Randall Poster Biography

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RANDALL POSTER's (Music Supervisor) talent for creating distinctive film soundtracks was on display in two of the past year's most memorable music-driven feature films: Martin Scorsese's The Aviator and Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It was while finishing The Life Aquatic that Poster began working with director Sam Mendes on Jarhead.

In creating musical scenarios for films, Poster has collaborated with many of the world's most creative and successful filmmakers, including: Scorsese, Anderson, Danny Boyle, Richard Linklater, Jay Roach, Mike Newell, Frank Oz, Kevin Smith, Todd Phillips, Harmony Korine, Todd Haynes, Allison Maclean and Sean Penn, among others.

Poster's other recent credits include music for The Squid and the Whale, Meet the Parents, Starsky & Hutch, Along Came Polly, Nancy Meyers' Something's Gotta Give and the beloved School of Rock, for which Poster received a Grammy nomination for the year's best soundtrack album.

Poster started putting music in movies soon after his graduation from Brown University, when he co-wrote and produced the independent feature A Matter Of Degrees, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1990. The film spawned a much-acclaimed soundtrack album, released by Atlantic Records, that was awarded Soundtrack of the Year by CMJ, the College Music Journal.

Poster then decided to concentrate exclusively on music supervision and began an association with Christine Vachon's Killer Films, which continues to this day. For Killer, Poster supervised the music in Kids, Postcards from America, Stonewall, I Shot Andy Warhol, Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, and the Academy Award®-winning Boys Don't Cry.

In 1996, Poster began working with Anderson on the soundtrack to Anderson's debut, Bottle Rocket, and has supervised the music on all three of Anderson's subsequent features: Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and the recently released The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Working with Anderson to create rare and remarkable film soundtracks, these collections have gone on to receive awards and accolades around the world.

Poster has been lucky to work with a variety of great film composers. He has collaborated with Academy Award® winners Howard Shore, Randy Newman and the late Jack Nitzsche. He has done five features with Devo frontman, Mark Mothersbaugh and has championed new composers whenever possible. These include: Theodore Shapiro, Nathan Larson, Craig Wedron, Christophe Beck and Joe Henry. Poster has also worked with the legendary Alan Silvestri, John Cale of the Velvet Underground, and the multitalented John Ottman on Shane Black's soon-to-be-released directing debut Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.

And yet it is his singular ear for great songs that have earned him his stellar reputation. Be it Folk Implosion's “Natural One” from Kids, which was a Top 40 hit from the soundtrack album; The Faces' “Ooh La La” at the end of Rushmore; The Chico O'Farrell Big Band's dynamic “Cumenco” that launched the scandalous dance sequence in John McTiernan's The Thomas Crown Affair; Wilco's blissful “Airline to Heaven” in Jesus' Son; or the rousing School of Rock anthem that brought out the heart and soul of that picture-Poster has harnessed the power of music to create moments of cinematic transcendence.

Poster has shown an incredible versatility, showcasing the music of diverse periods. In The Aviator, Poster and director Scorsese wove panoply of period songs, often on-camera, to render the journey Howard Hughes undertook over the course of the 1920s, '30s and '40s in Hollywood. Poster also used songs to evoke the repressive tension of the 1950s in Mike Newell's Mona Lisa Smile, to distinguish 1960s bohemian New York in Mary Harron's I Shot Andy Warhol and to celebrate the glittery glamour of the 1970s pop world in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine.

Poster is currently working on a number of new projects. He has been enlisted by David Fincher to supervise the music in the upcoming Zodiac, which details the investigation of the notorious Zodiac Killer; he will continue his ongoing collaboration with director Todd Phillips in the upcoming School for Scoundrels; and he will soon start working with Todd Haynes on his highly anticipated Bob Dylan film, I'm Not There.