Karine twittered us about Imogen Heap’s new album, which is releasing August 24th or 25th depending on what part of the world you live in, called Ellipse.  It includes a song called 2-1, which she wrote for Prince Caspian, but was decidedly too dark for the soundtrack, according to the music producers on the film.  She decided, rather than letting good music go, to include it in her new album, which she finished a few months ago.  If you would like to hear the song, or even the full album, we currently have the official music player here.  The song is track #8, and it is 4 minutes and 42 seconds in length.

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This week has been flying by.  I just remembered that it was Thursday, and that I hadn’t written this week’s mailbag.  So I’m spending lunch time writing this week’s installment.  I spent Tuesday riding roller coasters at Cedar Point, and around that day there were some really huge things happening in the world of Narnia.  The third film started shooting, and we’ve gotten some great photos of the Dawn Treader nearing completion.  I’ve got a couple of e-mails to answer this week, but before I do, I just wanted to give a status update on the secret project.  I’m currently working on speed issues on it, but it’s moving forward.  I have guests up from Florida so it’s going to take me a little longer than I had initially anticipated, but I hope that it’s worth the wait.

And a quick update on Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man that just came in from a woman named Barbara:  “C.S. Lewis’s appreciation for Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man in correspondence is well known. Tolkien borrowed the idea for Ents from Chesterton’s The Trees of Pride!  I hope these facts were brought to your attention.” Thanks Barbara!

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Welcome to the mailbag, where we answer fanmail that you send in, over the course of the week.  For those that don’t know, we’ll take your questions, and if we don’t know the answers, we’ll try to get the answers from people that would know.  We might even make something up!  I have a very broad sense of humor, on top of a vast knowledge of film, music and comics with a wide range in taste and a great memory that serves to bring great comparisons or answers to your questions.

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For this week’s Mailbag, I looked in my inbox and realized a couple of things: first, there was only one e-mail for this week’s mailbag.  I could take this to mean that it’s not a good feature to bring back, but that would be ridiculous.  I enjoy the chance to answer e-mails and also to put my own voice into the site just a little bit.

On a related note, I share Andrew Adamson’s birthday.  Who knew?  Andrew, if you’re reading this, that must be the reason we have similar creative minds.

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Variety.com asked Harry Gregson-Williams, who served as composer for both The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian.  What he said about Narnia really shows the humility of the man.  I hope to one day get a proper interview with him.

Here, he recounts a memorable moment in his life as a composer:

“The hush as I picked up my baton before the first note of the concert I did with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (a suite from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’). That was totally thrilling and also incredibly alarming. What in heaven’s name am I doing here? I’m a film composer, not a concert composer. It was fantastic.”

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The Dove Awards are currently happening, and I’m going to be updating this as the awards are given to Narnia related music artists.

The score for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian wins the award for Instrumental Project of the Year!  Congratulations, Harry Gregson-Williams, Lisbeth Scott & Company!

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Wow!  As I was reading through the list of Dove Award Nominations, I couldn’t help but notice the number of artists that have been inspired by C.S. Lewis and/or The Chronicles of Narnia!  Starting with Switchfoot’s Prince Caspian Soundtrack entry This is Home being nominated for Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year, as well as the Prince Caspian soundtrack being nominated for Instrumental Album.

I’m going to list all of the categories that a related artist has been nominated in below.  Brace yourself!

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Regina Spektor "The Call"

Regina Spektor is among those eligible for a Best Original Song Oscar nomination.  According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, there are 49 songs from films in 2008 that are eligible.

“The Call” was the song that played at the end of the film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which sums up the feelings that the characters were going through at the end of the adventure quite well.

There is, however, pretty stiff competition in the field.  Beyonce Knowles  co-wrote the song “Once in a Lifetime” for Cadillac Records this year, and Miley Cyrus co-wrote “I Thought I Lost You” for Bolt. Peter Gabriel could also earn a nomination for “Down to Earth” from Wall-E, and Bruce Springsteen for his song “The Wrestler” which he wrote for a film of the same name.

Nominations will be announced on or around January 22, 2009.  Let’s keep our hopes up for that possible nomination!   Hopefully the Academy loves the song as much as we do!

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Regina Spektor is the songwriter whose music was heard over the final moments of Prince Caspian. I had the opportunity to meet her at the premiere, and she told me, then, what she wrote here. That she was shaking when the movie was ending. She wrote in her MySpace Blog about her experiences writing for Prince Caspian:

i had an amazing spring last spring. i got called up and asked if i wanted to see an unfinished Disney movie called “Narnia: Prince Caspian”. I said of course, i love movies. So me and my manager went to a movie theater all by ourselves, and were shown the movie by Monica (who ended up being my Disney fairy godmother, but i didn’t know it at the time) and it was incredible on all kinds of levels… actually some of its magic was from being unfinished- one minute there’s an animal, the next it’s just a pencil drawing… all the centaurs were just guys pacing around in funny pants… i loved everything about it, but then it was over, and i was supposed to have drinks with my very good friends. Who canceled on me. So i went home. And wrote a song for the movie, and i was sure no one would let it actually be in the movie. But they did. And 3 days later i was in London, at Abbey Road studios, listening to Harry Gregson Williams, the composer of the score, and very talented and lovely human, record an 80 person choir… and i was meeting Andrew Adamson the wonderful director, and all the amazing people who work on movies, and then going into Studio B, the one and only, and recording “The Call” into Beatles gear… in their room… with Strings and a horn and a harp… yes, i know. it sounds like my own Disney movie… but it was real, and it was awesome, and i still can’t believe it happened… at the premier i had to hold it together when i heard the song come on, for the next 15 minutes my knees were shaking… movies are intense… i’m so happy i had this experience…

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Just after the release of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN, composer Harry Gregson-Williams shares about his return to Narnia, his feelings about moving on from the franchise, what he’s doing with up-and-coming-composers like David Buckley and Stephen Barton at his Wavecrest Studios, and his upcoming projects which include X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

CC: Outside of the relocation, what would say your biggest challenge was musically on PRINCE CASPIAN?

HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS: My biggest challenge was to embrace Andrew (Adamson’s) notion that I should bring forward themes from the first movie. Of course, there are a number of new themes that I had to write, but the real conundrum for me was figuring out just how much of the thematic content I was going to bring with me from the last movie. It’s strange not starting from square-one. I actually worried about this quite a bit, so what I ended up doing was to push all of that to one side and write Prince Caspian’s theme and the cue for the first 8-minutes of the film. I knew this piece would have no reference to the previous movie, so this was good for me because it made me feel as though I was on a fresh musical journey.

CC: Would you say that, at least in some ways, it is more difficult in doing a sequel?

HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS: Yes. I would say that. I don’t know what David Arnold would say when one does Bond movie after Bond movie. Perhaps intellectually it’s not so difficult for him because what would a Bond movie be without ((hums James Bond theme)) – because you just need those John Barry moments. But somehow he is able to make the scores feel fresh. So for me, once I could see the arc of the story that I’d be able to follow, it all became much clearer.

CC: David Arnold is the composer taking the reigns, as it were, for the franchise…..How does it feel? Is it easy to cut the chord and say, “I’ve done my part and so whatever he does, great!”

HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS: I think if Andrew Adamson was directing the next movie and I hadn’t been asked to do it, then I don’t think I could help myself from feeling extremely disappointed.

Check out the full interview here!

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