A bit about this site...
Danny Elfman's Music For A Darkened People went online sometime around August of '96. Early versions of the site focused on Sam Raimi, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman (as it was known then, "Elfman Burton Raimi"). The design and content was extremely crude: a few gory stills from Evil Dead 2 decorated the single page the site consisted of. The background was an attractive tiling image of wood grain. The lovely folks at Tripod hosted the site. This was just one year after the Internet started to slowly trickle into homes, and websites were in their infancy. The browser of choice was Netscape Navigator 1.0, but at the time I was still using the first internet browser known as Spyglass.
Get 'em hooked while they're young
I had been a Danny Elfman fan since 1989, when I saw Batman in theaters. I was 12, impressionable (this was when kids didn't own cell phones or have rights) and in love with movies. After lining up well outside the suburban mall where I saw Batman on it's opening weekend, my friends and I settled into our seats. The picture started, and there was this sound... It was different, it was exciting, and I had to have it. Like most folks who tried to locate Elfman's Batman the summer of '89, all we could come up with was Prince's album (cool at the time, and sad to say, I purchased the LP). It wasn't until months later that I found both the Batman score on LP and cassette. I foolishly opted for the cassette because I could play it anywhere.
For years Elfman remained the single named I looked for on movie posters. It was a good time, 1990-1992 particularly, to be an Elfman fan. By about 1994 I was moving into film music full-time, looking for names like Jerry Goldsmith and Trevor Jones. The rest is history.
Starting with just 100kb of storage space
It took awhile for this site to catch on. There were a lot more Elfman sites out there at the time (and quite a few of them were really fantastic, but had not been updated for months); lots of Boingo sites, and definitely a lot more folks out there who knew Elfman's music better than I did. I felt the best way to make MFADP (a play on "Music For A Darkened Theatre" -- not a statement on Danny Elfman's music for well-tanned individuals!) stand out was to keep the site ultra-current with news and load the site up with music files. If there was one thing that most internet sites did not have it was tons of music files. So MFADP was loaded up with over 100 clips from Elfman's scores, and to this day, it's the most popular section of the site. I just don't want to think about having to replace all those tinny Real Audio clips...
In the winter of '99 I was contacted by Gillian Flynn of Entertainment Weekly magazine. She notified me that my site was to be featured in their magazine, particularly a special internet section. To my surprise the site received an "A" rating, making it "Best of Breed - Music". This site was standing beside such sites as George Lucas' official Stars Wars site and other massive, commercial sites. It was an exciting time -- namely because I thought it meant that readers of the magazine would find the site, especially folks who didn't know it existed (and there were many!). Unfortunately at this point friends and family began to ask why MFADP was doing so well, but had absolutely no connection to it's subject. While that was a bitter pill to swallow, my fascination with Danny Elfman's music, it's emotional qualities and hope kept me going. It didn't hurt that this site began to mean something to some people, and that reporters who were interviewing Danny Elfman would often get their info from the site.
Tripod begins to buckle
At this point the site was getting too big for the Tripod servers. I had signed up for multiple accounts with Tripod to get additional storage (how I got away with this, I don't know). David Koran, who had recently assumed ownership of filmmusic.com (perhaps the most coveted URL in the online soundtrack world) offered to help me move the Elfman site to filmmusic.com, generously provided more storage and speed than I'd ever need. I am indebted to  David Koran and Dan Goldwasser for their generosity, in helping with technical snafus and setting up the popular message board (and restoring it, again and again!). MFADP was one of the first composer websites to reside on their server and remains one of the only non-official sites to do so.
In June of '01, Glenn Gaslin of Entertainment Weekly called me and conducted a short interview about this site to feature it in a summer soundtracks article. I managed to make myself look like a bit like a dweeb ("drooling" over Planet of The Apes), but dammit if it wasn't thrilling to make EW a second time (again, totally independent of the subject this site is about).
A few years have passed since then. I've taken on the duties of websites on composers Shirley Walker, Elliot Goldenthal, Marc Shaiman, Brian Tyler, Christopher Lennertz, game composers Inon Zur and Jack Wall, written liner notes for a CD release, interviewed Hans Zimmer, Don Davis and Elliot Goldenthal for my general soundtrack review site, Cinemusic.net. All of this because of Danny Elfman's Music For A Darkened People. This site opened up a lot of doors for me, and I am very greatful. I am also greatful to everyone who has ever visited the site, sent me an encouraging e-mail, or pointed out a gaffe (believe me, it often means more when someone points out a broken image link then it means to hear someone's appreciation for a MIDI file!).
This site wouldn't be the way it is today without those who contributed in various sizes and ways, humored me, corresponded with me, or just wrote something encouraging. I apologize if you've been left out, but it's been 8 long years!
Jacqueline A., Elin Carlson, John Mullin, Paul Tonks, Jason Comerford, Vinicius Calvitti, Tim Perrine, Doug Rottering, Abe Scott, Eric. L. Neumann, Daniel Schweiger, David Wishart, Tamas Kovacs, Dan Goldwasser, Lukas Kendall, David A. Koran, Christian Clemmensen, Johanna AKA Joey, Matthew Ellsworth, Pampyra, Jacqueline S., Maure/Galladreile, Shirley Walker, Mrs. Silvestri, Gillian Flynn, Amber Berebitsky, Flippyfrog, Heath Chamerski, Pete Briggs, Tom DeMary, Robert Townsend, Jumby007, Chris Caine, Tom Daish, Scott Hanson, Beth Krakower, Brian Giorgi, Bryon Davis, Helen San, Tim Perrine, Michael Lyons, Paul Cote, Jackie Biello, Laura van Leest, Stephen Gash, and many more!
 The photo of Danny Elfman that appears on every page of this site was taken by John Mullin. John (also known as "SgtSpanky" has generously allowed me to use the photo that I felt best captured the smiling Danny Elfman we all slavishly worship. Thanks, John!
The following are the two articles on MFADP from Entertainment Weekly magazine.
Below is the original text of the review, by Gillian Flynn as it first appeared (with screen shot) in the February 15th 1999 issue (#470) of Entertainment Weekly.
Danny Elfman's Music For A Darkened People
A fan site honoring the composer behind the themes of "The Simpsons," "Men in Black," and more.
If you watch "The Simpsons" for its opening theme, meet your kindred spirit. Elfmaniac (Ryan Keaveney) meticulously tends the ne plus ultra of Danny Elfman Internet homages -- and, in the bargain, demonstrates what a good fan site looks like. There are more than 100 RealAudio snatches of Elfman-scored films, from "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" to the Oscar-nominated "Men in Black," and Elfmaniac also trolls the Internet for the latest on his guy, whether it's an old Elfman quote or the latest rumor on possible future projects like "Sleepy Hollow." An Elfman fan without this URL is like Pee-wee without his bike. "A" -- Gillian Flynn
From the article by Glenn Gaslin from the June 29th, 2001 issue (#601) of Entertainment Weekly.
On the Track: A Web guide to movie music -- These sites tune in to scores and soundtracks both popular and obscure
Ah, summer blockbuster season: undead pharaohs, world wars, wisecracking computer animations, and hour upon hour of mellow instrumental music -- especially so online, where soundtracks are in greater demand than collectible ''Shrek'' cups. ''When you're a fan of film music, you don't have a lot of outlets,'' says Ryan Keaveney, who runs Danny Elfman's Music for a Darkened People. ''The Internet is the only place.''
Danny Elfman's Music for a Darkened People Basically an Elfman radio station, these pages stream samples of scores from the former rock star's post-Oingo Boingo works, from ''Beetlejuice'' to ''Mars Attacks!'' Also discover such Elfman goodies as hard-to-find themes from ''Dolores Claiborne'' and even a Nike commercial. With the longtime Tim Burton coconspirator now scoring ''Planet of the Apes,'' webmaster Keaveney can't help drooling ''We can expect some of his best action music since 'Batman.''' "A" - Glenn Gaslin
|
|
|
