SANTA MONICA — Extreme Music (www.extrememusic.com), the production music arm of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, has partnered with Academy Award-winning composer winner Hans Zimmer and his longtime business partner Steve Kofsky to create a new joint venture, The Bleeding Fingers Custom Music Shop. The new business will be housed in a multi-million dollar, 7,500-square-foot facility that’s already under construction and scheduled to open in Q1 of 2014.
The Bleeding Fingers Custom Music Shop will be located on the same lot as Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions and where Extreme Music has operated for the past dozen years. The company will focus on creating show-specific libraries for unscripted, reality, documentary and light drama television productions.
According to Russell Emanuel, who serves as CEO of Bleeding Fingers and Extreme Music, the company spent approximately eight months exploring opportunities, during which Bleeding Fingers scored over 30 shows. These included Boston’s Finest, Duck Dynasty, Hatfield’s & McCoys: White Lightening and The Men Who Built America. The company earned ASCAP and BMI Awards for its work on the History Channel’s Mountain Men during this time.
Emanuel says The Bleeding Fingers Custom Music Shop will offer the same quality and value as the Extreme label — something that he believes will separate it from numerous competitors that have entered the market thanks to the democratization of digital recording equipment. The company will be involved in the creative process with clients, working to create micro libraries for specific show by gaining an understanding of a program’s tone and style. The Mountain Men library, he notes, was created from scratch. Duck Dynasty was also created specifically for the series, taking on an Americana feel.
Russell Emanuel and Steve Kofsky on the Bleeding Fingers construction site. Photo credit: Chris Strong
When complete, The Bleeding Fingers Custom Music Shop will include as many as 18 rooms, some designed for writing, and others geared toward live recording.
“We have been longtime collaborators with Extreme and we are more than excited to finally become partners and launch a company that brings a quality bar previously unreachable in this arena,” notes Steve Kofsky, who serves as chairman of Bleeding Fingers.
“Creating this company has been an endeavor we’ve considered for quite some time,” adds Hans Zimmer. “I’m especially looking forward to seeing the level of creativity we can harness with some of the best minds in music leading the charge in developing unprecedented original scoring for television.”