Berklee students open doors to Paramount's archives

Students from Boston’s own Berklee College of Music, are teaming up with Paramount Pictures to create the first “full-function database” from its archive of film music. 40 student interns who are working on the project, will ease the process for filmmakers and musicians to access music from the Paramount catalog for various media outlets. The students are being trained by Paramount’s Nick Bonomo and alumnus Adam Ehrlich on how to analyze and interpret the audio clips from Paramount’s 99 year-old library. Students will use their expertise to provide detailed descriptions of the clips including elements such as the feeling and mood of the music, audio notes, and keywords to help the search function of the database. The collection includes scores from films such as Star Trek, Forrest Gump, Chinatown, Mission Impossible, Love Story, and Airplane from composers such as Elmer Berstein, Danny Elfman, Philip Glass, Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone and others. The students were also given the opportunity to compose original scores to short films from Paramount’s archives and will be featured on a dedicated website.