Booktrack has commissioned an entire score for a Salman Rushdie short story so readers can listen to a soundtrack (played by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) while reading the eBook app.
Booktrack creates eBooks with a synchronized soundtrack, adding music, sound effects and ambient sound to the reading experience. On the Morning Media Menu today, we interviewed Brooke Geahan, the vice president and publisher at the new eBook company (introductory video embedded above).
Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “We are releasing ‘In the South,’ a beautiful story [Rushdie] wrote about two friends and the tsunami that hit India. For that we had composer John Psathas, an award winning musician and huge fan of Rushdie. So he jumped at the chance to actually read ‘In the South’ and interpret it–as well as compose a score for it.”
Geahan concluded: “The same way as a movie composer would score for a beautiful film, he composed an entire score for the short story. He was really looking at the sounds of India, especially Hindu music and what you would hear in that particular part of India where the tsunami hit. And he submitted it to Salman to get his approval and then we submitted it to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to play it live. That’s been recorded, it’s now going for post [production] at Park Road Post, they are the sound composers behind The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Adventures of Tintin, they are world class sound engineers and composers.”
Note: If you want to explore the growing world of book apps, Mediabistro will bring together publishing app designers, publishers and creators for the Publishing App Expo on December 7-8 in New York City.