John Murphy (composer)
Encyclopedia
John Murphy is an English
film composer. He is a self taught multi-instrumental musician who began his career in the 1980s working notably with The Lotus Eaters, Thomas Lang
and Claudia Brücken
.
Murphy is best known for composing the music for Vadim Jean
's One More Kiss, Guy Ritchie
's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
, Michael Mann's Miami Vice
, Matthew Vaughn
's Kick-Ass
, and the Danny Boyle
films 28 Days Later
, Millions
, and Sunshine
. His instrumental tracks "In the House – In a Heartbeat" and "Adagio in D Minor" have been featured in a variety of TV shows, commercials and film trailers.
, England
, Murphy began composing music for films in the early 1990s and scored his first hit with Leon the Pig Farmer
. Together with former OMD
member David Hughes
he worked on several successful British movies, enjoying particular success with the soundtrack to 1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
.
Since 2000's Snatch
and Shooters
, Murphy has been mainly based in Los Angeles
. He has produced several prominent and diverse successes, including City by the Sea
and Danny Boyle's
box-office success 28 Days Later
and its sequel 28 Weeks Later
. He also collaborated with Underworld
to score Danny Boyle's science fiction film Sunshine
. In 2006 Murphy composed the score for Michael Mann's Miami Vice
. In 2009, he composed the music for the 2009 remake
of the 1972 film The Last House on the Left
, followed by 2010's Kick-Ass
, based on the comic book of the same name.
, a British D & AD Award, and a BMI
Award. He has been nominated for an Ivor Novello
Award, an RTS Award, and the BRIT Award
for Best Soundtrack. He has also composed and produced music for commercials, including campaigns for Reebok
, Nike
and Apple. Other excerpts from his scores have been released for advertising, in particular "In the House – In a Heartbeat" from 28 Days Later.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
film composer. He is a self taught multi-instrumental musician who began his career in the 1980s working notably with The Lotus Eaters, Thomas Lang
Thomas Lang (singer)
Thomas Lang is a Liverpool based singer-songwriter, best known for the jazz-tinged song The Happy Man, which spent 3 weeks in the UK top 100 singles chart in 1988 . Thomas released...
and Claudia Brücken
Claudia Brücken
Claudia Brücken is a German singer who fronted the synthpop groups Propaganda and Act. Since 1996 she has been working with OMD member Paul Humphreys, first without a name, since 2004 as Onetwo...
.
Murphy is best known for composing the music for Vadim Jean
Vadim Jean
Vadim Jean is an award-winning English film director, producer, and executive producer.After graduating with a degree in History from Warwick University, he found work on Mike Figgis' Stormy Monday, before establishing his own production company in 1989 covering a wide variety of subjects, from...
's One More Kiss, Guy Ritchie
Guy Ritchie
Guy Stuart Ritchie is an English screenwriter and film maker who directed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Revolver, RocknRolla and Sherlock Holmes.-Early life:...
's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a 1998 British crime film directed and written by Guy Ritchie. The story is a heist film involving a self-confident young card sharp who loses £500,000 to a powerful crime lord in a rigged game of three card brag...
, Michael Mann's Miami Vice
Miami Vice (film)
Miami Vice is a 2006 American crime drama film about two Miami police detectives, Crockett and Tubbs, who go undercover to fight drug trafficking operations. The film is a loose adaptation of the 1980s TV series of the same name, written, produced, and directed by Michael Mann...
, Matthew Vaughn
Matthew Vaughn
Matthew Vaughn is an English film producer and director known for producing such films as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch and directing the films Layer Cake , Stardust and Kick-Ass...
's Kick-Ass
Kick-Ass (film)
Kick-Ass is a 2010 superhero comedy film based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. The film was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who co-produced the film with actor Brad Pitt, and co-wrote the screenplay with Jane Goldman...
, and the Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
films 28 Days Later
28 Days Later
28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
, Millions
Millions
Millions is a 2004 British comedy-drama film, directed by Academy Award–winning director Danny Boyle, and starring Alex Etel, Lewis McGibbon, and James Nesbitt. The screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce adapted his novel while the film was in the process of being made...
, and Sunshine
Sunshine (2007 film)
Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass...
. His instrumental tracks "In the House – In a Heartbeat" and "Adagio in D Minor" have been featured in a variety of TV shows, commercials and film trailers.
Background
Born in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Murphy began composing music for films in the early 1990s and scored his first hit with Leon the Pig Farmer
Leon the Pig Farmer
Leon the Pig Farmer is a 1993 comedy about a Jewish estate agent in London who discovers that thanks to an artificial insemination mishap, his real father owns a pig farm in Yorkshire...
. Together with former OMD
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are a synthpop group whose founding members are originally from the Wirral Peninsula, England...
member David Hughes
David Hughes
David Hughes may refer to:*David Hughes , interim president and CEO of Amtrak, 2005–2006*David Hughes , English astronomer specialising in comets*David Hughes , Swedish bass guitarist...
he worked on several successful British movies, enjoying particular success with the soundtrack to 1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a 1998 British crime film directed and written by Guy Ritchie. The story is a heist film involving a self-confident young card sharp who loses £500,000 to a powerful crime lord in a rigged game of three card brag...
.
Since 2000's Snatch
Snatch (film)
Snatch is a 2000 crime film written and directed by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, featuring an ensemble cast. Set in the London criminal underworld, the film contains two intertwined plots: one dealing with the search for a stolen diamond, the other with a small-time boxing promoter named Turkish ...
and Shooters
Shooters (2001 film)
Shooters is a drama documentary film, directed by Dan Reed for Suspect Device Films. The Film is set in Liverpool and used local criminals as actors depicting the lives of local 'gangsters'...
, Murphy has been mainly based in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. He has produced several prominent and diverse successes, including City by the Sea
City by the Sea
City by the Sea is a 2002 film starring Robert De Niro, James Franco, Eliza Dushku, Frances McDormand and William Forsythe. It deals with a family problems of wayward youth and set against a man trying to break free of his past. It was directed by Michael Caton-Jones...
and Danny Boyle's
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
box-office success 28 Days Later
28 Days Later
28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
and its sequel 28 Weeks Later
28 Weeks Later
28 Weeks Later is a 2007 British/Spanish film sequel to the 2002 post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later. 28 Weeks Later was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and released in the United Kingdom and United States on 11 May 2007...
. He also collaborated with Underworld
Underworld (band)
Underworld are a British electronic group, and principal name under which duo Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have recorded together since 1980.- Early years: 1979–1986 :...
to score Danny Boyle's science fiction film Sunshine
Sunshine (2007 film)
Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass...
. In 2006 Murphy composed the score for Michael Mann's Miami Vice
Miami Vice (film)
Miami Vice is a 2006 American crime drama film about two Miami police detectives, Crockett and Tubbs, who go undercover to fight drug trafficking operations. The film is a loose adaptation of the 1980s TV series of the same name, written, produced, and directed by Michael Mann...
. In 2009, he composed the music for the 2009 remake
The Last House on the Left (2009 film)
The Last House on the Left is a 2009 American film directed by Dennis Iliadis and written by Carl Ellsworth and Adam Alleca. It is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name, and stars Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn, Garret Dillahunt, and Sara Paxton...
of the 1972 film The Last House on the Left
The Last House on the Left
The Last House on the Left is a 1972 horror film written and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Sean S. Cunningham.The story is inspired by the 1960 Swedish film The Virgin Spring, directed by Ingmar Bergman, which in turn is based on the 13th century Swedish ballad "Töres döttrar i Wänge"...
, followed by 2010's Kick-Ass
Kick-Ass (film)
Kick-Ass is a 2010 superhero comedy film based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. The film was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who co-produced the film with actor Brad Pitt, and co-wrote the screenplay with Jane Goldman...
, based on the comic book of the same name.
Awards
Awards for his film music include the Silver Award (1st Prize) at CannesCannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
, a British D & AD Award, and a BMI
Broadcast Music Incorporated
Broadcast Music, Inc. is one of three United States performing rights organizations, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed...
Award. He has been nominated for an Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
Award, an RTS Award, and the BRIT Award
Brit Awards
The Brit Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain" or "Britannia", but subsequently became a backronym for British Record Industry Trust...
for Best Soundtrack. He has also composed and produced music for commercials, including campaigns for Reebok
Reebok
Reebok International Limited, a subsidiary of the German sportswear company Adidas since 2005, is a producer of Athletic shoes, apparel, and accessories. The name comes from the Afrikaans spelling of rhebok, a type of African antelope or gazelle...
, Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
and Apple. Other excerpts from his scores have been released for advertising, in particular "In the House – In a Heartbeat" from 28 Days Later.
Selected filmography
1992
1998
2000
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
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2007
2009
2010
2011
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