Lakeshore Records will release the Antiviral - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally on May 21, 2013. Antiviral was written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg and debuted at Cannes in 2012. E.C. Woodley (Rhinoceros Eyes, The Dark Hours) composed the original score.
"One point of universal consensus, wherever I go, is that the score by E.C. Woodley is extremely good," said the film's writer/director Brandon Cronenberg. "Eric and I went through the film from start to finish, discussing what the music should accomplish in both theoretical and specific terms. We decided given the subjective nature of the story that it should be consistently internal, reflecting what was going on in the protagonist's head rather than what was going on around him. It should be something bodily, sometimes an elevated pulse, sometimes an expression of pain or sickness or bliss."
"Brandon wrote the script very much from the point of view of Syd March (played by Caleb Landry Jones)," said Woodley. "This point of view was enhanced in Mathew Hannam's edit - as the film began to take shape in the editing room it was clear that the narrative was being compressed into very visual scenes where Syd dreamed and hallucinated or where the audience was put in close proximity to his deteriorating physical state."
Syd March is an employee at a clinic that sells injections of live viruses harvested from sick celebrities to obsessed fans. Biological communion - for a price. Syd also supplies illegal samples of these viruses to piracy groups, smuggling them from the clinic in his own body. When he becomes infected with the disease that kills super sensation Hannah Geist, Syd becomes a target for collectors and rabid fans. He must unravel the mystery surrounding her death before he suffers the same fate.
"I'd say the music is more an extension of the protagonist than its own character, which I think can be an effective approach when a film has a very subjective narrative," said Cronenberg.
"The use of a modular analogue synthesizer layered together with voice and other acoustic elements allow for an immediate physicality to be connected to a suppressed emotional and intellectual consciousness," described Woodley.
IFC Films presents Antiviral, in theaters, VOD, and digital April 12, 2013. The Antiviral - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be available digitally on May 21, 2013.
ABOUT E.C. WOODLEY
E.C Woodley is an alumnus of the Manhattan School of Music. He apprenticed in London with composer Michael Kamen, writing music and arrangements for Terry Gilliam's film Brazil and working with bands Queensryche and Strange Advance. Woodley's score for Antiviral was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award.
Recent work includes music score for several films including Tennessee directed by Aaron Woodley and produced by the Academy Award winning producer/director Lee Daniels; the anthology film Toronto Stories; Cleopatra by the legendary director, Julio Bressane, one of the pioneers of the Brazilian Novo Cinema Novo; and Rhinoceros Eyes, winner of the Discovery Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Music for the stage includes Morwyn Brebner's comedies The Optimist and The Pessimist (Tarragon Theatre) directed by Eda Holmes, Linda Griffith's The Age of Arousal (Factory Theatre), House of Many Tongues (Tarragon Theatre) directed by Richard Rose, and a series of five Samuel Beckett plays, That Time, directed by Jennifer Tarver for which Woodley won a Dora Award.
