Rachel Moulden for Digital First Media
Oakland County resident David Bateman composed the music for this independent horror movie, “The Dark Below.” Courtesy David Bateman
Oakland County resident David Bateman composed the music for this independent horror movie, “The Dark Below.” Courtesy David Bateman
Since his childhood local music composer, David Bateman, has always had an ear for music. Growing up in Royal Oak, Bateman began to study music at an early age by taking piano lessons.
“I remember my Dad playing this boogie-woogie riff on the piano all the time and being mesmerized that anyone could make that groove with their fingers,” he says.
Bateman, who now lives in West Bloomfield Township, was 15 when his father died, and music became a source of therapy for him. Since then he’s never stopped playing an instrument or learning music. He plays the piano, guitar and trumpet, among other instruments.
Bateman’s start as a music composer came during his high school years, when he wrote a lot of music and instrumentals in various genres for his own enjoyment. In the early ’90s, he was approached by his friend Michael Ozias — with whom he still works to this day — to write music for Ozias’ thesis film at Michigan State University.
“It was then, when I developed a passion for writing music to picture,” Bateman says. “I fell in love with not only the musical aspect of film scoring, but the technical side of things.”
Creating a film score can be challenging, and as he jokingly says, it also requires copious amounts of coffee.
“I take a lot of time trying to make each music score unique and interesting,” he says.
In preparing most of his scores, he gathers a wide range of field recordings to combine them as a hybrid orchestra. From there, he plugs the sounds into special software to create a musical “instrument,” or overall atmosphere.
Bateman says his biggest challenge with music composition is scheduling enough time to work on a film.
“Sometimes the request is to have music completed in two weeks. That’s writing, recording, mastering and delivering the final mix,” he says.
Bateman mostly gets called to work on horror and suspense movies, but prefers composing a wide variety of scores. Some of his favorite films he’s gotten to work on include “World of Art,” “Arlo” and the “The Burping Pig.” He’s also worked on multiple shows on Discovery Channel’s Investigative Discovery series, including “Homicide Hunter,” “Deadliest Catch,” and “People Magazine Investigates.”
His most recent work is in the upcoming indie horror film “The Dark Below.” It is about a woman who struggles to survive under the ice of a lake while a serial killer stalks her from the surface. The film is directed by Douglas Schulze and stars screen veteran Veronica Cartwright, Lauren Mae Shafer, and David G. Brow. It premieres on March 10 in Los Angeles, but as of yet there has been no announcement for a Detroit-area release.
Bateman described this as one of the most challenging films he’s worked on during his career. While he has written 45-50 minutes of music in his average film score, for “The Dark Below” he had to write more than 90 minutes. Plus, this movie has very little dialogue.
“Since the film mostly takes place on and underneath a lake, I created a lot of custom instruments using objects such as ice, water, shovels, axes and ice picks,” Bateman says. “The music needed to tell a story and gradually increase in pace with the mood growing eerie and twisted.”
Before recording many of the parts, to achieve a tense and bone-chilling atmosphere, he held ice cubes in his hands while fans blew cool air on him, making the studio temperature uncomfortable.
“The actors and crew in this film worked through some brutal conditions and did such an amazing job onscreen, that I wanted to share the same commitment and intensity,” Bateman says.
Now he is finishing the score to the thriller “Anders Manor,” starring Christina Robinson (Actor on “Dexter”). After wrapping up that project, he’ll be working on an MMA action film called House Rules which stars Tom Sizemore.
For more information about Bateman visit batemanmusic.net/.
Rachel Moulden 