Scored in 2010 and performed during 2010 at the
sold out Alamo Ritz (Austin) , Alamo Lake Creek
(Austin), SxSW Film 2010, Fort Worth Museum of
Science and History, and KUHF's silent film series
at Discovery Green (Houston)
The Unknown, directed & co-written by Tod Browning
(known for directing 1931 version of Dracula) is one
of the great silent psychological drama films of all
time. Alonzo (Lon Chaney) is a criminal on the
run and an apparently armless knife thrower in the
circus who uses his feet to encircle Estrellita
(Joan Crawford) with blades. Estrellita (she
fears men's arms) allows herslef to fall in love
with Alonzo (who really does have arms).
Alonzo who loves Estrellita goes to the hospital and
has his arms amputated, while Malabar is curing
Estrellita of her fear of men's arms.
Then,an
armless Alonzo tries to have Malabar killed
during a circus act.
DESTINY (der Mude Tod) (1921)
Scored in 2009 and performed during 2009-2010 at the
Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (Austin), and at
Discovery Green (Houston) as part of KUHF's silent
film series.
This Fritz
Lang film is part fairy tale and part legend. In the film, the
Angel of Death visits a small village untouched by time and takes
the life of a young woman's lover. When he leases the old
cemetery in the village, the young woman pleads with Death to return
her fiance. Death agrees to return her lover only if she can
beat him in one of three situations. Her three chances take
her to Italy, the Middle East and China making for some interesting musical
opportunities. (Please note that a proper recording of the
soundtrack has not been made and the clips above incorporate
rehearsal recordings.) Destiny was a much, much easier effort
than "Aelita, Queen of Mars". Though Bill and Josh still
spearheaded the writing of the material, Phil, Adam and Louie all
joined in creating the spooky, world-influenced score. Like
most German works from this time, the story is much more cohesive
than many of Europe's early silent films. It is one of only
eleven German silent films considered to be in the (USA dominated)
top 100 from
this era.
AELITA QUEEN OF MARS (1924)
In 2006, we re-scored our first silent film for
Austin's Alamo Drafthouse. Aelita pre-dates Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis
and has been speculated to be the first full length science fiction
film! It's rather amazing that it could be made in 1924
Russia. A young Russian scientist dreams of traveling through
space and meeting Aelita, the queen of Mars. The film is his
story of making that dream a reality and the consequences that
follow. As much a propaganda piece as it was a work of science
fiction, Aelita is really post-Bolshevik Revolution eye candy. Its
scenes from Mars are quite imaginative.
In August, 2006, before retiring Aelita to the vaults, Josh produced a recording of the NEARLY the entire
score (about 30 seconds are missing) in his house which was
co-engineered by Bill. Tommy did a fantastic job with this.
He played the whole thing with a recording of midi (digital)
instruments in order to perfectly sync the score to the film later.
All the other instruments were added later. Rick set
soundtrack to the film and Bill owns the only known DVD in
existence.
C U R R E N T F I L M
S
In 2005, Josh, Bill and Rick attended a meeting
at the University of Texas' film department where several composers
(including our pal Ian Varley) presented their works before a room
of student filmmakers in need of music. Kai Salim was in
attendance and immediately asked Josh, "You guys have never done
music for a film?!"
Listen to the
Invincible Czars music and you'll see why Kai was surprised that the
group had never scored a film - it's as if the music was made to
accompany a motion picture.
The Invincible Czars are
available to score films of any length.
Contact the group if you're interested.
Taco! Taco! Taco!
(2009) Written and directed by John Estrada,
the script for this film won a Latino filmmakers' contest
and was funded by HBO and tells the story of two competing
taco stands.
The all latin music based score
features Leila Henley, Phil Davidson, Louis Landry and Josh
Robins plus special guest trumpeter Brent Baker. It
includes a Morricone-esque version of Wagner's "Ride of the
Valkyrie" and the song "Taco! Taco! Taco!" which seems to
get stuck in the heads of everyone who hears it. The music
was all created by Josh except the pieces that were
improvised by the band.
The film debuted and was well received at the New York
International Latino Film Festival in 2009.
GOD
THINKS YOU'RE A LOSER (2009) The Invincible Czars' version of Tchaikovsky's
"Russian Dance" (The Nutcracker Suite) appears in the film.
BI-DEFINITION (2008) This film was written by Dustin Will and Doug
Long but was directed by Kai Salim. Kai enlisted Josh to score
the film and the two created an soundtrack that is 90% vocal with
almost no traditional singing. Grunts, huffs, puffs and
squeals abound in this film about bi-sexuality.
Josh
performed and recorded the entire score solo with voice, electric
bass, dumbek, tambourine, afuche cabasa and samples.
In 2009, "Bi-Def" was warmly received at LA's
OUTFEST and will also be
screened at AGLIFF in Austin.
SEX RECONSTRUCTED (2006) "SexRec" was the Czars' first foray into
scoring music for new film works. Kai Salim created a piece of
true eye candy and Czars' czar Josh Robins was charged with making
music to complement the piece. In spite of his excellent sense
of all things film, Kai still insists that the music Josh has
provided for his films actually outdo the visuals.
This soundtrack featured Invincible Czars Phil Davidson, Bill
Petersen and Rick Redman (and Josh, of course) among other players
such as Charlie Jones (drums), Eric the Butcher (string bass) and
Maurice Chammah and Jason Elinoff (strings).
The song
"Paradise is Not So Far Away" was written specifically for the film
and was later performed live by 12 piece ensemble at the
Golden Hornet Project's
first annual Big Band concert in October 2007 with a highly
memorable vocal performance by Josh (singing both the male and
female parts).
