Dooley skips the Moon & Jupiter, goes straight to 'Mars'

UCLA Wind Ensemble to perform World Premiere of acclaimed 'Mars Underground' score as a suite-to-picture

Multi-talented composer of When a Stranger Calls, DreamWorks' First Flight short, SOCOM video game series and contributor to The Da Vinci Code and Pirates of the Caribbean also to appear.

James Dooley - established composer with a diverse and successful recent repertoire of feature films, animated shorts, video games, theatrical trailers and TV commercials- will appear on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall of Music. The UCLA Wind Ensemble will perform its first-ever live suite-to-picture performance of portions of Dooley’s original score from the 2005 landmark documentary, The Mars Underground.

The Mars Underground, directed by Scott J. Gill, is a CGI-driven documentary about the possibilities of colonizing Mars. The film focuses primarily on Dr. Robert Zubrin and his grassroots push for human exploration and settlement of the Red Planet. James Cameron was quoted as calling the film “the manifesto of the new space generation.” The film will be screened along with the live music.

The score itself has been critically acclaimed as well. Dooley was given the challenging task of writing music for numerous scenes of the “camera” panning across projected CGI landscapes of Mars and keeping the viewer interested while the landscape races past the screen. His contemporary approach produced a much greater musical presence for The Mars Underground than would normally accompany a documentary, but this was required given the distinct visual journey of the film.

For more information or to purchase tickets for the event, please see the UCLA Event website at calendar.ucla.edu/ or ticketmaster.com.

Samples of James’ scores can be heard on his official website jamesmichaeldooley.com.