The things that inspired Karl Preusser as a child are musically making their way back into his adult life.
Two weeks ago, the Burbank composer completed the score for “Audie & the Wolf,” a horror, comedy and romance film that will premiere on Aug. 14 in the 2008 Downtown Film Festival — Los Angeles.
Preusser, a former Glendale resident, composed the score in a 1970s rock ’n’ roll style in the tradition of “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” he said.
“The approach we tried to go for was a rock opera without the lyrics,” Preusser said.
The highlight for Preusser was having hard rock guitarist John Sykes of Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy fame play on the main title of the soundtrack.
Preusser was inspired to start music lessons after attending his first rock concert featuring Whitesnake with Sykes on guitar. A week later, Preusser started taking guitar lessons, he said.
“He was one of my early influences from when I was 13,” Preusser said. “He used that same guitar to play for my movie, so it was seriously cool.”
A mutual friend connected the two, and Sykes agreed to play on the soundtrack, Preusser said.
“Audie & The Wolf” was produced by Brooklyn Reptyle Productions based in Studio City and was directed by B. Scott O’Malley.
The project had some budgetary limits, which prevented producers from using an orchestra score for the film, O’Malley said, but Preusser came through with a rock ‘n’ roll score. Instead of using a full orchestra, the duo decided to use a handful of studio rock musicians, which was more cost effective, O’Malley said.
“Working with Karl was absolutely amazing,” O’Malley said. “He brought to life a ’70s to ’80s score that we talked about that was more than I had imagined. He used all vintage instrumentation and blew the doors out on putting together something that turned a budgetary restraint into something that was really wonderful.”
While growing up, Preusser was also a fan of the “Dragonlance” fantasy book series co-written by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis and based on the Dungeons and Dragons game.
So when the producers of the DVD “Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight” were looking for a composer, Preusser heard about it, applied for the job and got it.
