U OUGHT TO KNOW.

Byline: - Sandra Barrera

Name: GRAEME REVELL

Age: 49

Profession: Composer

Why U ought to know him: Anyone who has seen the films ``Sin City,'' ``Open Water'' or ``Freddy vs. Jason'' has already heard the deliciously dark scores of Graeme Revell.

He's a Calabasas-dwelling New Zealander whom BMI will honor Wednesday with its prestigious Richard Kirk Award for ``outstanding career achievement'' in film and television.

``Finally, I get to stand in front of everybody in the room and go, 'Hey, I got the award this year,' instead of sitting in the crowd and thinking, 'Why didn't I get it?' '' he says with a chuckle.

Revell has been composing film scores for the last 15 years, although he got into it purely by accident.

Industrial origins: After graduating from college with degrees in economics and politics in the '70s, Revell went to work as an orderly in a psychiatric hospital in Australia.

There, he started a music therapy course with three patients, and with them formed an industrial rock band called SPK.

The band lasted about a year.

``We were supposed to go to England and the lead singer, who was in and out of hospital all the time, unfortunately ... his wife died of anorexia and he killed himself the day after,'' Revell says.

Lucky break: Revell never made it as a recording artist, although he tried.

After the death of his friend, he moved to England, where he hooked up with musicians in the industrial rock movement.

A decade later he was back in Australia with a stylistic grab-bag of recordings, one of which fell into the hands of Phillip Noyce and became the soundtrack for the 1989 film ``Dead Calm,'' with Nicole Kidman, for which Revell won the Australian equivalent of an Academy Award.

``I got lucky,'' he says. ``It worked out really well and I haven't had a day off since.''

Where U have heard his work: In the 15 years since ``Dead Calm,'' Revell has scored countless films.

He says filmmakers used to typecast him as a composer of thrillers early in his career, but he managed to wiggle his way out of it.

Every chance he got, he gravitated toward the fantasy, comedy or children's genres; he worked on the ``Crow'' films, as well as ``Miss Congeniality 2'' and ``Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie.''

He also jumped at the chance to work with some of his favorite filmmakers, including Michel Gondry, for whom he scored ``Human Nature'' in 2001.

The score for Mickey Rourke's vengeance-seeking segment in the Robert Rodriguez film ``Sin City'' was his most recent work.

'Sin City': This marks the second time Revell has worked with Rodriguez on a project.

The first was ``From Dusk Til Dawn,'' the filmmaker's 1996 vampire thriller.

For ``Sin City,'' Rodriguez had requested Revell come up with a ``Conan the Barbarian/warped 21st-century thing for (Rourke's character) Marv.''

``You've got your man,'' Revell recalls telling him.

The process: ``There's an old, apocryphal story of Bernard Herrmann, who always used to score Alfred Hitchcock's movies. Whenever he would go to a screening, he would sit there chuckling to himself. And when they asked him what he was laughing about, he would say, 'I just heard the score and you haven't yet,' and that's what happens.

``You watch a piece of film and (with) something like 'Sin City,' of course, we don't get to see the finished film. We see a lot of green screen with actors with black light being shone on their faces and then Robert tells you what else is going on around it. But somehow I hear the score when I'm watching it, and all I have to do is record it.''

Side projects: Revell is working on producing and composing a big show on the scale of Cirque du Soleil, in Las Vegas.

``That will take a little while because it involves building an $80 million theater, so we'll see,'' he says.

Revell is also trying his hand at writing a script that he hopes will be made into a feature comedy based on his experiences at the psychiatric hospital.

Industrial rocker chills: ``I'm always searching out anything weird and different, but just for pleasure I tend to have mixology-type stuff like (the record series) 'Buddha-Bar.' I really like that, I find it relaxing and a little bit unpredictable, whereas pop and rock music I pretty much know what the end note is going to be when I hear the first one.''

The future: Revell's keeping busy. He's working on a number of projects, including one with David Ayers, the writer of ``Training Day.''

``He just self-financed his first movie, called 'Harsh Times,' with Christian Bale, and I'm just finishing that up - it's really good,'' Revell says.

His other projects include scoring the comedy ``The Darwin Awards'' with Joseph Fiennes and Winona Rider, as well as two kids' movies, one of which is Robert Rodriguez's 3-D ``Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl.''

There are also a couple of video game soundtracks in the works.

If U want more information: www.graemerevell.com.

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no caption (GRAEME REVELL)