The muzak

However - this piece of music was just the beginning. Upon learning that the interior queue would take place through a Ghostbusters archive and museum - I suggested to Dom that we have some muzak going on in the background. If you don’t know what muzak is - think of The Girl from Ipanema played in an elevator. Got it? Okay…I created a little melody that I did in that bossa-nova-terrible style and I also did a pastiche in the style of the wonderful theme from a Summer Place by Max Steiner and incorporated the melody I’d written into that. (Lynton V Harris still bursts into laugher when he hears the muzak tracks, which I love because it’s always wonderful to have comedy in any sort of attraction!)

The queue line

One must remember Ghostbusters is about ghosts and I never say no to wanting to scare people with music - so that’s we did in the queue line. We did away with beats and funny sound effects and created a short loop that is quite creepy to hear. I thought it may have been a bit too creepy for this attraction - but it works well in the area it’s played due to the flickering lights that are also present.  

Also composed was music for the main briefing video. I took the “creepy” theme I’d written to dovetail the beginning and end of the video but in the middle was a blues-y riff that was inspired by the main tone from the film by Elmer Bernstein.  This works well because using the horror theme only in the queue line builds up the tension for the guests and then using it again in the video (interrupted by more frivolous music) reminds the audience that all is good fun in this world of Ghostbusters!  

Here's the end result:

The good news is that the attraction is going down incredibly well with guests and who knows what the future may hold for this iconic brand. All I know is that it’s an honour to have worked on it and I hope the attraction continues to find success all over the world in the future.