Quick Facts
Biography
Graeme Revell (born 23 October 1955) is a New Zealand musician and composer. He came to prominence in the 1980s as the leader of the industrial/electronic group SPK. Since the 1990s he has worked primarily as a film score composer.
Some of Revell's best known film scores include The Crow (1994), Street Fighter (1994), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Craft (1996), The Crow: City of Angels (1996), The Saint (1997), Spawn (1997), The Negotiator (1998), Bride of Chucky (1998), Titan A.E. (2000), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Daredevil (2003) and Sin City (2005). He is also known for his frequent collaborations with director David Twohy, having scored Below (2002) and the Riddick franchise.
Biography
Early life
Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A.
Education and training
Revell is a classically trained pianist and French horn player, but also graduated from the University of Auckland with degrees in economics and political science.
Vocational pursuits
He worked as a regional planner in both Australia and Indonesia, and was also an orderly in an Australian psychiatric hospital.
Musical career
Revell was a founding member of the industrial music band SPK, playing keyboards and percussion. The SPK single, "In Flagrante Delicto", was the basis for the Dead Calm film score (his first) that won him an Australian Film Industry award.
In 2002-03, he assisted the rock band Evanescence on their debut album, Fallen, in which he is credited for doing most of the string arrangements. He has also done string arrangements for Ludus, Stefy, Biffy Clyro and The Wombats.
Style
Revell's musical style is predominantly electronic and computer-based, yet often utilizes classical instruments or entire arrangements for certain pieces (similar to his contemporary counterparts, Hans Zimmer and Mark Isham). The orchestral scores that Revell has composed have changed throughout his career—from Bernard Herrmann-like pieces to Ennio Morricone-influenced works.
Revell's music is often re-used from movie to movie and in more recent times he has collaborated with other artists on their albums. After the success of his soundtrack on Red Planet where he used the voice of French singer Emma Shapplin to back up and often lead his score, he collaborated with her on her own album Etterna, producing all of her songs. He has recently been interviewed for the independent documentary Finding Kraftland.
Collaborators
Revell has been assisted in sound design by dark ambient composer, Lustmord.
Awards
On 18 May 2005, Revell was honored at the annual BMI Film & TV Awards with the Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement.
Credited soundtracks
Film
- Dead Calm (1989)
- Spontaneous Combustion (1990)
- Child's Play 2 (1990)
- Deadly (1991)
- Till There Was You (1991)
- The People Under the Stairs (1991)
- Until the End of the World (1991)
- The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)
- Love Crimes (1992)
- Traces of Red (1992)
- Boxing Helena (1993)
- Body of Evidence (1993)
- Hear No Evil (1993)
- The Crush (1993)
- Faraway, So Close! (1993)
- Hard Target (1993)
- Ghost in the Machine (1993)
- No Escape (1994)
- The Crow (1994)
- S.F.W. (1994)
- Street Fighter (1994)
- Tank Girl (1995)
- The Basketball Diaries (1995)
- Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
- Killer: A Journal of Murder (1995)
- Strange Days (1995)
- The Tie That Binds (1995)
- From Dusk till Dawn (1996)
- Race the Sun (1996)
- The Craft (1996)
- Fled (1996)
- The Crow: City of Angels (1996)
- The Saint (1997)
- Spawn (1997)
- Chinese Box (1997)
- Suicide Kings (1997)
- The Big Hit (1998)
- Phoenix (1998)
- All I Wanna Do (1998)
- The Negotiator (1998)
- Lulu on the Bridge (1998)
- Bride of Chucky (1998)
- The Siege (1998)
- Idle Hands (1999)
- Buddy Boy (1999)
- Three to Tango (1999)
- Bats (1999)
- The 13th Warrior (1999) (Rejected)
- Pitch Black (2000)
- Gossip (2000)
- Titan A.E. (2000)
- Calle 54 (2000)
- Attraction (2000)
- Red Planet (2000)
- Double Take (2001)
- Blow (2001)
- Human Nature (2001)
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
- Collateral Damage (2002)
- High Crimes (2002)
- Below (2002)
- Daredevil (2003)
- Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
- Out of Time (2003)
- Open Water (2003)
- Walking Tall (2004)
- The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
- Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)
- Sin City (2005)
- The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (2005)
- Goal! (2005)
- Harsh Times (2005)
- The Fog (2005)
- Æon Flux (2005)
- Bordertown (2006)
- Man of the Year (2006)
- Marigold (2007)
- Grindhouse: Planet Terror (2007)
- The Condemned (2007)
- Darfur Now (2007)
- Awake (2007)
- The Ruins (2008)
- Street Kings (2008)
- Pineapple Express (2008)
- Days of Wrath (2008)
- Unthinkable (2010)
- The Experiment (2010)
- Kites: The Remix (2010) (International version)
- Shark Night (2011)
- Riddick (2013)
- Larrikins (2018)
Television and video
- Bangkok Hilton (1988) (mini-series)
- Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)
- Down Came a Blackbird (1995)
- Dennis the Menace Strikes Again (1998)
- Bats Abound (1999)
- Frank Herbert's Dune (2000)
- Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001)
- CSI: Miami (2002-2003)
- Eleventh Hour (TV series) (2008-2009).
- The Forgotten (2009-2010)
- Dark Blue (2009-2010)
- The River (2012)
- Gotham (2014-2015)
Video games
- Call of Duty 2 (2005)
- Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (2005)