'Blue Planet II': Looking forward to next year's Emmys

I changed my mind about writing more about this year's News and Documentary Emmy winners.  Instead, I've decided to look ahead to shows that might win at next year's Emmy ceremonies.

The first is "Blue Planet II."  Like "Planet Earth II," it's a sequel to a famous BBC series from a decade ago.  Also like "Planet Earth II," it has great music, beginning with Radiohead & Hans Zimmer - (ocean) bloom.

Radiohead, one of the world’s most acclaimed rock bands, and Hans Zimmer, one of the planet’s most successful movie and TV composers, have joined forces to produce an exclusive track for BBC America’s upcoming natural history series, Planet Earth: Blue Planet II, coming to BBC Ameria in early 2018.

Radiohead and Hans Zimmer’s orchestrally reimagined version of the Radiohead song ‘(ocean) bloom’ from their 2011 album sees Radiohead’s Thom Yorke rerecord the vocals and produced by Russell Emanuel of Bleeding Fingers Music, the company which also crafted the BAFTA & Emmy-nominated score to BBC America's Planet Earth II.

Thom Yorke of Radiohead shares our excitement for the project: “Bloom was inspired by the original Blue Planet series so it’s great to be able to come full circle with the song and reimagine it for this incredible landmark’s sequel. Hans is a prodigious composer who effortlessly straddles several musical genres so it was liberating for us all to work with such a talent and see how he wove the sound of the series’ and Bloom together.”

In turn, Hans Zimmer says: “Bloom appears to have been written ahead of its time as it beautifully reflects the jaw-dropping lifeforms and seascapes viewers are introduced to in Blue Planet II. Working with Thom, Jonny and the boys has been a wonderful diversion and it’s given me an interesting peek into their musical world. They’ve been incredible to work with and I hope everyone likes the track.”

Vox has more on the song in How Hans Zimmer and Radiohead transformed "Bloom" for Blue Planet II.

Radiohead's "Bloom," remixed for the ocean.
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If you listen closely enough to Radiohead and Hans Zimmer’s rework of “Bloom” for Blue Planet II, you can hear a really fascinating orchestral trick at work. They call it the “tidal orchestra” — it’s a musical effect created by instructing each player to play their notes only if the person next to them isn’t playing. The result is a randomly swelling and fading musical bed for the entire series that captures the feeling of ocean waves. It’s a captivating way to score a soundtrack for the ocean — but it also fits in with a long history of capturing randomness in music composition.

While this song in this form is only being used in this promotional clip, which itself might be nominated for Best Commercial or Promo, its melody does make it into the main theme.

Blue Planet II: Hans Zimmer Theme Live Recording - BBC Earth
We take an exclusive look at how the Blue Planet II music score from Hans Zimmer has been recorded at the Synchron Stage in Vienna.

I fully expect this series' score to be nominated along with more nominations for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series and Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program -- but my readers and I won't know that until next summer.  Stay tuned.