Exclusive: An Interview with Lorne Balfe + Win a Signed Genisys Soundtrack!

Terminator Genisys composer, Lorne Balfe, wants to help us celebrate our love for the fan-approved film by letting us give away 5 autographed soundtracks! You can purchase the Terminator Genisys soundtrack now containing 22 songs on Amazon MP3 (TAFs afilliate link) or you can try to win an autographed soundtrack CD here at TheArnoldFans! You can't even get the CDs in stores yet (though they should be coming soon). We have 5 copies to award some lucky fans so send us an email now with the headline "Lorne Balfe’s Signed Soundtrack” and answer these two following questions.

1. How many songs are on this Terminator Genisys soundtrack?

2. Who is “Numero Uno”?

Our contest for the soundtrack is open to fans worldwide. US winners will get free shipping but international winners will be responsible for shipping costs & import fees. Entrants must give us your full name, phone number and address: street address. EMAIL us your 2 answers and we will pick a winner! Good luck, Arnold fans!

Lorne Balfe was also nice enough to give us an interview for his work on Terminator Genisys!

TAFs: When did you become involved to write the score for Terminator Genisys and how did that happen?

Lorne: I got involved about 2 or 3 months ago. The normal process is people listen to your music, they like it, and they ask you to score their movie, and that is really how it happened. Sometimes you’re working on a film, like some of the animation I’m doing, for about a year and a half, and sometimes you start on a film and you’ve got a couple of weeks, so every project has a different point of view.

TAFs: What was your process to scoring T5 and the challenges?

Lorne: The biggest challenge is obviously that you’re now entering this big franchise, and it’s something we’re all big fans of and we live and breathe… I remember watching Terminator 2 for the first time as a child, and hearing that music and those famous “ba dum bum ba dums” that are known all over the world. I think sometimes when you work on a project, you start fresh with a clean page and come up with compositional ideas from scratch. But with this, thankfully the director Allen and David the producer were very keen on making sure we held onto the past and we did use the themes and even though we didn’t use them all of the time, it was there to represent the legacy of Terminator. The first thing you do when scoring a film, you watch the film, and you start seeing places where the famous theme can be used. You look at the bigger picture and not just use it all the time because then it just becomes nothingness. When I started on it, I remember quickly those emotions when I watched the first 2 or 3 Terminators. Even though this is not a sequel and not a prequel, it’s its own identity, but still Arnold is in it and it is a Terminator, so I wanted to make sure there was a nod to the past, but then move on to the future. There was a very industrial sound to Brad’s original scores, and I think also disturbing, because there were these alien sounds that were manipulated from being organic into something electronic, and we had to do that in certain spots but also it’s a different film. The whole relationship between Arnold and Sarah is far more developed, so they needed their own theme, and the same with Sarah and Kyle, and John Connor. The biggest thematically was the concept of fate and hope, so that was another theme to slowly get into the film throughout the whole journey for the characters.

TAFs: Would you like to do any future Terminator films if they keep going?

Lorne: Absolutely, that a ridiculous question, of course I would! I think Genisys is fantastic. The difficult thing is that when you are working on it you’re not seeing the finished film. A lot of the special effects aren’t finished, so the first time you see it really finished is when the film is released. When I was writing it there wasn’t much on screen apart from Arnold. It becomes a totally different world, and I think it’s wild, to be absolutely honest, to be part of this world. I’m very excited to see what will happen, there’s so many possibilities. I think the world did need Arnold to get back on screen in a film like this because he’s one of the few remaining big stars that have this kind of presence.

TAFs: Do you have any favorite Arnold movies or score to Arnold movies?

Lorne: I’m a sucker for the 80s, so the likes of Predator and Running Man, and I remember watching Commando… so vividly, loving those films. All those scenes from Total Recall and Running Man… he’s a true legend.

TAFs: Yeah, and with Predator, that has one of the great scores from Alan Silvestri that makes it really more than an action movie.

Lorne: I’ll never forget that music is still relevant now. When you’re working on films and there are temp scores, that music is still there in full use. It’s amazing because it shows you how timeless it is. (Conan the Barbarian) is another classic. It’s great when these memorable films have matching scores that stand forever.

You can hear more of this interview on epsode 31 of Arnold Radio News! Lorne’s role as a score producer on 2008′s The Dark Knight earned Lorne a Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture. In 2009, Lorne was music producer and composer of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 video game, and score producer for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, which earned a 2010 Oscar nomination for Best Original Score. Only a year later, Lorne produced the score for Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which also earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score. Naturally, for us Arnold fans, we praise him best for his work on Terminator Genisys.

If you’re a fan of Lorne’s Terminator score like we are, follow him on his Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lornebalfemusic, or learn more about him at www.lornebalfe.com.