-tale music for the dream trip to Paris, etc. is an obvious example). 

AGENTS OF SECRET STUFF – George Shaw

Original Review by Alan Rogers (First uploaded at maintitles.net)

A YouTube short comedy-drama film that’s a mix of spy movie and teen-drama set in a high school, Agents of Secret Stuff centres on a secret agent going undercover to protect a girl who is a target of an assassin group. Produced by Wong Fu Productions, the music is composed by regular Wong Fu collaborator George Shaw who is probably best known for his MovieScore Media releases J-ok’el and Marcus. The music is written in the style of a James Bond/Mission: Impossible/spy movie style with twangy guitars, gutsy brass statements of the main heroic theme and a John Powell/Bourne movie vibe in the strings. Over the course of the 25-minute score, as well as the spy elements, there’s also room for comedic and romantic passages that all add up for a varied listen.

The opening track, “Agents of Secret Stuff”, gives a full-blown statement of the heroic theme in electric guitar and brass that starts things off very positively. The second track, “Training To Be An ASS”, then highlights the variety of the score as a whole and also shows off Shaw’s grasp of how best to use his limited resources for a movie such as this (the “live” instruments including “just” trumpet, violin, clarinet and guitar). This 3-minute cue is more of an atmospheric track, featuring electric bass guitar and a variety of electronic percussions with washes of synth soundscapes. Shaw does a good job of getting the most out of the limited live instruments