THE FIRST DETAILS ABOUT JAMES HORNER'S 'AVATAR'

To no one's surprise, James Cameron's Titanic and Aliens composer, James Horner, is scoring the upcoming sci-fi epic Avatar, but Movie Score magazine offers up a few tidbits about it, including the fact that the movie will run nearly three hours.

Other revelations:

• The score will feature vocals in the Na'vi language.
• The score will include traditional orchestral elements, as well as electronic and acoustic rhythmic elements.
• The score will blanket the movie: "The film will run the better part of three hours, and there will likely be nearly as much score," Mike Knobloch, the executive vice president of Fox Music, told the magazine.

Also not surprising, the score is described as "epic." "It's a brilliantly unique blend of traditional and contemporary, electronic elements and spans the entire spectrum of attitude and energy—from bombastic action to the delicate, romantic discovery of a new world," Knobloch told the magazine.

Interestingly, the time Horner is being allowed to work on Avatar seems to be the complete opposite of Aliens, where Horner had 3 1/2 weeks to finish about 80 minutes of music.

Horner has been working on Avatar for more than a year and was doing pre-records and working on ideas with Cameron already back in June 2008. "The recording of the score has been an ongoing process for months and it's still in process. Electronic elements of the score are being recorded at a studio assembled specifically for this project. The orchestral component of the score is being recorded in groups of dates that started in June," Mike Knobloch explained, adding that the orchestral sessions are being held at the Newman Stage at 20th Century Fox.

Mike Knobloch explained that there "is a great deal of acoustic and electronic rhythmic elements driving the score and vocalists singing and chanting in the fictional Na'vi dialect. Horner is doing a brilliant job of creating music that transports us to another world, but supports the film using the traditional orchestral conventions to make a sound that's hugely cinematic."

Source: SCI FI Wire