Spanish Film Director Marc Juve's 'Happy Face' Is A Comedy Adventure With Spielberg Sensibilities And A Dynamic Orchestral Score

    LOS ANGELES, CA, December 22, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Director Marc Juve's forthcoming short adventure comedy film, "Happy Face," will feature a new original orchestral score from breakout film music composer Alex Redfern.

Crafted in the vein of Steven Spielberg classics and set in the 1990s, "Happy Face" follows the story of Lucas (played by Yeray del Cerro), a preadolescent who suffers from bullying. In order to become a member of the kid's gang of the town, Lucas must rob a certain treasure from an ogre (Jose Antonio Marin). When Lucas tries to do so, he becomes torn between accomplishing his dream and helping the ogre, who treats him as a real friend.

Written by Juve ("Puzzled Love") and David Aguirre, and produced by Escandalo Films President Sergi Casamitjana ("Eva"), "Happy Face" made its European premiere this June in Barcelona and screened this week in Paris. The film is scheduling international and U.S. film festival screenings for 2015. It is a Spanish language film with English subtitles.

Redfern, a 24-year old native of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England, has worked in key music department roles for Disney's forthcoming feature, "Cinderella," directed by five-time Oscar nominee Kenneth Branagh and starring two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, as well as for "Holy Land," written and produced by James Franco.

"Happy Face has a bit of a Spielberg feel to it," said Redfern, who recently co-composed for Emilio Roso's "Tumbleweed" starring Vincent Pastore ("Goodfellas"), Al Sapienza ("Godzilla") and Hemky Madera ("Rango"). "It's probably the best film I've worked on in terms of story. I thought orchestral was the way to go to fit into that style."

Juve said, "His personal artistic universe and narrative taste as composer matched with the intention of this project. 'Happy Face' is born in part because our generation has grown up watching Spielberg films since we were kids. The project makes reminiscence to the marvelous universe typical from the Amblin Spielberg's productions of the 80s and the 90s, but at the same time, I wanted the project to have his own voice. To make something new from a very concrete reference, it was important to work with someone that knew deeply the referent, in order to be able 'to play' with it. In that sense, Alex has been ideal."

Redfern composed the "Happy Face" soundtrack at Berklee College of Music's renowned Scoring Stage in Valencia, Spain. Recording with live string and woodwind players, Redfern composed, orchestrated, edited and mixed all of the music.

"This is a comedy adventure film," Juve said, "so among other things, we need spectacularity for the 'adventure scenes' and very concrete rhythms and changes of pace for the 'comical scenes.' The music makes that possible."

Redfern matched the musical themes to the shifting emotions in "Happy Face" and to the evolution of its characters.

"The film has a lot of emotions," he said. "There's mystery, horror, comedy, even sort of a romantic musical theme. It's an adventure more than anything else. There's a lot of character development in the film. The main character and the bad guy, your opinion changes with them and you feel different. The music supports that. It helps to tell the story from the beginning to the end. There's got to be a connection and it can kind of act like another character."

Redfern is next composing for Richard Connew's feature comedy, "Sisterhood of the Red Garter 3D" starring Brian Woodward ("Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb") and he is orchestrating for Rajan Kumar Patel's "Varanasi" starring Adil Hussain ("Life of Pi").

He's also provided orchestration for "The Curse of the Un-Kissable Kid," starring William Leon of "True Blood," "New Girl" and "Modern Family," and has worked on the scores for Shawn Forgaard's "Penguin Trek" and Joshua Sallach's "Larsons Field."

For more information, visit www.alexredfernmusic.com and http://tinyurl.com/HappyFaceIMDb.

Watch the "Happy Face" trailer here: http://vimeo.com/98266524 and check out Alex's "Riding Out West" that was recorded by a 47-piece orchestra at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Brothers Studios: http://tinyurl.com/RidingOutWestWarnerBros.

Alex Redfern is a film and television composer from Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England.

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