For the record, I had no idea what an orrery was before I scored this scene. Just like the Blade Runner music from earlier, Prometheus’ score by Marc Streitenfeld needed no improvement. However, since I love science fiction, and especially the Alien franchise, I really enjoyed restructuring both the sound and music for this scene.

Both had their own set of challenges. After I completely cleaned the audio from the original video, I had to find or create all of the foly heard in the revamped sequence. Science fiction is a touch easier from a foley standpoint than other types of projects, as a lot of the sounds exist in universe or reality that doesn’t exist. What’s the sound made when he presses those weird organic buttons, for example? I used the original soundtrack as a guide – which are gutteral utterances by the engineers that explain to other engineers what that button does. For that, I had to get a bit creative, but I think the final result is loyal to the original film’s sound vocabulary.

After the sound was laid in, I created the music for the scene. Of course, just filming one scene takes away the very thing that makes most film music terrifically memorable: The concept and production of a repeatable theme that helps motivate a story’s meaning. Of course, I believed an organic-sounding orchestral score fit the bill fairly well, and coupled that with obviously synthetic elements.