Yes, Eat The Corn was launched 20 years ago today! Without patting myself too much in the back, I think this is objectively a big achievement, especially given how different the internet is today compared to twenty years ago, the remote year 2005. Against the odds, I have continued to cover X-Files news over all those years, although in recent years with more focus on relaying and commenting all the great interviews made by others, instead of doing original analysis myself. The site has become more of an archive, and that’s good enough given how old the series now is.
As long as I’m here, the site is not going anywhere.
Other engagements don’t allow me to celebrate more extensively. But I will relay something fun: a cover version of The X-Files theme, and this one includes the extended version made by Mark Snow for the release of the theme as a CD single (and used in the end credits of the VHS “Files”). Here is the theme played on one of the smallest and simplest analog synthesizers around: the stylophone! By Omen Ahead.
Admittedly, there’s another version from years ago — fun too, but not as good.
[French] Avec le 32e anniversaire de The X-Files aujourd’hui, voici le podcast bilan de toute la série, qui clôt un cycle de podcasts de 3 ans !… Celui-ci est spécial puisque, en plus de l’équipe habituelle, moi-même j’y interviens pour débattre de la mythologie avec Guigui et théoriser comme d’antan. Plus particulièrement on discute les pours et les contre de la théorie de la “3e strate” de la conspiration : est-ce que la colonisation alien n’était qu’un écran de fumée depuis le début ? est-ce que la mythologie des 9 premières saisons peut être réconciliée avec le revival ? est-ce que Carter est aussi conscient des problèmes de continuité que certains des fans les plus attentifs (lisez : obsédés) ? On parle aussi de ce que j’appelle les 4 phases de la mythologie — le pseudo-documentaire ; le tout-est-lie ; le messianisme ; et l’essai d’un retour aux sources.
Quoi qu’il en soit, ce qui reste aujourd’hui de X-Files, ce n’est pas ses tentatives de fin(s) avortées ou les développements potentiels mais inaboutis de sa mythologie, c’est son ambiance toute particulière, son ambition d’une réalisation à contre-courant d’un rythme toujours plus rapide, ses scripts intelligents, ses performances d’acteurs, ses débats croyant-sceptique qui recréent le monde et deviennent des attitudes de vie archétypales, c’est facilement plus de cent heures de qualité… Et cela suffit pour la placer parmi les grandes séries de l’histoire, quoi qui se passe pour la suite.
Another death in the Ten Thirteen family! 2025 is a tough year. Cinematographer John S. Bartley (ASC, CSC) died at age 78, as reported by an ASC memorial. As the director of photography for a show known for its cinematic look, he was one of the most important people involved in The X-Files. He defined the look of the show with its characteristic use of darkness, heavy contrast and abstract light sources. His use of darkness was so extensive and unprecedented that he won the nickname “Prince of Darkness” among the crew! He also introduced the definitive Xenon flashlights for Mulder and Scully and experimented with color (see episodes like “3”).
“The X-Files uses darkness as a character”
“we didn’t have any money, and that had a lot to do with the look. Most of our sets weren’t finished; if you looked down the end of a hallway, there was nothing there, or there might be the sets of some other production, so we’d put something down there like a bright light or an object that couldn’t be identified.”
He was originally from New Zealand. Taking over from Tom Del Ruth who shot the pilot, Bartley was brought over to the show by producer Bob Goodwin. He started work with the first episode, “Deep Throat”, and stayed for the first three seasons, for a total of 72 episodes. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in season 2 (for “One Breath”) and won it in season 3 (for “Grotesque”). According to IMDB, his daughter Amanda was an extra in the opening of “Talitha Cumi” (and was later second unit assistant director in the second movie!). When Bartley left in the fourth season, the producers struggled to replace him, alternating between Ron Stannett and Jon Joffin before settling with Joel Ransom for the rest of the Vancouver years. Bartley went on to work on shows like “Roswell”, “Lost” and “Bates Motel”.
“I still remember shooting episode six that was directed by David Nutter. It was called ‘Ice.’ I think that episode took the series to the next level. David pushed the envelope and challenged me to make every shot better. We blended light and darkness. The audience saw some things, and they weren’t sure whether they saw other things. That added to the aura of mystery.”
We owe it partly to Bartley that the show was shot on 35 mm and looks as great as it does in high definition.
“The show is shot on 35mm film for a couple of reasons. Fox wanted to shoot the show in Super 35 format, providing a wide frame for future HDTV syndication. Using a large negative also gives Bartley the freedom to work with low-key lighting and maintain the richness of the show’s high-impact images. ‘If we were shooting in a smaller format, we’d need a lot more light to keep grain from building up. That means we’d have to give up our minimalist approach to low-key lighting. We’ve done many scenes with just practicals. That’s living on the edge.'”
Bruce Bryant and Carol Johnsen were two of the three designers of the opening credits sequence of The X-Files. They were married since 1985 and both died within a few months of each other, in December and April.
Together with Jim Castle, they formed the company Castle/Bryant/Johnsen in 1987, which designed, produced and directed opening titles for hundreds of shows, such as Cheers, Frasier or The X-Files. In 1997 the trio continued as a duo, as Bryant/Johnsen Media Design. (Dates from Fandom.com)
They had little online presence. The photos of them I could gather are from their obituaries, obviously from very different time periods. There’s nothing I can find about Jim Castle, either. Their professional website is accessible via archive.org.
In 2013 they did an interview for Empire, where they shed light on a lot of the details behind the opening credits of our favourite series — for which they received an Emmy Award. They appear several times in the credits! That’s Carol in that photo pointing to a UFO, and also as the figure falling into the hand, and that’s her eye at the end. Carol signed Scully’s badge and Jim Mulder’s. That’s Bruce as a ghost behind “Government denies knowledge”.
“We had a deadline of maybe a couple of months until the airdate.” “Chris Carter had already designed the logo itself. So he gave us “The X-Files” in that typeface. Midway into the project, we were given Mark Snow’s theme tune. When we’re working on a project, we do like to have the music.” “It helps us to create the cuts, the mood, the timing. Everything.” “We’re enormously proud of our work on The X-Files. It won the show its very first Emmy.”
These opening credits are instantly recognizable and were definitely part of the show’s success in the 90s. As time passes, we continue to acknowledge, remember and cherish the people behind the scenes that contributed in making this show, especially those that are not as well-known at large.
Another loss in the Ten Thirteen family — editor Chris Willingham passed away aged 74. He had worked on all four of Ten Thirteen’s shows, most importantly in all thee of Millennium‘s seasons (16 episodes, among them Lamentation). He also worked on The X-Files (7 episodes during season 8, including This Is Not Happening), Harsh Realm (2 episodes) and The Lone Gunmen (pilot).
He also worked on productions led by Ten Thirteen alumni (Morgan & Wong’s Space: Above and Beyond, Howard Gordon’s 24, for which he won several Emmy awards).
He is survived by his wife Lynne, also an editor, also worked on The X-Files (36 episodes over seasons 5 to 9, nominated for an Emmy for The Post-Modern Prometheus). They are pictured above with their Emmys, from an interview with them at the TCA website!
Martin “Mark Snow” Fulterman died on July 4 at 78 years old in his home in Connecticut. May he rest in peace and may we remember his work for a long time.
This is one of the big ones. I consider him one of the most important people involved in Ten Thirteen Productions, perhaps the most important after just a small handful of people — Carter, Goodwin — this is the biggest loss for the Ten Thirteen family since Kim Manners in 2009. If there was any remaining doubt, you can be certain that whatever happens to the X-Files brand in the future, it will feel very different from what came before.
Although he was very prolific with plenty of TV shows and TV movies and movie scores, Mark will certainly be remembered for his main themes and scores for The X-Files and Millennium.
Mark Snow’s music gave Carter’s shows a unique identity, instantly recognizable, often copied but unmatched. The music, like the shows’ scripts, balanced the routinely procedural with the philosophical, the horror and unsettling with the ethereal and hopeful. Beautiful piano solos over ever-present synth moods progressively shifted to a dark ambience and harsh percussion. And the music was everywhere — some 20 to 35 minutes of original music for every 43-minute episode, well above all television shows, and with nearly no repetition across almost 300 episodes and two movies. Certainly some specific compositions stand out as notable works, but it was the overall feel that was important, a feel that could transport you in other worlds and lose you there. Snow’s 100% synthesizer music didn’t sound like 1990s synthesizer music, a tribute to his skills as a musician and as a master of his tools.
But this is also a particularly shocking news to me. I listen to him almost every day for the past 30 years. Mostly atonal ambient electronic television soundtracks…there are literally dozens of us, dozens, that listen, no, live with it. It was so much a fixture of daily life that it never occurred to me that Mark would leave us. Apart from submitting a couple of questions to interviews to him I never got to interact with him, I never felt in a hurry. I will continue having Mark part of my daily life.
To celebrate Mark’s career, what best than to listen to his compositions? After 1996’s foundational “The Truth and the Light” album, from 2008 to 2020 La-La Land Records released a total of 16 CDs for TXF (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3), 4 for MM, 1 for Fight the Future, 1 for Harsh Realm/The Lone Gunmen, plus 4 for TXF’s revival seasons. Diminishing returns on additional issues and a shrinking market for physical releases meant that La-La Land decided not to release even more music. What we got was amazing. But they were not everything! What we need is…:
THE X-FILES: THE UNRELEASED RECORDINGS
Despite fan requests, a lot of Mark Snow’s music remains unavailable commercially, and unavailable in any other form than from directly recording the sound from the DVDs or BluRays. The best we can do is extract that audio and clean it up with more or less complex tools. Courtesy of Benjamin Cochia, a friend of the website and the man behind TXF Unreleased Score, we are happy to bring you the complete unreleased recordings of Mark Snow’s music for The X-Files.
The tracks that are available in LLL’s records are removed, leaving only the parts that are otherwise unavailable. No copyright infringement is intended whatsoever, this is purely for the enjoyment of fans, and is made available here without profit. If you are a representative of Mark Snow or a copyright holder of The X-Files and wish me to remove any of this music, please contact me by e-mail. Even better, if LLL releases more of this with a clean sound, I’d be more than happy to take this offline!
The unreleased tracks here are just called “unreleased” given that we don’t have access to the full official music sheets that include specific cue names and lengths. I hope that someday we can fill the gaps.
