Composer Elfman visits Wonka's Factory
[Author unidentified]
From Reuters: Los Angeles Billboard, 2005.07.09
Original source: http://au.launch.yahoo.com/050708/11/5acw.html [no longer works]
Current source: http://www.ohjohnny.net/charlie/charlie48.html
Rather than rifling through countless chocolate bars for a golden ticket, a
simple listen to Danny Elfman's score to the film Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory will transport anyone to Willy Wonka's elusive realm.
Elfman brings Tim Burton's adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel
to life with influences ranging from Bollywood musicals to 1970s funk to tribal
chanting.
"There were moments that I couldn't believe what I was doing, it was so
over the top," Elfman says. In addition to the orchestral score—recorded
at London's Abbey Road Studios—the composer wrote four songs based on the
mischievous children in the book: Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teavee
and Veruca Salt.
Elfman took the lyrics from Dahl's original Oompa Loompa chants and recorded
all the voices himself with a quirky falsetto here and a deep baritone there.
"It was really fun at first," he says, but in the middle
of recording each part as a different Oosumpa Loompa, he thought, " 'This
is madness. Why am I doing this?' "