FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 21, 2008

Contact:
Jeff Perez, Office of Communications and Government Affairs
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(Photo and cutline by Phyllis Noah, communications coordinator)

Shawnee State University’s Dean of Arts and Sciences publishes book ‘Music and Mythmaking in Film’

            Dr. Timothy Scheurer, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SSU and president of the Midwest Popular Culture Association presented a lecture during Women’s History Month at Shawnee State University, “I always thought I was: The Female Hero and Film Music,” with scenes from “Rebecca,” “All That Heaven Allows” and “The Piano” based upon a chapter from his book, “Music and Mythmaking in Film,” published in 2007.


(Article by Phyllis Noah, communications coordinator)
 

Shawnee State University’s Dean of Arts and Sciences publishes new book

(Dr. Timothy Scheurer publishes book ‘Music and Mythmaking in Film’ and how music sets the stage in different settings)

            Dr. Timothy Scheurer, Shawnee State University’s Dean of Arts and Sciences, recently released a new book “Music and Mythmaking in Film: Genre and the Role of the Composer” which studies different genres of film – historical romance, detectives, westerns, horror movies and science fiction – and how music is used in them, focusing on the artistic and technical methods that modern composers use to accompany the movie events.
            Scheurer compares films from the 50s and 80s of the same genre to illustrate the musical conventions.
            “Nobody had ever really looked at the music in genre films together in one place,” Scheurer said. “Every genre has some kind of conventions, so I thought I would try to see if composers did the same kind of thing.”
            Some things remained the same and some things have changed. Scheurer, who plays piano, trumpet and guitar and also writes music, discovered that Indian music in Westerns has made the biggest change. In the Western chapter, he discusses the fact the older music would reinforce a largely negative stereotype that culturally we do not embrace anymore. Historical romance and horror films haven’t changed that much.
            “I’ve always been interested in music and film and played an instrument most of my life,” he said. “The only regular composition I write now is at Christmas and I put it into a Christmas card.”
            He started the book 10 years ago, although there were some years he didn’t write.
            Several photographs and sheet music excerpts appear throughout the book. Each chapter begins with a particular genre and compares two film examples.
            The book can be purchased online at amazon.com and barrnesandnoble.com.