Beasts on Vinyl!

The Beasts of the Southern Wild soundtrack has struck a chord (pun intended!) with so many of you.  Whether the music brings you back to the film or resonates with you on a personal level, your response to the music has been overwhelming.

twitter music 3

twitter music 1

twitter music

A co-collaboration between long time friends, Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin, and featuring a track from the Louisiana based Lost Bayou Ramblers, the soundtrack was conceived and executed with the same DIY spirit of the film in mind.  In a recent interview with Artist Direct, Dan Romer recounts the recording process:

We were trying to make the sound of an orchestra using the smallest things we could, which was essentially one microphone up to one string player at a time. We did most of it instrument by instrument. We had every single piece on a separate track so we were able to tweak things to no end. In one case, we did end up building a completely new composition out of single pieces we recorded for other songs. That actually ended up being used over the levee scene.

The end product is a stand alone piece of music that manages to evoke a raw and emotional story of its own.  At least, that's what you've been expressing to us!

And it's why we're so excited to announce that the Beasts of the Southern Wild soundtrack will be released on vinyl and CD on Tuesday, December 4th.

The vinyl is available for pre-order at this link.  You might consider purchasing it as a holiday gift for the music lover in your life!

In the meantime, check out the below featurette on the music of Beasts!

We caught up with Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin and co-composer Dan Romer to discuss the score and Romer's "scientific ability" to match sound to what Zeitlin showed him onscreen.

Quvenzhané Wallis receives Key to the City!

In a ceremony last night, Quvenzhané Wallis was acknowledged and honored with the key to her hometown, Houma in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, for her work in Beasts of the Southern Wild.

It's a proud moment for everyone at Beasts HQ!

Photo via Fox Searchlight

The Story Behind Beasts

This month's issue of The Hollywood Reporter features a great behind the scenes look at Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Including this anecdote from Director Benh Zeitlin, who was traveling from New Orleans to Austin for a screening of his short Glory at Seain 2008 when his car was rear ended by a drunk driver.

"It was 5 in the morning, and we were at a stoplight, and the driver was drunk and ran into us at full speed," he recalls. "I was in the back seat, and the collision collapsed it into the front seat, like an accordion. It turned my leg backward and shattered my pelvis, and I had to move back to New York for eight months. And that was when I started writing Beasts."

Inspired by the stage play, Juicy and Delicious, written by childhood friend, Lucy Alibar, Benh and Lucy spent the next year hammering out the script that would become Beasts of the Southern Wild.  A year and a half later, the film was heading into pre-production.

The piece continues:

"Nearly four years after the car accident that launched him on this strange and magical journey, he (BZ) was whisked onto a plane where he fell into a profound sleep, effectively waking in a theater where he was able to see his work before an audience for the first time.

"People went crazy," he recalls. "But I thought, maybe that's the way they always behaved, because I'd never been to a premiere before."

Read the full article from The Hollywood Reporter here.

Beasts of the Northern Wild

Four years ago, in a lull between working the Democratic primaries of 2008 as a field organizer and before the general election really commenced, and a few months since Glory at Sea had first hit the festival circuit, I was on a vacation with my family, on a National Geographic boat that cut through the floating ice of the Arctic Circle, giant fjords on either side of us. Occasionally the boat would pull ashore onto one of these little strips of land so we could hike around and look at wildlife, and even more rarely, come across manmade structures that had been there since the Viking days. One modern structure I remember was the cultural house on the most "populous" island, Longyearben. Back on the boat, I snapped photos of the crazy ice floats in this otherworldly feeling place. I sent them back to my friend Benh Zeitlin, knowing his affinity for worlds like this. He replied enthusiastically.

Cut to today, November 13, 2012. Another election over with, and the global expansion of Beasts reaches new frontiers. That same environment that stoked Benh's imagination will now play host to Beasts of the Southern Wild, in that very same cultural house in Longyearben -- which is part of Svalbard, an island in the Arctic Circle that is the province of Norway -- making this the northern-most screening of Beasts ever. Having been there, I can honestly say it blows my mind (in a joyful way of course) that we are playing in such a far off place as Longyearben. From ice age like visuals to the steamy Southern Wild and back again, our film just keeps beasting it across the globe. Next stop: let's play Antarctica!

- Michael Gottwald, Beasts Producer

Beasts of the Southern Wild plays at the The Culture House of Longyearbyen in Norway for one night only, Wednesday, Nov 14th.

Show me them guns!

via @jessicahosts

Send us your best #ImtheMan via email, Tweet, Instagram or Facebook and we'll feature them in our gallery!  At the end of the month, we'll select five of our favorites to receive a Beasts poster signed by director Benh Zeitlin.

via @braceofjackrabbits

via @starxed