Hello All,
 
This is HanZ checking in from Santa Monica. I figured that after sitting around on my butt procrastinating all day, I should give you young ambitious composers a quick taste from my upcoming, unannounced collaboration with director Chris Nolan for "Inception II". Much of the second film and it's music expand on themes of the first. I've been quite excited to work on this while scoring "The Dark Night Rises" as they are very different soundtracks.
 
I originally started work on this project a few weeks ago, but I restarted it on Wednesday from scratch. The piece you're about to hear sits outside of my comfort zone because Chris asked me to break the mold and create some complex orchestral textures without the aid of synthesizers. Music without synthesizers? That's how you know the world is ending. To tell you the truth, I had to have composer John Powell and his assistant Benny C come into the studio to help conceive this.
 
We do go several directions in a very short time for this scene, but eventually return to one of my favorite themes from the first film. Feel free to read the synopsis (which isn't supposed to be available to the public ) to get a better feel for what the music is trying to portray.

The strings were, of course, recorded live (at one point or another to make the LASS and OSR libraries). Woodwinds and Percussion are temporarily split between EWQL SO and Kontakt. We originally had started to use Spitfire Brass for this, but with the lack of flexibility in instrument configuration, they might as well have named it "Shitfire" Brass. So, we split the expanded brass section between Vienna Dimension Brass and EWQL SO. Compared to the ridiculous live brass ensemble we used in the first film, this is a little more modest. But, the 8-piece low brass gives us enough extra boost along with the other instrumentation.
 

INSTRUMENTATION:
Woodwinds: Piccolo Flute, Flute 1, Flute 2 | Oboe 1, Oboe 2, English Horn 1, English Horn 2 | Bb Clarinet 1, Bb Clarinet 2, Bass Clarinet | Bassoon 1, Bassoon 2, Contrabassoon
Brass: French Horn 1 - 6 | Piccolo Trumpet | Trumpets 1 - 6 | Tenor Trombone 1 - 4 | Bass Trombones 1 & 2 | Tubas 1 & 2
Percussion: Cymbals (Zildjan), Bass Drum (Wagner), Hammer (Mahler), Timpani (4), Triangle, Anvils | Celesta, Glock, Chimes, Vibraphone, Harp | Piano (RD-700GX)
Strings: 1st Violins (16) | 2nd Violins (16) | Violas (12) | Cellos (10) | Basses (8)
 
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INCEPTION II
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio | Philip Seymour Hoffman | Kevin Bacon | Rachel McAdams | Joseph Gordon-Levitt | Ellen Page | Tom Hardy | Michael Caine
Directed by Christopher Nolan | Music by HanZ
In Theatres Everywhere - May 24, 2013
137 Minutes - Rated PG for Brutal Violence and Explicit Sexuality

Dom and Arthur have been contracted by a powerful Eastern-European firm to help militarize the mind of a Russian army general against standard extraction techniques. As they prepare for a difficult assignment, the General's brother is suspiciously appointed Prime Minister of Russia. Meanwhile, Dom discovers that the contractor who hired him is part of a CIA black ops division tasked to infiltrate the mind of the general and extract information about an unverified weapons program.
 
Upon embarking in their first dream session with the General, Dom and Arthur are instantly vaulted into the depraved subconscious of a sociopath who has long since been compromised by a lust for power, violence and destruction. The duo quickly stumble across vivid memories of the General and his brother, now Prime Minister, carrying out war crimes against Russian citizens with suitcase neutron bombs.
 
When Dom reveals the startling truth to his CIA contractor, the U.S. Secretary of State ultimately implores them to hijack the General's ambitions without starting a war. Dom assembles new and old friends to develop a method of inception that would subconsicously motivate the General to publicly reveal the shocking truth; thereby giving reason to unite world powers in neutralizing Russia's Prime Minister without him first inflicting mass casualties. 

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Keepz it realz with HanZ! 

P.S. I didn't have access to my writing room (and sample farm) because of renovations. I had to use my MacBook Pro, and it had many issues and several crashes trying to handle a large template. RAM usage and purging had to be monitored constantly.

Ben Christenson