No, it is not a heavy metal group and no its not something the normal person wouldn’t listen to. This is maybe the group that almost most of the earth’s population has listened to without even knowing , Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix are the only two founders and composers  behind the music of Two Steps From Hell.

If someone never watched a Harry Potter or any Marvel movie or never played Mass effect or kill zone, then they are still counted as one of many that listened to this group without knowing because their music was played during the opening of the London Olympics  2012.

The reason this group is so known yet unknown is that their music was present in almost the best and the most watched movie productions, usually their music are always used in movie trailers. In a sense this kind of  music is always what makes the movie look more exciting than it actually is.

Two Steps From Hell has been doing trailer music for several of biggest movies in the past few years, such as ‘Avatar’, ‘Up’, ‘Beauty & The Beast’, ‘Super 8′, ‘The Avengers’, ‘Tintin’, ‘The Amazing Spider Man’ and many more.

The group was formed back in 2006 by Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix who combined their  musical abilities to write a book full of original music that in only six years has achieved great success and 22 album releases.

To explain the formation and the process of  Two Steps From Hell. The music is composed and written by Bergersen and Phoenix, and is then played and recorded by an orchestrated group conducted and by a conductor. Their official conductor is Petr Pololáník, he is an orchestrator and music producer. Petr studied both violin, piano and conducting and now he is working with Bergersen and Phoenix.

Many would categorize this brilliant music under its own genre, as it has a new form and new musical structure that has a blend of tastes from the classical and epic music era to the rough and solid heavy rock music, that gives a motion picture its real motion. Almost any fictional or adventure motion picture trailer or a thrilling scene would not be the same without this music, yet their music without the motion picture will still definitely give the image and the message without seeing it, and that is the unique element of their music. It is music that tells a story and takes the listener to new lands.

The artistic album arts are done by the artist and graphic designer, Steven R. Steven, who is well known in the film community where he has worked on the graphic campaigns for movies like ‘Lord Of The Rings’, ‘Dark Knight’, ’300′, and ‘Watchmen’. Steven is the mastermind behind all of the Two Steps From Hell album covers.

Two Steps From Hell are in a sense a musical group that has changed the  musical world of the movie theater and in a sense boosted the view counts of many overrated movies.

Image Courtesy of  Two Steps From Hell

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Paramount Pictures announced it ended 2011 in the No. 1 position among all studios, having achieved the highest total combined gross of any studio for the year, earning a record $5.17 billion worldwide. The studio, which released a total of 16 new releases domestically this year, placed first in the North American market share with $1.96 billion, while also amassing record grosses at the international box office with $3.21 billion.

“This achievement reflects the combined efforts of our entire team across the globe and the careful process by which we select the projects and partners we believe in,” said Paramount Pictures Chairman & CEO Brad Grey. “We produce pictures that aspire to entertain audiences around the world, while at the same time we have sought to find innovative ways to reach movie-goers in this changing entertainment environment.

“This year our studio reached some key milestones, including the release of three vibrant Paramount franchise pictures and our first original CGI animated film. Our studio had its first ever $1 billion worldwide grossing film in Michael Bay’s hit ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’; we successfully re-launched our ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise with Tom Cruise, JJ Abrams and Brad Bird; our latest installment in the ‘Paranormal Activity’ franchise had another $100 million dollar success; our first original animated film ‘Rango,’ from director Gore Verbinski, earned rave reviews and more than $100 million at the domestic box office; and  we released global phenomenon ‘Super 8,’ directed by JJ Abrams, who will now direct the newest ‘Star Trek’ for 2013. We also benefited from our distribution partnerships with DreamWorks Animation and Marvel and I want to thank them both.”

“Film President Adam Goodman and his team in production and development, and Vice Chairman Rob Moore and his team in marketing and distribution, did outstanding work and truly delivered. As we prepare to celebrate Paramount’s 100th year in 2012, we are all grateful to be part of this wonderful institution as it continues to prosper,” added Grey.

In 2012, Paramount’s release slate highlights include ‘World War Z,’ a zombie thriller starring Brad Pitt and directed by Marc Forster, ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation,’ the next installment in the global franchise starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Channing Tatum, a new chapter in the ‘Paranormal Activity’ franchise, and ‘The Dictator,’ starring Sacha Baron Cohen and directed by Larry Charles, the team behind ‘Borat.’

The 2011 box office results seen from the studio were built on a wide reaching range of titles, including the following (with current domestic grosses): ‘True Grit’ ($85 mil this year, $171.2 million total), Ivan Reitman’s ‘No Strings Attached’ ($70.7 mil), Jon Chu’s ‘Justin Bieber: Never Say Never’ ($73 mil), Gore Verbinski’s ‘Rango’  ($123.5 mil), Marvel Studio’s ‘Thor’ ($181 mil), DreamWorks Animation’s ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’ ($165.2 mil), JJ Abrams ‘Super 8’  ($127 mil), Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers:  Dark of the Moon’ ($352.4 mil), Marvel Studio’s ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’  ($176.7 mil), Craig Brewer’s ‘Footloose’ ($51.7 mil), the third installment in the hit ‘Paranormal Activity’ franchise ($104 mil), DreamWorks Animation’s ‘Puss In Boots’ ($145.8 mil), Sundance prize-winner ‘Like Crazy’ ($3.4 mil), Martin Scorsese and GK Films’ ‘Hugo’ ($50.2 mil), Jason Reitman’s ‘Young Adult’ ($12.8 mil), Brad Bird’s ‘Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol’ ($142.8 mil) and Steven Spielberg’s ‘Tintin’ ($51.4 mil).

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A band of kids, a camera, and a mysterious creature in small-town Ohio. These are the ingredients of J.J. Abrams new movie Super 8 which is soon in theaters after intense anticipation – not least because of the promising involvement of Steven Spielberg and the Amblin logo.

The movie itself was shrouded in mystery a few months ago, even rumored to be the sequel to Abrams’ Cloverfield. However, the story is happening in the summer of 1979 where a young boy and his movie-loving friends witness a catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie. The inexplicable events that follow leads the kids and the local deputy to believe that something about the crash was far from normal – and as people start to disappear, fear spreads in the little community.

The previews have already raised expectations of a revisit to 70s and 80s flirtation with the “unknown” – movies such as Close Encounter of the Third Kind, E.T. and The Goonies, which all represent a variety of common family drama mixed with sci-fi and adventure, feel like the most likely points for comparison. No wonder either – considering the father of those classic movies is producing the coming feature.

In an interview to iamrogue.com, J.J. Abrams explains how the collaboration with Spielberg affected the direction of the movie. “If Spielberg had not been involved in the movie, it probably wouldn’t have happened and it certainly would have been different. I wouldn’t have felt as free to embrace that DNA, those qualities that I love, that I thought ‘well this movie should be an Amblin movie’, it should be a throwback to that time, to those kinds of films.”

When it comes to Steven Spielberg, the name seems to no longer refer to a person. The resonance of what the man has delivered to cinema throughout the decades will continue to make grown men quiver with excitement. J.J. Abrams on the other hand is not in that league just yet – depending on your taste, there has been hits and bloopers (the Star Trek re-boot turning out great while Mission: Impossible III… not so much) but generally, Abrams has spread his wings more as a producer than a director. With Super 8 though – best guess, it’s hard to turn down Spielberg when he asks for your seat.

Jokes aside, Abrams seems confident behind the camera and judging by the hype and the trailers – Super 8 may just be one of this summer’s biggest movie experiences. When a ten minute long clip of the movie was shown at this year’s Cannes Film Festival to a select audience, one Danish journalist from the newspaper Information was tripping over himself to express his excitement over the film. He even provided a frame-by-frame recap of the sequence which introduced the fragile relationship between Joe, our young protagonist, and his father, the local deputy, as they both struggle to communicate through the loss of their wife/mother 4 months earlier. The clip also included the fatal train collision and the first signs of the terror to come.

Safe to say, those handful of minutes sound promising. Super 8 is out this Friday June 10 in the US.

Image provided by thedepthsofthecriminalworld

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