It has been a banner yr for Martin Delemazure, the managing director of Paris-based composer company Grande Ourse.
He had seven movies on the Cannes Movie Competition in Could that includes music by composers on the company’s books, topped by Jury Prize-winner Emilia Pérez, which additionally gained Finest Cannes Soundtrack for Grande Ourse expertise Camille, who takes a co-music credit score with life and work associate Clément Ducol.
The opposite titles spanned Palme d’Or contender Wild Diamond, for which the soundtrack was composed by Audrey Ismaël, who additionally wrote the music for Un Sure Regard title The Kingdom.
Grande Ourse additionally represents David Sztanke, who wrote the music for a second movie within the sidebar, Canine on Trial. Elsewhere within the Official Choice, shopper Matteo Locasciulli wrote the soundtrack for bio-doc Jacques Demy, the Pink and the Black in Cannes Classics.
Within the parallel Cannes Critics’ Week part, Rebeka Warrior gained reward for the unique songs she wrote for Alexis Langlois’s pop musical Queens of Drama, whereas Bachar Mar-Khalifé took music credit on quick movie Alazar by Beza Hailu Lemma.
Quick ahead seven months and Grand Ourse continues to get pleasure from awards buzz due to Emilia Pérez.
Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical made it into 4 of the ten Academy Award shortlists introduced on Tuesday, spanning Finest Music – Unique Rating, Finest Music – Unique Tune, for El Mal and Mi Camino, Finest Sound and Finest Worldwide Function Movie.
The music can be nominated for Unique Rating and Tune (once more for El Mal and Mi Camino) on the Golden Globes, with Emilia Pérez the frontrunner having made it into 10 classes in complete.
Clément Ducol, Camille, Zoe Saldana on the Golden Globes Luncheon
Getty Pictures
Delemazure describes the collaboration between Audiard and life and inventive music companions Camille and Ducol as “a particular case”.
“It wasn’t imagined to be a movie, however fairly a stage work, or an opera,” he says. “Jacques first obtained in contact with Clément Ducol, to put in writing a musical comedy with sturdy orchestrations after which little by little Camille obtained concerned to put in writing the songs… He solely had a 15-page remedy when he first obtained involved, with just a few acts, like for an opera. The writing half was very open.”
The trio retreated to the Domaine de Montagenet artists residence in France’s Dordogne area for a primary composing and writing push.
“It’s in the course of the countryside, very calm, very quiet and it has a recording studio within the basement… it was excellent for composing and writing the songs,” says Delemazure.
They signed an preliminary contract in 2019, with work persevering with throughout the pandemic, with the choice to pivot to a function movie coming in 2022.
“The undertaking advanced enormously through the years… there have been 5 variations of every of the songs,” says Delemazure, noting that the choice to shoot within the studio, over on location in Mexico, in addition to the arrival of Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez within the solid all had an affect.
Delemazure says his function was to accompany Camille throughout the highs and lows of the four-year course of.
“It was a really lengthy course of, stuffed with twists and turns, moments of stress, and moments of pleasure… a little bit of a curler coaster. I’m there to verify there are fewer ups and downs and to attempt to buffer issues a bit… generally it’s additionally about setting limits on the manufacturing.”
“There have been numerous debates across the musicality of the movie,” he explains on the latter level. “Jacques actually didn’t need it to be a musical comedy within the vein of a Disney movie, the place the music takes the characters out of the narration… however for that he wanted fragility and sensitivity.
“Generally it led to issues that aren’t in place musically, that grate on a musician’s ear as a result of it’s out of tune, or not the fitting tone. For Jacques, this was a energy and a part of the narration, and the musicians generally had just a little bother taking a step again.”
Speaking extra typically about France’s historic excessive standing within the music class of the Academy Awards, Delemazure factors to Oscar-winning composers similar to Michel Legrand (The Thomas Crown Affair, Summer season of ’42 and Yentl) Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia, Physician Zhivago, A Passage to India) and Georges Delerue (A Little Romance)
“Between them, they’d dozens of nominations, a few of which resulted in Oscars,” he says. “Then extra lately, Alexandre Desplats gained two Oscars [for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water], and Ludovic Bourse gained one [for The Artist].”
Delemazure took over Grande Ourse (named after the Nice Bear constellation) in Could 2022, on the invitation of its founder Quentin Boniface. The pair first met at Gaumont the place they rose up the ranks of its music division over the course of a decade.
“Three years after organising the company, he was provided the function of head of music for EMEA at Netflix. He didn’t need to throw all the things away, or abandon his composers, so he approached me,” explains Delemazure, who took over the corporate and has continued to develop it.
“Initially, a number of the composers on our books have been individuals we had labored with at Gaumont, and so they tended to be specialised in creating music for movie, whereas now, roughly half are artists in their very own proper, who additionally write music for movies.”
He cites Camille, who has launched 5 albums, two of which went platimum, for example of the latter.
“Camille is extraordinarily well-known in France. She’s toured extensively, gained numerous music awards and is fashionable as a singer in her personal proper, whereas her universe, music and character additionally attracts administrators,” he says of the artist whose earlier film credit embody Ratatouille and The Little Prince.
Different Grande Ourse abilities on this vein embody digital music producer and artist Rone, who gained the Cannes Soundtrack Award for his music for Audiard’s penultimate movie Paris, thirteenth District, in addition to a César in 2020 for Frédéric Farrucci’s Night time Trip.
Past awards success, an even bigger gamechanger for the composers at Grand Ourse has been the arrival of the streamers, says Delemazure.
“Earlier than, French composers could be scouted by individuals from the music sector, who fell for his or her work in a movie, whereas the general public had no concept who they have been. Now, with platforms like Netflix, there are not any boundaries,” he says.
He provides the instance of Mathieu Lamboley, who was sought out by Pixar on the again of his music for Gaumont-produced Netflix hit Lupin.
“He’s had a number of curiosity out of america. He was in Los Angeles in August to fulfill the one who takes care of music at Pixar and ended up on the ultimate quick listing for a really massive Disney movie due out in 2027. He didn’t get it by a whisker, however the particular person at Pixar beloved the Lupin music and completely wished to fulfill him,” says Delemazure.
Lamboley’s work will quickly be heard within the German Netflix sequence Cassandra in addition to Liam Neeson-starring thriller Chilly Storage.
Different composers with rising worldwide renown on the Grande Ourse roster embody Guillaume Roussel and Olivier Arson.
“These three composers are of worldwide curiosity for various causes. Mathieu Lamboley embodies French know-how within the vein of Michel Legrand and Maurice Jarre. He’s a pure product of the conservatory and carries 400 years of European classical music in his baggage,” he says.
“Guillaume Roussel has extra of Hollywood know-how. He makes extra hybrid music, which is extra textured, much less melodic and actually extra Hollywood.”
This has seen Roussel decide up commissions to work on French and European motion photos and large films with blockbuster aspirations similar to Martin Bourboulon’s duology The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady in addition to Cédric Jimenez’s November.
“We additionally obtain a number of worldwide requests for Olivier Arson, however he embodies non-Hollywood music. We get requests alongside the strains of, ‘We’re making an American movie, however we would like a rating that isn’t Hollywood’,” he says of the composer, who has gained a number of awards together with a Spanish Goya for his work on Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beasts.
Trying to the long run improvement of Grande Ourse, Delemazure says he’s now mulling signing composers primarily based exterior of France, with aspirations of working within the nation.
He credit German composer Volker Bertelsmann, who gained the Academy Award for Unique Rating in 2023 for All Quiet On The Western Entrance, for planting the seed of the thought.
“He informed me how a lot he beloved French cinema and dreamt of going to Cannes with a movie, however that he hadn’t had a single request from France in a decade,” recounts Delemazure.
Past not figuring out how one can join with the French cinema world, the agent means that worldwide composers are generally deterred by the smaller upfront charges, not realizing that is usually counterbalanced by France’s strong music royalty system, overseen by rights physique SACEM.
“A composer can usually make triple what he initially took for the movie,” suggests Delemazure.
The music agent can be heading to L.A. in early 2025 to see Camille and Ducol, who, acutely aware of their carbon footprint, have primarily based themselves within the metropolis during the awards season.
“I’ll positively be headed, probably in January, across the time of the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Alternative Awards, however there will certainly journeys to the U.S. on the playing cards subsequent yr,” he says.
