Metropolis Elektro

  Last Friday in Kent Wilkinson’s Rock and Roll Media class, two very special guests graced the audience with their presences. Scott and Amy Faris are the brains behind the “Metropolis Elektro” musical composition. The husband and wife dynamic duo created the score over the period of a little more than eight months. “Metropolis Elektro” played at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts during the Flatlands Film Festival back in March 2013 and December 2013 and both shows were sold out. “2013 was an amazing year for us, Scott Faris said. “’Metropolis Elecktro’ was absolutely the high point of our musical career to date. It was such a great experience to work on. We composed 156 minutes of music last year. Most bands compose an average of 45-50 minutes of music a year, if that.” The Faris’s will tell you that this production did not happen overnight. In fact, the couple said the project was many years in the making. It all started when the two were very, very young. Scott Faris said when he was an 8-year-old with a love for rock and roll. He said when he was that age he was sitting in his living room watching TV when out of nowhere the screen went black and a record store started promoting Kiss’s album. Faris said with a bad a$$ cover like that, he didn’t have a choice but to become a part of rock-and-roll. Amy Faris, on the other hand, said she didn’t want anything to do with rock-and-roll when she was a little girl. Faris said her early listening contained a lot of classical and piano music accompanied by some Donny and Marie. Faris said it wasn’t until a rebellious neighbor introduced her to Foreigner did she realize there was more to music in the world. Now, Scott Faris builds websites for his company, Ferris Wheel Productions. He said he also produces records at Amusement Park Recording Studio that he owns. Amy Faris said she has been teaching music and composition for the piano for 14 years. Scott Faris said the moment he and Amy met, music was the solid connection for the two of them. Both Scott and Amy said they attended Texas Tech University. He said he knew they were meant to be and he proposed to her at the end of one of his performances at Tech. Faris said they started performing with one another instantaneously.

Once they became newlyweds, Amy Faris said they started performing together. Faris said she would consider she and her husband to have an interesting life and routine. She said playing rock-and-roll at 9 a.m. is not for the faint at heart. To make matters a little more complex, Faris said they had their daughter Rachel a few years after. The couple said that was the foundation for the idea of “Metropolis Elektro.” While the couple was talking to the rock-and-roll media class they touched based on the background of how “Metropolis” came to existence before it was “Metropolis Elketro.” Scott Faris said Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi “Metropolis” was a masterpiece that predated “Star Wars” by 50 years. Faris said it’s the story of a dystopian society run by a cultural elite. Amy Faris said it is a story about human struggle, hope, and redemption. Amy Faris said her and her husband’s score accompanied the 2010 release of the film, which is much clearer than earlier prints. She said they were very excited because the 25 minutes of additional footage in the film was found and restored recently to make the plot clearer. Scott Faris said there is a lot of dark vs. light imagery. He said “Metropolis” was part of the German Expressionist Movement. Faris said the British Film Institute called Fritz Lang the “master of darkness.” Amy Faris said because “Metropolis” is a silent film, she and her husband wanted to create a new layer of art. Scott Faris said they wanted to write a companion work that would flow with the film. He said he and his wife designed the soundtrack to be heard so people would notice it. “Our mission for the film was to stay true to the film emotionally,” he said. “That was incredibly important to us. The original score was very classical. There was a live orchestra while the film was being played back then, so it made sense to have one alongside of it during this day and age.” When the couple decided to take on this major project, Amy Faris said she and her husband watched the entire film in silence. She said they did not want to listen to the original score with it. Faris said she and her husband took out a pad of paper and wrote down the themes, the role of which character, and the archetypes. She said they went to Colorado and stayed at Scott Faris’s grandfather’s empty house to write the composition for the movie.  In the end, Scott Faris said the project ended up costing $50,000. Originally, the film was supposed to be shown in December 2012, but it got pushed back to March 2013. Faris said a lot went wrong before it went right. He said their equipment got there a day late, the night before one of their major people bailed, and their first rehearsal was terrible. Faris said once everything got on track, all of the showings sold out. Scott and Amy Faris will tell anyone they encounter that hard work really does pay off, but what else keeps them going? The couple said their faith in God is the reason they are so blessed.