Yellow Boat Kicks Off 2017 with La La Land and BBC’s Let It Shine

Following festive success composing, producing, and recording the music for Sky Cinema’s ‘A New Premiere Everyday’ campaign, Yellow Boat Music has kicked off 2017 by lending its expertise to this year’s cinematic breakthrough, La La Land, and BBC One’s latest reality TV music competition, Let It Shine.

Yellow Boat’s Philip Jewson completed an arrangement of the song ‘City of Stars’ for radio format to promote the romantic musical, La La Land. Performed by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, the original track won Best Original Song at the Oscars. The film itself also tied with Titanic (1997) and All About Eve (1950) for the record of most nominations for a single film. Philip reunited with long-time collaborators, Alex Beitzke and Bradley Spence, to create an extended, upbeat version of the track for UK radio play.

The award-winning music company also customised backing tracks for the British entertainment show, Let It Shine, which brings together a star-studded line-up of Take That member, Gary Barlow, Australian singer, Dannii Minogue, and Spandau Ballet bassist, Martin Kemp as judges. National sweethearts, Mel Griedroyc, of The Great British Bake Off fame and Graham Norton bring a cheerful tone as presenters.

Offering a rich combination of singing and dancing talent, the brainchild of Gary Barlow sees hundreds of hopefuls compete to star in a nationwide-touring stage musical based on the songs of Take That. Glee and Dreamgirls star Amber Riley and Grammy-nominated singer Lulu act as guest judges throughout the first season, with Busted, Beverley Knight, Melanie C, Olly Murs, and the Kaiser Chiefs performing alongside contestants in forthcoming episodes. 

Yellow Boat Music composed and arranged 18 backing tracks to accompany the contestants’ auditions, adapting much-loved hits such as ‘(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher’, ‘Uptown Funk’, ‘Dance with Me’, ‘Last Request’, and ‘You Are So Beautiful’ to complement the contestants’ pitch and vocal ability as they pull out all the stops in the hope of gaining one of the five highly-coveted spots in the musical production.

Philip Jewson, Creative Director and Composer at Yellow Boat, comments: “I was fortunate to have written some music arrangements for Take That’s last album, and it was great fun to be able to work on this show as well.”

Yellow Boat Music rounded off 2016 on a high note by bringing its magic to Sky Cinema’s Christmas TV campaign. The team created an original music composition on a big screen scale. The whimsical campaign gave viewers a glimpse of some of the world-famous movies that premiered on Sky Cinema throughout the festive season, such as Jungle Book, The Revenant, Deadpool, and Zootropolis - revealed day by day in December through an advent calendar format. The accompanying score incorporates individually-tailored flourishes that reflect the unique spirit of each movie within a united melody.

Commenting on their involvement in the project, Head of Production, Paul Cartledge says: “It was absolutely brilliant to work with the WCRS creatives Jo Griffin and Tom Dixon and the incredible Blinkink director Noah Harris on this project. The quality of work they did was outstanding; hopefully the music matches up.”