Movie "wrangling" almost complete.
I have lately been "wrangling" for a forthcoming Mel Gibson movie.This means that I am charged with the task of assembling the, somewhat specialist, musicians from several corners of the globe.
I also have to, as I did with "Troy", procure strange and exotic instruments including, for example, a Tromba Marina. The name may imply that it's some kind of deep-sea trumpet but, in fact, it's a stringed instrument, popular in Medieval Europe until it fell into obsolescence in the eighteenth century.
You play it with a bow and the vibrating string passes over a "floating bridge", which rattles against the soundboard making a noise like - a deep-sea trumpet!This, along with sets of Swedish bark trumpets and Ugandan wildebeest horns, have come from the kind musicians at the "Shakespeares' Globe" theatre in Southwark, London.
In addition to myself, with my usual arsenal of ethnic instruments, there will be Bob White, Jan Hendrickse and Guo Yi, all possessed of equally formidable equipment. Gary Kettel and Frank Ricotti, on drums , will finally ensure that the cavernous Studio 1 at Abbey Road will have no floor space for the duration.
I have also contacted Rahat Fateh Ali Khan in Pakistan, who will be singing and, as I mentioned earlier, composer James Horner has asked me to find an Ethiopian female singer, hence the "wrangling almost complete" tag.
The movie, by the way, is called "Apocalypto", and is set in Pre-Columbian Central America. I'm told that all the dialogue is in Mayan, hence the orchestra-free primitive style approach to the score from James.
Thanks to ApocalyptoWatch Forums member 
Some first-hand information on James Horner's musical score for Apocalypto: 
