CP-70 Electric Grand Piano. "The Heat", "Birdy's Flight", "Under Lock and Key" and "Powerhouse at the Foot of the Mountain" borrowed musical elements from the songs on his fourth album, which had been composed on a Fairlight CMI IIx, a music workstation with an embedded digital sampling synthesizer. The soundtrack album, entitled Birdy: Music from the Film, was released on March 18, 1985, by Geffen Records and Charisma Records. AllMusic's Tom Demalon awarded it four stars out of five, writing, "The fact that Birdy is all instrumentals means that listeners whose familiarity with Gabriel is limited to 'Sledgehammer' and 'In Your Eyes' will be largely disappointed. However, its meditative nature makes it fine, reflective listening for the more adventurous." Recalling in 2010 his experience of working with Gabriel, Alan Parker told Prog magazine, "We got on so well, he’s such a sweet man. It was such a refreshing change from working with megalomaniacs like Roger Waters. Peter’s record company were very difficult to begin with, and so I phoned them to ask if they’d mind if Peter took a little time to do this, and they said as long as it didn’t take more than a couple of months because Peter was already a year late or something. He had strong views and I would never be able to persuade him to do something he didn’t feel comfortable with, but we didn’t have any confrontation as such." Release Tri-Star Pictures had planned to release the film using a platform technique which involved opening it in select cities before releasing it nationwide. The studio was confident that the limited theatrical run would generate strong-word-of-mouth interest and awards consideration for the film. Birdy opened in limited release on December 21, 1984, in New York City, Los Angeles and Toronto. The film's failure to garner any award nominations during the limited run resulted in Tri-Star cancelling a wide release scheduled for late January 1985. In response, A&M Films prompted the studio to refocus the film's marketing campaign. Tri-Star adjusted its promotional focus on the friendship between Birdy and Al, while Parker, Modine and Cage heavily promoted the film by personally visiting critics, journalists and radio reporters. Birdy underperformed at the North American box office, grossing only $1,455,045 in the United States and Canada, against a budget of $12 million. Home media The film was released on VHS in mid-June 1985 by RCA/Columbia Pictures