INTERVIEW: Interview with Garry Schyman

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SoundtrackNet recently had the opportunity to talk with composer Garry Schyman about his latest score for "Destroy All Humans III : Path of the Furon" as well as some of his previous work, including his award winning music for "Bioshock".

So, when you're spotting, say a game, versus a film or the television show, do they have an expert gamer come in an play the game in front of you, expertly, to show you what it's like? Do they show you some reels of what you're expected to write music for?

It depends on the project. Of late, most of the projects that I've been working on are in a fairly primitive state, in terms of being able to show me game play when I start working. Usually these schedules can last for a number of months. It gets better over time. Very often I get an asset list that they've developed and here's the music we need and a description of what it is, and of course, discussions about developing the music and the style and the feel for various levels. Games have levels, and each level has its own feel and sense.

In any event, very often I'm going just on description and screen captures and artwork from their art department of what something is going to look like. But, on other games, such as "Path of the Furon", I did get video of gameplay. They will actually have someone play the game in the section that I'm scoring and they'll send me a movie and pick a movie that I can watch and lock the picture, and really sort of score it.

Bearing in mind video game music is different from film score. The music unfolds, and it may be triggered by an event that all players will experience. But then, what the player does and how, such as the combat cue where you are battling someone, or sneaking around, your experience is going to be unique or somewhat unique from player to player.

Therefore, the music has to be able to, in some sense, generaly and not necessarily catch the moment, because other than perhaps the initial trigger that combating or fighting someone, like the police in "The Path of the Furon" or the army, or something or some alien, whatever it is; how you play, how any one player plays will be different. So the music has to generally capture the feel for that.

Of course, if the play changes, then the music has to segue to either another piece of music or just peel out to get out of music if you are getting away from fighting someone or whatever.

It is very vastly different between television and film where you have hopefully a fully edited asset that you are basically locked down and you can score for. So, it's been a while since we spoke, you, just finished the first "Destroy all Humans", now you are on to the third in the series. Is there a fourth planned?

I have no idea. I finished the third over a year ago. The game is now being finished for release, so I have no idea. It will depend on how this one does, how sales go.

It would be similar to a film franchise, in the sense that if the box office is good, there is a good chance they will make another one. If the box office is not good, there's a chance that that is the end of that franchise. They'll look at the numbers.

Having done a franchise, does each successive iterations of writing the music for the game becomes easier or are there special little challenges that show up, or do you approach it with a clean slate when you start?

I think, it's probably a little easier. I had not really been deeply involved in games at that time. So, a lot of the technical issues had to be overcome and understood. Not that they are difficult, but that of course, made me nervous. Just a sense of like, "Wow, is this going to work for a game," and then the second-guessing of myself. There was a lot less second-guessing on the third one. Not that I wasn't challenged to write music. I think, it's one of my best scores for the series and there're a lot of really good cues in this score.

I think I was just more confident that this is going to work. I think that the people I was working with, because of the success of the other scores, were just confident in my work as well. So, there was a sense that I was going to produce something of quality.

It was smooth sailing, I would say. Not that I didn't work hard on it, but I wasn't distressed. The first one was more stressful from the standpoint that I was new at writing for the video games of today. I had done some video game work in the '90s, but it was very different from what video game work is like now.

You have to have had to grab onto the technology as well as your confidence writing music for that technology then.

Yeah, and there are techniques, and I worked with a nice sound designer on the game. The first one was really walked me through it and helped me a lot. But, like I said, all the people I have worked with on the Destroy All Humans series have been great. It's just when you gain confidence in that you know what you are doing, it just takes a level of anxiety out of the process. I had a lot of confidence that I knew what I was doing, particularly on this series because it was the third one. So, from that standpoint, all those issues were gone. I just challenged myself to write interesting music.

I've noticed that the music in the series was originally based in the 1950?s and 1960?s while still maintaining the sci fi roots, and for this game you're able to give it that funky 70s sound, that sleazy funk and lounge feel. Was one of the previous games in the series set in Vegas?

No, Vegas wasn?t in the previous ones. This was a new opportunity to destroy Vegas in the 70s. [laughs] The cool thing is... I mean, this has been... from a composer?s standpoint, "Destroy all Humans" has been wonderful. Just to be able to go and emulate the styles of the 50s, then the 60s for the second one and then the 70s for the third is just so... I hate to use the word "cool" because it's a clich?, but it's just really an amazingly wonderful opportunity. I just loved doing it.

And of course if you listen to the scores of sci-fi movies in the 70s, they had funk in them. It really permeated every nook and cranny almost of every score in that period. The funk guitar was everywhere... well, not every cue, by the way, has funk guitar in it, a good percentage of them do. But, it's just amazing how even Jerry Goldsmith would be writing these serious scores and would have funky guitar in it. You know? [laughs] I'm talking about, he did a score for, he did Planet of the Apes of course in the 60s.

But then, he did I think it was "Return to Planet of the Apes", or something like that, and that had, it was very different from the original "Planet of the Apes" and it had a lot of funk guitar in it. It's just sort of amazing. It sort of sounds wrong when you first hear it... you know, you kind of wince a little bit. But then if you embrace it, it's a lot of fun. Of course the "Destroy all Humans" series of games, humor is at the core of them.

So, it doesn't end up being anachronistic where it just seems out of place? It's just like, "Well, this fits with everything we're trying to get at?"

So that, the funky stuff... it helps set the mood of the time period and adds to how ridiculous the situation is.

Does any of your previous incarnations as a composer for such 80s TV shows as "Magnum, P.I." and "A-Team" help get you in the right mindset for doing the work?

Well, of course, those are the early series that I worked on when I first got into the business were in the 80s. But, in the sense that they were sort of like an evolution. I mean, we were just talking about the history of scoring. It was an evolution. The one innovation that Mike Post and Pete Carpenter, who were the composers and I worked with them and I was one of their team who was producing, writing a lot of music for those scores was to have an orchestra and then a rock rhythm section. Now, the 70s was more about funk, and was more jazz focused with some rock. But, the 80s which was very much the post Carpenter era had these additions.

But, that aspect, of having an orchestra and then having a rhythm section within the orchestra, was something that I definitely gained a lot of experience writing for in the 80s. That was what those gigs were. Every week I was turning in cues, writing cues and had an orchestra to record it. Of course it had this rhythm section of drums, guitar, keyboard and bass that had that feel.

So, that certainly and I know this is a long winded answer - but certainly that prepared me. This was not an unfamiliar territory for me. Let's put it that way. Even though stylistically, ultimately it is different.

I figured with Mike and Pete would say to you, "O.K., we need you to write this score, and make sure you include the rhythm section because we're paying for them."[laughter]

No, that was just part of the sound. Not every cue had to have rhythm section, but a good smattering of them. Maybe 70% 80% had something. You know, you'd write for electric, it just was part of the sound to throw in 70s or 80s rock band elements.

So, what else besides kind of bringing it up a decade from the previous game and obviously two decades from the first one; what else did you try differently with the music here that maybe an astute listener or a casual listener might be able to take away from it and go, "Hey, that's pretty cool"?

I just tried to infuse that sense of 70s, I really did. Before I started, I listened to a lot of music from that period to just sort of get myself in that headspace.

So, you channeled your inner John Travolta, huh?

Yeah, yeah. Or maybe the Jerry Goldsmith or Elmer [Bernstein] actually wrote some kind of cool stuff from that period as well. It was Roy Budd was also very 70s and very cool, you know? He was a real great talent who died way too young.

Yeah, Get Carter is one of my favorite themes. I love the bass and the percussion. Just how he plays around with it's really, really cool.

Yep, those kinds of guys. Then, a smattering of some of the stuff is kind of straight orchestral. I was trying to do it with the mentality of composers in the 70s. There are a couple of synthesizer sounds in it, but they were very much the sense of that time. The ARP or maybe a Moog, or something like that, that sort of started to appear in the 70s.

Very much everything was organic and orchestral sounding, and there were lots of little clich?s of that period. The types of grooves that were shaker grooves, and those sorts of things that borrowed heavily from pop music and... I mean, film composers are always borrowing, as are game composers. You're always listening and finding something cool and then infusing your music with the spirit or techniques or sounds or whatever it is, such as orchestration, which you hear around you. Your employers are temping with something that's from that period, or from a style, and they want you to do something similar.

So now, you have the three under your belt, it looks like you've got a serious series going on. Which out of the three has been your favorite to work on?

Oh gosh. You know, they were all a pleasure to work on. I think the first one (was my favorite to work on)... and I think, the third one may be the best score of the three. I think the first one was a great, like I said, because of all the reasons I reiterated earlier? was the most challenging but then also the most satisfying. It also got some really nice recognition, which sort of launched my opportunities, a lot of opportunities for me in game music.

So, the first one sort of has aspects of it that really make it my favorite to work on. The third one I think may musically kind of be the hippest.

So like the first one is like your sense of accomplishment that you were really proud of that? Like "I nailed it," you know?

Yeah, I think maybe that?s the third one, but I don't know. If others ever care to analyze it they'll listen to all three and maybe have an opinion. I think not to pat myself on the back I think I did a nice job on all three. All three are different similar and yet different. You know?

So, you mentioned that "Destroy all Humans" had really kind of launched your career, and it seems this year you're getting lauded from your work on "Bioshock", such as the Hollywood Music Award.

The Hollywood Music Award was for a song I did that had nothing to do with video games. It was a video that went up on YouTube. Kind of a rock song, really, so it's completely unique. I've been doing these songs for Matt Harding, who dances all around the world. This one so far, had like almost 20 million streams. People really love his videos. I was nominated for "Bioshock," but did not win. I did win a lot of awards last year for "Bioshock." I won like six awards for "Bioshock." But, not the Hollywood Music Award. I won the Spike TV award, I won four G.A.N.G. awards, and probably the most important, was the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences for "Best Original Music".

So, I noticed you mentioned you did the song for the video. Besides your game work, what other stuff have you been kind of playing around with or doing in your spare time, or even obviously under employ of somebody else?

Well, you mentioned that video. I'm very busy right now with, as it turns out, video games. So, I don't have a lot of time, and I have a seven year old son who would like to spend a lot of time with me, or whatever time I can afford to spend with them.

So I'm working very steadily right now and on some really cool stuff, titles of which, I cannot share with you yet.

That's totally fine. I was just seeing if there was stuff you've just been kind of doing for the shear pleasure of doing.

I wish I had more time to do that, but I don't at the moment. I don't. I mean, I'm both happy to have all the work I have, but also wishing I had more spare time. I don't.

Speaking of your background, you'd mentioned you'd grown up in the film music industry doing TV. Do you miss that? Do you miss the underlying mechanics behind it? You go in, you write cues and it's kind of cut, set, and pretty dry as it would be.. and it was kind of steady? Or with the new stuff, such as games, is that something your always going to be in and just kind of give up on film and TV?

Well, I'm not giving up on film and TV. If the right project comes along, I'd definitely be interested. I mean, television itself is not as interesting I think as it used to be. At least at the moment, there's a lot of very ambient music being written for television. I have to say creatively, video games at least the ones that I'm being offered and working on are much, much more interesting from a creative standpoint and from a stylistic standpoint. I'm being asked to write really strong, intense, really interesting music.

The two things I miss of TV; one, is the business aspect of it, which is you get back end. I hate to be crass about it, but it's really nice to get performing rights and ASCAP for your work, particularly if you ever have a down time. Those performing rights can save you. I still get a nice amount of it from older stuff and good stuff that I've done in the past. So, I miss the royalties.

I don't miss the schedules, because the schedules were really not good. I think creatively these days, very few scoring opportunities have live instrumentals; orchestrally there's very little going on in television? a little bit, but not much. I do enjoy playing to picture, and I get that opportunity in games because there are "in-game" opportunities. There's something very satisfying about it. Those are the only aspects I really miss, you know? But, I would say there's more "good" about video games versus TV than the other way around. From a creative standpoint, from an upfront money standpoint, it's much, much better and much fairer because they pay you by the minute.

From the schedule standpoint, video games are... If you're making two lists? the video game list would be a longer list of cool, good things. Those are the things I do miss. I really do love playing to picture and get to do that. Just really locking in a score into a picture and the music working in sync that's a very satisfying thing where it's just really working. I miss that, because all TV and film, of course, is that.

You mentioned about people doing the reverse. I think, Michael Giacchino went from the "Medal of Honor" series and the like, and is now doing big time scores and Pixar animation and stuff like that. There's always a chance to go back.

Yeah, no, there are opportunities coming my way, and that may indeed come to fruition. We'll see.

I look forward to seeing it in the large screen film credits crawl.

If it happens, yeah, you will find out.

Thanks to Garry Schyman and Gary O'Connor Reed from Top Dollar PR for their assistance with this interview.

INTERVIEW: "Early" Shapiro, Theodore

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SoundtrackNet recently had the opportunity to speak with composer Theodore Shapiro about his recent work on Harold Ramis' Year One. He discusses his "eureka" moment on the film and the challenges this prehistoric road trip as well as some of his other working experiences.

We last had a chance to talk with you in 2004, you just scored Dodgeball, directed by Rawson Thurber. Since then you've scored probably about a dozen and a half films and, for Year One, this is your first collaboration with Harold Ramis, how did you become attached to the picture?

I had met with him when he was working on the The Ice Harvest, which I wanted to score, which unfortunately I was not hired to do. We met, and I really liked him. I think it was just one of those things where he hired somebody else, but we had very positive feelings about one another. So when this one came up, it was a bit easier to get. He's just such pleasure to work with and a bright guy. He has a very interesting, philosophical perspective on the work that he's doing.

We've spoken to other composers before, and a number of them say there are some directors who "get music" and let the composer do their job, and others that don't and think they do, and try to meddle. What was it like to work with Harold on the film there?

It was really enjoyable, we got in sync about what we were doing pretty early. So, for the most part, the discussions that we had were about fine-tuning the individual moments. We were really just sort of keeping an eye towards developing a structure for the score that mirrored the evolution of the characters in the film. The film is like a road trip movie, but as the characters go on their road trip the movie is exploring the evolution of civilization.

The characters start out as hunter/gatherers. Then they encounter Cain and Abel in a more agrarian society. Then they encounter the Hebrews, and so on, and so forth. I think what Harold is trying to get at is telling some kind of a version of the Old Testament in a very, very loose way. He was trying to get at something that explores the evolution of civilization.

Part of what we talked about is starting out with something that felt primitive and tribal, and then sort of having the music migrate towards the Middle East. This is as though the characters were beginning in Africa, and sort of walking up into the Middle East, in a very non literal way.

Did you reference any of the old Bob Hope and Bing Crosby road trip films, or did you just go off on your own and pick what you wanted to do? What other musical styles or ideas did you try to reference when developing this score?

I've seen bits and pieces of those movies, and that is clearly the spirit of this movie, but I did not reference any of those scores. There was an interesting process with this movie. Somewhere in the middle of writing the score I took a bit of a departure in direction. The initial thrust of this score was more faithful to the notion of African music and then Middle Eastern music. I was applying those styles in a more straight-ahead way, and with a heavier reliance on the orchestra.

At a certain point in the process, I started to feel like maybe the score was underlining the wrong thing about the movie. It was underlining the story of Jack Black's destiny, which I think was an entirely reasonable tactic to take. I started to think the strongest thing that is really holding this movie together is that road trip aspect of it, and the relationship between Jack Black and Michael Cera. That was really the strength and heart of the film.

I backed away from being quite so literal, and moved towards something that was really modern and used almost a collage type approach to the music. I was taking drum loops and little snippets of modern guitars, ethnic woodwinds and stringed instruments. I pasted them together and added the orchestra on top of that.

Who knows how I thought of it? It's just one of those things that flew into my head. When I stumbled across that, everything really clicked and that's when everything really came together.

It sounds like the score is very involved and intricate. I did hear some influences of Jerry Goldsmith's Planet of the Apes. Is there anything in the score that you would like the casual listener or movie goer to take away that you find especially interesting or a little something you put in there that's unique?

Right off the top of my head, in the main title cue, there is a boar hunt. Harold and I came up with this idea of using the music of the Indonesian Kathak dance as part of that sequence. Most people aren't familiar with that, but it's a form of music that involves a lot of people chanting. It is very complex music that involves interlocking parts of everybody just chanting, "Thak Thak Thak Thak". All the parts are interlocking in such a way that it sounds like this very dense rhythmic texture. We found a sample of that which we liked and we used that in the main title cue. That's a fun use of a musical performance that is. I think, a little bit different.

So basically, when it gets sold to a distributor in Southeast Asia you'll have everybody standing up and cheering at the main title.

Either cheering or [laughter] horrified that I've completely misused this style of music for a boar hunt. Hopefully it will be the former.

I think that film score fans may find that there are one or two things. One of my absolute favorite scores, and a very influential score to me, was John Williams' score for Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think that it would be wholly appropriate to say that towards the end of the film, as the music sort of verges into a slightly more orchestral style, there are some recollections of the score to Raiders, in particular the Map Room and the Ark themes. There is clearly an homage being paid to that.

David: Looking back at your career so far, you have tended to stick to comedies? is this a genre of film that you intend to stick with, or would you like to branch out into other films?

I always like to keep myself interested in my work, and the more variety the better. With that said, the films that I've had the privilege of working on are wholly engaging, challenging, interesting to me. This is the case in films like Year One or Tropic Thunder, in which the genre is really merging with either action or adventure. Those are really great films to work on, and are satisfying on every level to me as a composer. While I would certainly love to work in other genres, I have absolutely nothing to complain about the work I'm doing now.

What do you find appealing about composing in general that kept you from doing something else as a career? Did you always want to start out and do movies?

I don't know what else I would do. This is just always what I've wanted to do. Although I grew up with my parents telling me that I was going to find something else to do with my life, find a more stable career. From the time that I went to college and decided that I was, in fact, going to pursue this as a career, I just haven't considered anything else. I really thoroughly enjoy working on films.

There is just something very special about that time that you spend alone with the picture. It happens, particularly, in the beginning of the process, where you are wandering in the desert and searching for something that works. It can happen, as well, when you are just searching for something that's different and unique, and you stumble across something that excites you, there's really nothing better. It is work that I absolutely love, and there's nothing that I'd rather be doing.

Which is what's the most fun, or the most challenging, project that you've worked on?

[laughs] Well, let's see. I think that, as far as fun goes, I've done a couple of films with David Frankel, who directed Marley & Me and The Devil Wears Prada. Those films both took their final form, very, very early on. He is an extremely good director who knows what he is trying to accomplish and knows how to accomplish it. Those movies just were both incredibly enjoyable processes, mostly because of the working relationship. It happens when working with somebody who is just such a nice person and so confident in their skills and their process.

At the same time, I would say that Year One was one of those instances where I had this "discovery" in mid course of composing for the film. It was very exhilarating because, to a certain degree, it required me to take my head off of my shoulders and then turn it sideways put it back on, and see the film in a slightly different way.

It's exciting when you realize, "Oh, wow. There are so many ways that you can do this job!" It's a very exhilarating feeling to stretch yourself in that way to try to take a totally different approach and make it work.

I think that the most challenging experiences are the ones where you work on a film that goes on a very long time. You can always deal with directors who are demanding, and that is certainly very hard, but it's something that I think that we all learn to deal and live with. I think what's hard is when you on a film for a very, very long time. This is either because the film is just in post (production) forever, or the testing process is making it drag out. You just start to lose all perspective on what the film is, and you start to question your own first instincts. You no longer have that fresh perspective on what the picture is doing, and those experiences are really challenging. They really take away your best weapon, which is just a fresh instinct towards the picture.

You noted in our earlier interview in 2004 that, "your musical heroes change on a day to day basis." Who are your heroes, currently?

I've really had the same hero for a while, which is Olivier Messiaen. Messiaen, of all the 20th century composers, I feel like he just imagined a sonic world that just hadn't existed anywhere else. I'm just so inspired when I listen to his music, because it's just so phenomenally original and unique and passionate. It's driven by his very particular passion; for religion, for birds, and so forth, and that's very inspiring for me to listen to.

Is there anything you have on your upcoming schedule that you can share that we should be on the lookout for?

The next thing up is something I'm just finishing now called Jennifer's Body. I actually co composed the score with a young composer named Steven Barton. That was a really fun movie to work on, and the first time I've ever worked on a horror film. It was a lot of fun to delve into that genre.

You mentioned in the previous interview that working with Todd Haynes would be one of your dream projects? Have you had a chance to have him come knocking at your door, or have you've gone hunting for him to try to get attached to one of his projects recently?

No, I have not gone out in search of Todd Haynes, although I would still absolutely love to work with Todd. But between 2004 and now I have had two children. I would say that right now, that I would really love to do is work on is the kind of movie that eventually might touch their imagination. I'd hope that, in the same way, for me, as a nine year old seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark really changed my life. I would hope to work on something at some point which would do the same thing for them. That would really be my dream project.

Thanks to Caitlin Owens of ID PR and Theodore Shapiro for their time and assistance with this interview.

NEWS: An interview with Alan Menken on the beauty and the beast: Diamond Edition Blu - ray

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An interview with Alan Menken about BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: DIAMOND EDITION by Elaine Lipworth

Disney’s most requested film BEAUTY AND THE BEAST combines a poignant, timeless story with extraordinary music and the marvels of Disney animation at its best.?? With state of the art picture restoration, pristine 7.1 Digital Surround Sound and fascinating additional viewing, including behind the scenes features, deleted scenes and immersive games, this is the second installment in Disney’s new ‘Diamond Collection’. [The ‘Combo pack’ is a Blu-ray Disc plus a DVD in a single package.]

The film has become a modern classic, indelibly embedded in cinematic history ? but equally relevant and entertaining now is as it was when first came out in 1991.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was the first of only two animated films ever to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. (The second was UP in 2009).

?The story is well known. Set in the picturesque French countryside during the late 18th century, it centers on Belle, a bright and beautiful young woman who finds escape from her ordinary life ?and the advances of a boorish suitor, Gaston, by reading books.

Meanwhile, in a distant castle, a young prince has been transformed into a tormented beast under the spell of an enchantress. His servants are now ??animated household objects.? In order to remove the curse, the Beast must discover a true love who will return his affection before the last petal falls from an enchanted rose. When Belle’s inventor father stumbles upon the Beast’s castle and is taken prisoner, the beautiful girl comes to the rescue and agrees to take her father’s place. But with the help of the castle’s enchanted staff, she sees beneath the Beast’s exterior and discovers the heart and soul of a human prince.

The film was directed by Gary Trousdale and the enormously talented voice cast includes Paige O’Hara as the voice of Belle, Robby Benson as the Beast and Richard White as Gaston. Angela Lansbury gives a memorable performance as Mrs. Potts, while David Ogden-Stiers is Cogsworth, ?the head of the household.?

Composer Alan Menken won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song together with the late Howard Ashman?? for? BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.? They received Oscar nominations for?? the songs BE MY GUEST? and BELLE.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was the first Disney animated film to inspire a Broadway stage musical.

Alan Menken ??has composed huge hits such as THE LITTLE MERMAID, ALADDIN, HERCULES, POCAHONTAS?? and ENCHANTED and?? has won more Oscars than any other living person. He sat down for the following? interview.

Q: You have been involved with so many wonderful Disney films, what does BEAUTY AND THE BEAST mean to you?
A: “BEAUTY AND THE BEAST has been a perennial favorite of people who love Disney animation. They?? have a continued appetite to know more about it and to see it enhanced. That is incredibly gratifying. I love the film too. I just watched it? again and it is gorgeous. It is possible that it is even more beautiful than it was when it debuted. It is very gratifying to have this ‘Diamond Edition’.”

Q: Can you explain?? what it was that you did musically? with BEAUTY? AND THE BEAST?
A: ”All? Howard and I did? was to tell the story, which is very romantic. The setting is?? timeless and I just went to my gut, which is what I always do. With? this one, Howard was in his last days, although at the beginning I didn’t know that, but by the end of working on it, I knew that this was? a great artist’s last creation. I am sure that emotion informed what we did. We worked with a palette of French and classical and Broadway music and it was a culmination of a certain kind of? emotion for us. Also all these projects we do ? whether it is THE LITTLE MERMAID OR BEAUTY AND THE BEAST or ALADDIN ?? are? homages. This? one is an homage to the most romantic? parts of the Disney canon. Maybe I was channeling something special I don’t know, but it was clearly romantic and timeless and I credit Howard with a lot of what we came up with.”

Q: The music has everything: from poignancy, to humor and ultimately joy, how did you convey that spectrum of emotions?
A: “That is what we always aim to do.? As an ideal, the Disney musical?? is? always a combination of things that are joyful and things that are wistful and scary too and BEAUTY has all those elements. I can only be as good as the stories I am telling and? the characters that I am bringing to life. And with this film we were bringing some powerful things to life.”

Q: Can you specifically talk about the memorable musical high points of the film?
A: “Let’s take it chronologically. I had to come up with my version of? THE CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS?? by Camille Saint Camille Saint-Sa?ns ?(French composer)? at?? the top of the movie, which is a very impressive and very timeless? piece of music. We were weaving a spell and that’s the prologue music.? When we got to?? BELLE, I was really going for operetta, something?? to portray this innocent character in a world that is so protected and safe. And then transitioning? to the town where she is seen as odd, out of place, we have BONJOUR ,? when she is walking to the town and? everything is so busy and bustling? and?? she is oblivious to the fact that she is different from everyone else. The? song is telling the story of Belle going to the town and everyone’s reaction to her and getting to see Gaston and knowing he is infatuated with her? - but more infatuated with himself.”

Q: The song GASTON is funny and highly evocative isn’t it?
A: “GASTON is really tongue in cheek, it is a drinking song sung by basically a group of Neanderthal level guys in praise of a complete lug-head. So it’s hilarious and when we were writing that song I could not contain my laughter. It was very funny material.? Then we have BE OUR GUEST. I remember? I? said to Howard? ‘I’m? going to give you a song which will just be the dummy,? I said?? ‘this is it without me even thinking about it,?? then I’ll write something really good.’ So I sang the tune to him ‘ya da dum da da? dum ?ba ba ba ba ba ba ?’? and I said ‘now I will write the real music’.? Of course after struggling I couldn’t improve on that dumb piece of music that I wrote initially, because it was just right and it got out of the way to let Howard’s lyrics shine.”

Q: You won the Oscar for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST of course.
A: “I don’t think I had ever spent more time writing a song than with that particular one. It was the height of simplicity and we knew we would have to write a song that could have a life outside the movie.? So there was an extra dimension to the work we were doing and that really took a lot of time.?? SOMETHING THERE was a very quick replacement for a much more ambitious song called HUMAN AGAIN, a nine minute song that was in the end too ambitious for the film. A modified version of that song of course made it into the movie when it was re released and also into the Broadway show. Finally THE MOB SONG was almost like a macho adventure underscore?? and again something that was in its own way groundbreaking.”

Q: Can you discuss the wonderful comic elements, provided by Mrs. Potts (voiced by Angela Lansbury)?
A: Mrs. Potts is actually modeled on Mrs. Bridges from UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS, the character from the BBC series. She was the maid but ran the whole household. Howard was really channeling that?? when we wrote BE OUR GUEST. She is the most joyful, motherly presence with little Chip. They are so sweet and remind me of PETER PAN a little bit, which was always Howard’s favorite. He grew up loving PETER PAN.”?????

Q: What will we see that is special in this Diamond Edition?
A: “You will see HUMAN AGAIN, you will see storyboard versions of the songs we wrote, which means you will see some of the original visuals that we? were? writing to. You will see a history of Howard Ashman with pictures of him from his childhood, close to when he passed away and? you will get a real appreciation of? what he accomplished. You are going to see the connection between BEAUTY AND THE BEAST on Broadway and the animated musical. You see how? often performers came from Broadway to animation and how much the animated musicals are now going to back to Broadway and bringing employment and opportunities to Broadway actors, producers and designers. You are also going to see some?? history of how BEAUTY AND THE BEAST came about.”

Q: Obviously it led to one of your eight Oscars ? you have more than other living person. What does that feel like?
A: “I feel very fortunate to be honest. I feel so privileged to have been involved with Disney and these musicals, because they are great matches? for my talents. That is why we have had the success we have had, because of the chemistry between what I do and what Disney does.”

Q: What are the themes of this classic story and the film specifically?
A:? “In essence BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is romantic in the deepest sense. It’s about? this girl who is bookish and lives through? the fantasies she has found in these books and she’s smart. She wants to be a good girl. In today’s world? she would be a very good student. But she is put into a situation where she meets a beast who? is primitive and he is enhanced by her intelligence. And she is enhanced by his tragic nature. It is about her compassion for him and that is what brings him to life again as a human being. All? that is very deep. If you look at the magical nature of the castle and the world of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, it really takes all of us into our ‘child selves’ . You can’t be in the movie and stay in modern day reality. You have to let go and become a child again which is what all the best of the Disney animated projects do.”

Q: I assume?? your own inner?? child is very much alive?
A: ”It is all about my inner child, entirely about my inner child. There is not a whole lot of calculation going on. But?? when I go back and watch SNOW? WHITE, CINDERELLA, PINOCCHIO, if you really stop and watch them, your child-self takes over. I write and exist from my gut and not from my brain. My brain gets me up in the morning and tells me where to go (laughs) but my gut tells me ‘this is the music we need here. This is the emotion we’re feeling now’; and I make?? more decisions from my gut than I do from my head.”

Q: I know you have been very much inspired by the great Disney classic? FANTASIA, does that movie continue to be an inspiration? Is it still close to your heart?
A: “Oh my goodness yes. To this day my favorite Beethoven Symphony is the 6th Symphony: The Pastoral. Well why is that? It is because of FANTASIA. In a way that film was my doorway into classical music, but I think I would have discovered it anyway.”

Q: Many of your films? have also? gone onto???? become enduring classics, like the early Disney films you mention. Were you born with this formidable talent? I know most of your family? were dentists not musicians.
A: “Well yes that is true. All the men in my family were dentists (laughs). My father, his father and brother, my mother’s sister’s husband?? and my father’s sister’s husband? - all dentists. But from my earliest time I was very responsive to? music and to how music reflected stories and drama. It is part of who I am. It is sort of an accident that I ended up being involved with Disney, because it never could have happened.”

Q: How did it happen?
A: “Back in about 1987 at the time that THE LITTLE MERMAID was being made,?? Howard Ashman was? actually writing a show with Marvin Hamlisch. I guess he could’ve gone to Marvin Hamlisch and said ‘do you want to work on this Disney animated movie?’ So I look at it as fate.? How else can you look at your own life? I feel very gratified and fortunate that I got to do those films and I would love to do more. TANGLED is coming out and that is wonderful.? And if I never do another one I will be very, very satisfied with my life, I’ve done eight animated musicals plus ENCHANTED and? NEWSIES. That is a huge amount of output so I feel very lucky.”

Q: Finally? can you sum up what is in store for lovers of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, with this new DVD?
A: “If you love BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and you love Disney animation, this Blu Ray/DVD set opens up a whole different dimension. You will see the directors and I and the producer talk about each moment in the movie? in detail, But it also has the story behind the scenes? and the sketches behind the scenes. It is really riveting and moving to me as someone who was involved, and I think it will be even more riveting for people who were not involved, to be drawn in by seeing it in this medium. It is beautiful. If you make room for this experience?? in your life ? no matter what your age ? it is really quite special. We all have very busy lives, it is often hard to stop for a second and put a movie like this on, but if we do:? it is a Godsend.”

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Diamond Edition Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack is Available October 5th!

INTERVIEW: It is one of us - interview with Austin Wintory

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SoundtrackNet recently had the opportunity to interview composer Austin Wintory about his recent works and his new score for Jordan's Academy Award submission, Captain Abu Raed. I've known and corresponded with Austin over the years since my days in college and the days of USENET groups, well before the plethora of websites now dedicated towards the art. He's "one of us", a fan and admirer of the art of film scoring, who made the enviable leap to full-fledged award-winning film (and game) music composer.

How did you come to go from being a film music fan to a full-fledged composer?

My obsession with film music started at about age 10 when my childhood piano teacher introduced me to some of Jerry Goldsmith's early scores, namely Patton and A Patch of Blue. Die hard fanatic since then. Almost immediately my piano lessons were geared more towards learning to compose, and from then till high school I was really working to hone my chops. Eventually went to study at NYU and USC, and somewhere in there started working professionally. My real professional training came in the form of lots and lots of student films and little indie shorts. That eventually led to features and video games and all the fun stuff I'm doing now. But truthfully, I'm probably more a fan of film music today than ever before!

Do you think your initial interest in Goldsmith affected your musical style when scoring professionally?

I am sure it was inevitable that my love for Goldsmith has influenced my writing! However, what I admire about him was his ability to synthesize his influences into a new and unique voice. It's really clear listening to his music that Goldsmith was into Stravinsky and especially Bartok, yet he's not the 'poor man's' version of either of those. He's truly his own animal. But beyond the notes themselves, what perhaps most influenced me about him was his sort of "clean slate" approach to each film. It almost seemed like he scored each movie having never scored a film before, there was such freshness and originality to his thinking.

Do you think having started out as a fan better prepared you for your studies as well as now, as it is a career?

Being such a die-hard fan gave me a fairly extensive knowledge of the existing scores out there, which ended up having one unexpected benefit. When I watch a film with the director during a spotting session, there's typically temp music throughout, and 99% of the time I can immediately identify where it came from. Since directors usually don't know the film music repertoire so much, it's a safe bet that they chose that music because it comes from a film they like. So basically, by identifying the temp music I'm able to get an insight into what sort of films they like and kind of gauge my approach bearing that in mind...

Who has been the most influential composer (and style) for you to this date?

Clearly Goldsmith again, though I am always so excited to hear or see something new of Elliot Goldenthal's. He just recorded a new Michael Mann score here in LA last week and I'm so thrilled to see him again in the world of film following his Grendel-related hiatus.

Who are your favorite a) past and b) present film music contemporaries?

Hmm that's a really tough one! I guess it's a cop-out to say Goldsmith for the first one. Like all else, I endlessly admire John Williams. Of the "founding fathers," my favorite was always Franz Waxman, though I've become especially taken with Alex North lately. He's a composer I didn't explore much growing up, but now I'm finding I really identify with his approach. As for today, I think Dario Marianelli and Alexandre Desplat are two of my heroes. I am so eager to see what each did with The Soloist and [The Curious Case of] Benjamin Button respectively. It's very exciting ...

Reviewing your credits, you've spent a significant time working composing for video games, how does that differ from scoring for films and for the concert hall?

The basic premise behind scoring a film or a game is the same; a director or producer has a vision for it and you're trying to figure out what that is and translate it into music. However, in my experience, what makes games so unique and special is the fact that there's opportunity for implementing the music in a truly non-linear way. I don't think there's any other medium in history that can create a musical experience like that, so it's exciting to be in such new territory. Also, the types of people that work in games are usually radically different personalities than those in film. No better or worse, just really different!

Does the non-linear aspect of writing the music present any challenges that a straight forward film or television score doesn't have? Do you have to be careful when you introduce themes or motif for fear they may be introduced "out of order" or be confused with other pieces meant for other action or scenes in the games?

The non-linear aspect of game writing is what absolutely sets it apart from films or TV, though there's also typically a fractional scoring budget so that separates them as well. However, despite it being non-linear, you can still exert quite a bit of control that resembles more traditional linear media. So themes or motifs being introduced too early are probably unlikely. It just means that the moment-by-moment execution of the music is somewhat left to chance. I think that this will get more and more free though as we develop more sophisticated music engines. Right now games are still pretty linear. But the rate of change is astonishing, so it'll be soon I've no doubt.

Which medium do you prefer writing for the most (game, film, or concert performances)?

Honestly I like to do all three to keep a complete picture. Games are great because you get to be really, really experimental. Non-linear composing is so foreign to most of us, so it's like shock therapy to work on a game. Films are tremendous exercises in dramatic instincts, so they really test you as a storyteller. Plus the collaboration is typically very one-on-one with the director, and that's usually an utter joy (depending on the director, of course!). In concert music you're your own master. Any musical idea is fair game to explore and that's tremendously liberating...

You were recently nominated for your work on flOw, which you've been attached to for a number of years, including the web based edition, how did you approach working for writing music for the different audiences (assuming the flash based version had technical limitations that a full console version did not)?

Well you pretty much nailed it on the head; the main difference between the various iterations of flOw was the technical limitations imposed on the web-based version. However, I have to say, those limitations are what led to the approach, which is ultimately why I got the BAFTA nomination I think. It's the classic story where people think I was being so "innovative," but in reality it would have been really difficult for anyone to do anything different I think. The limitations were that severe! But then working on the PS3 version we had so much horsepower that we could really take that initial approach and run like crazy with it. It was a blast! Truly that was one of the most fun and inspiring jobs I've ever worked. [Play "End Titles" from flOw]

Since you've worked on a wide variety of projects, both in size and scope, the inevitable question of budgets and size of orchestras become relevant... how have you had to adapt your writing style to accommodate these restrictions?

I try to be a purist and just watch a movie without bearing in mind the restrictions, then trying to figure out a way to score it how I want later. But obviously that's majorly idealistic. I remember reading a Mark Isham interview years ago where he talked about scoring a film with budget enough for 13 players, but the film had been temped with Basic Instinct. I've definitely gone down that road myself and I think it actually, like with flOw, can produce really interesting results. My goal with those projects is to dive head-in to the budget shortage, and really write a score that would feel somehow wrong if done on a bigger scale. Case in point, I just finished a film called Grace where we recorded 8 bass and contrabass clarinets at Abbey Road, and it came out awesome! It was surreal to hear so many of those beasts together...[Play "5m21" from Grace]

Given that it sounds like you're a purist when it comes to live performances, what's your view on synth based scores, or even utilizing "sound banks" (most famous being Zimmer's cache of recorded instruments) to help fill out with electronics versus using live players?

Every approach seems to have its right moment, though, yeah, I tend to be a bit of a traditionalist. Zimmer's use of pre-records and synths works beautifully with his overall composition approach. It stems so much from his background in the world of pop music producing, it's really hard to imagine a very "classical" approach from him. Though as soon as I say that, I remember scores like As Good As It Gets, which very well might be my favorite score of his, and that's totally pure and simple and not "produced" the way something like Gladiator or The Dark Knight is. So anyway, it's a technique I use a lot too, though not quite the same way he does. Sometimes there's a great sounding instrument you want to use, but it's not really "performable," or if it is maybe you want to use it so specifically that sampling it makes more sense. I recently did a score for a film called Print where I recorded lots of camera noises, like the shutter opening and closing, the flash case popping open, the flash charging, etc. Obviously "performing" that stuff wouldn't have been possible ...

Do you feel an electronic performance removes the "character" from the performance, almost creating a "too pure" environment that say, a happy accident during recording a live group may not provide?

When you're doing something with an electronic instrument, like a synth or something, you're obviously looking for that specific synth's character. A lot can be done to really "humanize" that performance, so by the end it's going to turn out great. On the other hand, I don't care how good an oboe sample is, a live player is simply always better. Even if you're looking for a performance very similar to the sample's performance, a live person gives you so much more nuance and subtlety. And also flexibility! Say a director says, "I hate the way he's playing that solo. It's far too emotional." At a session, you say "a little less dramatic" or something like that. With MIDI you have to go hunt for a sample to accommodate that, which you my or may not even have. It always just felt like a lot of extra work when a live player can facilitate it so much better. But even that's missing the point: people make music, not computers. If a computer is making music it's because someone used it as his or her instrument. As a great example, look at Michael Kamen's score to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. He goes back and forth between live orchestra and Kurzweil keyboard samples. It's just part of the aesthetic and works fantastically. So is he "wrong" for doing synth versions of totally acoustic instruments? Obviously not!

How did you become attached to Captain Abu Raed?

Amin and I became friends after I had scored his AFI thesis short, called Morning Latte. He's the biggest film music nut I've ever met in my life. Growing up I could win any film music trivia game on earth and yet Amin puts me to shame... so when it came time to score Captain Abu Raed, he and I were very eager to collaborate. Initially, Gabriel Yared was interested. He saw a rough cut and was really passionate about the film. He and Amin met in Paris, and when Gabriel said he'd do it, Amin called me, feeling guilty, and said "Should I do this? I'd be stupid to not have Gabriel Yared score my first movie, right?" And I told him, "Yes, you would be!!" I really saw that Amin was conflicted. He was a huge of admirer of Yared's, plus having an Oscar-winner on your first feature is a great thing for a director. So I could see that, in the end, it'd be better for his career if he and I waited to collaborate until later. But then fate stepped in and Gabriel was booked to work with Anthony Mingella. Amin texted me from Paris saying that Gabriel couldn't do it and that he was thrilled that he and I could work together. Gabriel even emailed a show of support for both of us, and we've kept in contact ever since. It was unbelievably humbling and he's truly one of the classiest men in this business.[Play "In The Fog" from Captain Abu Raed]

Did you try to bring any of Yared's possible "sensibilities" into how you worked with the score? Or did you go straightforward with your own style and sound?

Any sense of "Yared-ism" in the score is surely born of my love for his music and totally coincidental. There are a few nods to composers in the score, though. Given the director's obsession with film music, he actually dedicated the film to Michael Kamen and Basil Poledouris. So for one scene I snuck a little Poledouris-ism in as a very intentional top of the hat, though it's fairly subliminal. In another place I had a little Kamen-esque motif, though I ended up taking it out because both the director and I felt it was way too obvious. Only later, after recording the orchestra, did we realize that it would only be obvious to people like us and that we should have kept it in! The only other little homage is extremely hidden. At one point in the film Abu Raed meets a frenchman at the airport who introduces himself as "Francois Trauffu", an obvious play on Francois Truffaut. The cue which starts the scene, a mere 14 seconds long, is a sort of strange re-arrangement of a transitional melody used in a cue from Jules and Jim. I changed it so much that only a side-by-side comparison makes it clear. Nonetheless I love those little nods!

While this is Jordan's entry into the 2008 Oscar race, how was it working on a foreign film? Where there language barriers, both literally as well as artistically?

It is Jordan's first-ever submission to the Oscars, we're all so excited! I discovered working on this project that the world of foreign films is a truly fertile place and one which I really, really hope to continue to work in periodically. I know Amin would like to make other Jordanian films in the future, but I also would love it if I could score the occasional French film, or Moroccan film, or German film, etc. With regard to Captain Abu Raed, it really didn't feel like I was scoring a "foreign film" though because Amin really wanted it to feel as universal as possible. So for example, the use of Arabic instruments in the score is really quite minimized in favor of a rich orchestral palette. It's meant to feel like a fable that could be told by any culture on earth, and so the orchestra seemed the best route to accomplish that. So in this one instance, there wasn't a single barrier facing me in terms of language or artistic approach.

What were some of the traditional instrumentation you chose for the score?

The score features tons of cello and oboe solos (inspired by the fact that Amin has two big dogs literally named Cello and Oboe!), in addition to violin, viola, harp and flute solos. Then there are obviously more truly "orchestral" moments. On the Arabic side, I used kanun and tablas, but also augmented them with blatantly non-Arabic instruments like sleigh bells, castanets and other hand drums. The idea was, again, to create a score which had certain "non-Western" elements, but which didn't feel specifically "ethnic." It really should feel as universal as possible. I think, now with a year's hindsight, I probably could have pushed this more, but overall it seems to get the job done.

Given you've now piqued your interest in foreign film, as it was, what non-US director would you most likely want to score for? (say if a Malle or Kirosawa were alive today)

Through this project I've had the great pleasure of meeting so many different Middle Eastern filmmakers. I recently saw a film called Falling From Earth by a very rawly talented Lebanese director named Chadi Zennadine and really loved the film. There's also a great Palestinian director named Hany Abu-Assad who's film Paradise Now is so damn moving (and funny enough, doesn't have a single note of score). I would love to work with him down the line. At Sundance this year I saw an incredible German film called Die Welle by Dennis Gansel. He really, really impressed me...

What was you initial approach to the project?

Well, like I said, Amin really wanted it to have a strong fable-like quality. So the first thing I did was write a main theme that would characterize Captain Abu Raed, as the man himself. The idea was to have it feel almost like a lullaby. It's an extremely simple theme, playable with one finger at a piano. Amin is so score-centric in his approach to filmmaking that it was critical for him to have a theme he could remember before a single cue was written. So after the theme was done I basically set about scoring the film in a pretty standard way.

Amin and I never really had any disagreements over particular cues, except the very end of the film. I won't ruin the scene plot-wise, but it's a really, really emotional moment. My initial version really understated it. The whole scene was practically just cello and oboe solos. Amin wanted it bigger and bigger and bigger and I wrote 6 versions that kept getting more obscenely epic, until it finally felt like we were watching the grand finale of Ben Hur. At that point I put my foot down and told him that I was certain we were ruining his film, so we looked again at the first version, which Amin agreed was a far better way to go. So I won the fight (and remind him of this daily...). [Play "Finale" from Captain Abu Raed]

What other disagreements or positive surprises did you have working on the film?

Those were definitely the highlights. I guess the biggest "positive surprise" was just how easy it was to work with Amin, having never really collaborated on this scale before, in three short weeks. He's very particular, but so amazingly open to suggestion. I hear composers say that about directors a lot, but I personally haven't worked with anyone else who blends those two attributes quite the way he does. It felt so smooth and FUN! We had a blast. But we're both quite sure that our best work is ahead of us. He's got some absolutely killer scripts in the works right now...

How did Lisbeth Scott come to be involved in the score and what exactly did you two do together?

Very late in the scoring process I randomly started listening to Goldsmith's The Sum of All Fears with its totally haunting main title cue. It got me thinking about the possibility of using a vocal somewhere in the score. Amin and I never really discussed it, and I know we're really opposed to the now-cliche "wordless female vocal" that proliferates through so many scores. But I also had this feeling that it could be used in a really downplayed way somewhere.

So, I guess not surprisingly, the end credits came to mind. Amin had all this gorgeous aerial footage of Amman he was going to use for part of the end titles, so he said, "Why don't you have the voice come in after like 40 seconds, instead of right at the beginning?" So that's what we did - the orchestra recalls the Abu Raed theme then brings us something totally new and rich right as the footage comes in.

The question became, "who should sing this?" We talked about a few pop singers and whatnot that we had connections with, but quickly started talking about Lisbeth. I personally think her solo from Munich is one of the most stunning vocal solos I've ever heard in a film, and something in that raw emotional vein is precisely what we needed. So I called her and she was working on [The Chronicles of Narnia] Prince Caspian, plus her latest album at the time, and was really, really swamped. So she said "why don't you send me the movie and then we'll talk." So I sent her the rough cut of the film and she called me back telling me how much she loved the film and would be thrilled to be involved. So I wrote her this solo, and she wrote lyrics which Amin then translated into Arabic and taught back to her phonetically. I showed up at her studio and she said, "I had an idea of how to approach this I recorded ahead of time, so let me play you this first." She played back the most stunning, emotionally pure and raw thing I could have possibly imagined. I turned to Amin and said, "I think we're done here!" I literally didn't change a note. Her melodic sense was such an incredible and simple counterpoint to what I'd done with the orchestra that it seemed more honest to the film than the actual line I'd written her. It was just a truly special and beautiful moment!

Given that you've received a wide breadth of experience with various projects, what was your favorite project to work on?

That's a tough one! At the time when I'd finished it, that was easily Captain Abu Raed. No film I'd scored had touched me in that way. But I've done nine films since then ... the film I did this summer, Grace, may be my new favorite if only because it was no-holds-barred experimenting. The director encouraged me to really just try anything and everything I wanted, so it's tough to top that! [Play "3m14" from Grace]

Who would you most like to work with on a project?

Joss Whedon?easily. I'm a big fan of all his TV shows, and of course Serenity. The way he mixes humor and drama just blows me away every time. I'll find myself laughing then suddenly burst into tears, or on the flipside I'll be sobbing then suddenly break down laughing. He just immaculately understands human emotions and how to convey that on screen. Other than him, I'm a big big fan of Alexander Payne, but honestly his relationship with Rolfe Kent is one of my favorites today. I would love to work with Payne someday, but only if some apocalyptic circumstance prevented Rolfe from doing so, because I always get excited when they have something coming out.

What would be your dream project?

I guess anything by Joss Whedon! I also know a certain someone who wants to make the great modern adaptation of "Treasure Island," so I guess for now that's my dream project...

So, what's next on your project schedule that you're able to share?

I've just today finished the mix sessions for a new film called Knuckle Draggers, a really fantastic comedy that came my way a few weeks ago. And up next I've got a holiday film due out next Christmas called Make the Yuletide Gay, as well as a dark drama called The Sunset Sky. There are a few other things, but they're all still in that foggy "negotiation" phase so I'll leave 'em off the list for now!

Special thanks to Austin Wintory and Amin Matalqa for help with the article. Photo credits: Dan Goldwasser.

INTERVIEW: John Ottman flies with Valkyrie

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SoundtrackNet recently had the opportunity to speak with composer John Ottman about his monumental tasks undertaken for his work on Valkyrie. He discusses his approach to both editing the film as well as writing the score and how this marks a departure from his usual scoring style.

How did you and Brian get attached to the Valkyrie?

It's something that Chris McQuarrie, the writer of Usual Suspects, gave to Brian to look at. That's my understanding. I come into the picture when I get a phone call from Brian saying, "Hey, there's this little script I have. It's this little World War II movie. Don't worry, we'll be in and out of it in six months."They got it to United Artists, and United Artists agreed to make the movie.

It was going to be a smaller film, but then as they started developing the movie they realized the resemblance that Colonel von Stauffenberg had to Tom Cruise. So, the writing was sort of on the wall the whole time. It was the elephant in the room, it was so obvious Tom should play the role. At the point that he decided to play the role, it just got bigger and longer. [laughs]

Given your multiple roles on this picture, and you've worked with Brian in the past, why did you sign yourself up for this monumental task again?

Yeah. That's what all my friends ask me, especially when I complain. And they say, "It's your fault for saying yes." But the idea for this one... it was going to be an in and out, short and sweet gig. I said "fine" because when I do these long hauls with Brian and go to editing jail, I usually say, "OK. I'll go away for a couple years so I can go score some movies." Then this came up pretty quickly after Superman, and I was like, "Well OK. What the hell is going on? Why are you calling me?" You know?

And the promise was, of course, "Well don't worry. It'll be short. You can go back and keep writing music." Of course it didn't end up that way, and by no fault of Brian. It just became a bigger film. So, that's why I said yes.

It sounded like a very interesting movie to do, and something completely different from what we had done before. I liked the story, and I liked the fact that it was a historical movie about a true event. All of those factors got me into it. But again, I didn't know it would be such a long haul.

Did you enjoy the time more when you were just a composer, rather than including the editing duties?

Hell yes. That's a no-brainer. It's nice to have one responsibility on a film.

So over time, are there any tricks you've learned? Do you think the picture comes out better or the score comes out better when you multi-task?

I would say it's a complete wash because, I've said this before, even though if I'm editing the picture, I have a longer period of time to, perhaps, subliminally think about the score. There's really nothing I can do about it because I'm too overwhelmed with editing the picture. Had I just been the picture editor, a composer would have been on a couple months earlier than I ever have to even start writing the score. So, I have very little time to actually start writing the music. Because of that, I would say, the advantage to doing both really sort of balances each other out.

Having said that, the film becomes far more personal to me because I have a hand in making it. I would say it's not a huge boon to do both tasks, but I don't think it's a detriment, by any means.

At least for me personally, it's not an advantage for my own physical health.

Are there any tricks you've learned over the multiple iterations of working in that scenario?

Not really. I mean, I've always been a really psychotically organized person, and I think that if I weren't, there's no way I could possibly handle both tasks. I don't even have a personal assistant. On top of all that, I still find myself at the car wash washing my car and at the drug store picking up toiletries. Sometimes I ask myself, "Why am I doing this to myself?"

What inspired you to take on a full blown choral arrangement like that; did you get help?

I couldn't figure out a way to end the movie when people are walking out of the theater, because that's the end title piece. The movie ends emotionally. If I did more of the same, I felt it would be too much of a downer. There had to be something different about the music that followed, yet it still had to be emotional and somehow uplifting to reflect the heroism of what had just been attempted by these characters and the sacrifice. For some reason I thought, "Well, maybe if it was choral with lyrics...", even if we didn't understand the lyrics. It would feel like a piece of music we put on that could have almost been taken from somewhere else but still giving us that sort of feeling.

So that was the idea. A friend and I had written this melody for the end titles way before my idea to make it choral. So, of course, we had the problem of adapting German lyrics to a melody that had already been written.

We found the lyrics from a German poem by Goethe. Ideally I wanted for the lyrics to somehow be an analogy to the movie. In the lyrics of the poem, it was about little birds falling silent in the woods. The last phrase was the killer for me. It was, "Soon, you too will be at rest," and almost being at peace with what they tried to do. I was like, "That's just too perfect." So we adapted the lyrics.

We had to get help because I don't speak German. So, my conductor and orchestrator in the project had a friend at a university who was a German language scholar. We then found a music scholar that got together with him to basically take this melody and help us adapt it to the new lyrics.

Literally the night before the session, we were extending quarter notes to half notes and adding eighth notes everywhere. I was just afraid the whole thing would end up being a train wreck, but, in the end it sounded fine.

The big test is when the Berlin choir performed it, no one was laughing. So, then I realized, "OK it's working."

Was it the same for that track in the officer's club as well?

No, the officer's club is just an old song that we found that we wanted in the background of a scene. There's a lot of brooding, droning, subliminal music in the score. So, for the album, I just wanted to break it up a little bit by putting some stuff in that made it more of an interesting listen. There's literally 40 minutes missing from the album, but I wanted it to be an interesting listen.

Yeah, I was going to tell you a little news item I found yesterday. The German "Max Planck Physics Society" wanted to highlight the Chinese on their newletter and use a Chinese poem. Well it was that finally a student who had actually read the Chinese said that it actually wasn't a poem, it was an advertisement for a brothel in Singapore.

[laughs]

So, I was kind of curious if you had help with German, because you ended up picking this beautiful lyric and may realize later it was not what it intended to be.

Yeah. We has a similar problem, but not to that degree. I had a German guy listen to it early on, it's very early incarnation. He understood it, but he had this puzzled, confused look on his face because the words were broken up so awkwardly. I wouldn't be able to tell, but it was almost like, [singing] "I'm gooooooing to the store." So it didn?t quite make sense. So we had to sort of figure out a way to make the meter make sense to the Germans.

I noticed the score grew from the romantic period of the classical music for the composition. Where it was set in time, the rise of the Nazis, Romanticism was kind of coming off it's peak just before the story took place. Was that a conscious decision to work towards that style?

No. Film music by it's nature kind of goes towards that style when you enter a lyrical realm. So, that's the direction the score ended up taking simply for emotional reasons. But, most of the score actually goes completely against that, because we just wanted to make it... at it's heart, it's simply a suspense thriller. World War II is just a backdrop. The biggest mistake would be to do music that was trying to sound like the period and have to deal with the "war scores" as opposed to a score that's really just trying to make it as intense as it can be.

I think by making the score that way too, it was making the comment that I wanted this movie to feel different then you might expect and a little more modern. At the same time, now I'm completely contradicting myself, classic in the way it's scored.

In other words, if you look at the poster of the movie and the movie itself, the filmmaking... it's sort of a throwback to the movies of the 70s, we hope, because that's the movies we admire and adore the most. Brian, Chris McQuarrie (the writer), Tom Cruise and I, when we were talking about our favorite films; they all end up being from the mid to late 70s. The same with the film scores that we love.

So I've always sort of taken that sensibility with me when I write scores. That's sort of always where I learned what I did... from that era on film composing. Yet, I find a way to keep those sensibilities applied to the films I score now, but keep them updated for today. Valkyrie was just another example of that.

You mentioned also there's 40 minutes of score missing from the album release.

What the 40 minutes is a lot of, again, is the low end suspense under the surface kind of stuff. You know? There's actually some big stuff too I had to cut out. I wrote a lot of music for Africa, because I had to write that music before we shot the scene just because of scheduling purposes. So I wrote a bunch of stuff. There was a church scene that we hadn't shot yet, so I wrote a bunch of music for that. I have this thing; if it wasn't in the film, I didn't put it on the album. That's some pretty cool stuff, but you have to make these table decisions when you put an album together.

What was I going to fix? The waltz on the album was actually a scene we cut from the movie. It's the only scene on the album that was cut from the movie. It was so different from the rest of the score that I just decided to put it on there just to break things up.

My last favorite film waltz was the Goldsmith scene from The Boys from Brazil, which there's screwy resemblance to Valkyrie with the Germans and Nazis. You think it's mandatory that all films with Nazis in Germany must include a waltz?

Right, exactly. That's the rule. Right. [laughs]

Did you at least enjoy the exercise of throwing something that's strictly there as an example...

It was fun, because for this waltz we had to shoot to playback. We were on set, and there was a scene where Tom's character dances with his wife in their living room. They needed music to playback to, but I had no equipment with me in Berlin. So, I had to sing the piece to a partner of mine, Lior Rosner in LA. He transcribed it and added his own flourishes. Then we sort of put this thing together, and he sent the synthesized rendering back to me. That's what we played on the set for them to dance to.

So for the longest time, it was in the film. We ended up cutting the scene. We cut the scene even before we recorded the score, but we had already done the work and it was a cute little piece of music, so I decided, "What the hell, let's just record it."

Then I thought, "Why don't we record it because maybe in case we put the scene back, or maybe it'll be on the DVD." Who knows? It was just supposed to be playing on an old record player, so it's supposed to be all scratchy and tinny anyway. But, I thought just putting the whole "balls out" version on the album would be fun to do.

You've mentioned about the tact taken with the score, because there's an underpinning of suspense and intrigue. You've done suspense and intrigue a lot before. Was it very easy to slip back into that thinking for this film, and just jump right in?

Well, yes and no. I fall into that somewhat easily. At the same time, I did have to acknowledge that it was a realistic piece, so I had to be conscious of the fact. So, I didn't want to go all out crazy film score-ish with it because then the intelligence would be sort of pulled back a bit or compromised. So I just consciously made the decision to make a lot of it low key and intertwining with the sound design.

I guess the biggest trick was to have so much music going without really feeling there was a lot of music. It was far more music than I had ever imagined I would need to write for the film. I thought maybe it would be 30 minutes of score for the entire film, and it ended up being 100 minutes because we just found that the score itself just became the heartbeat of the movie and just couldn't stop.

But, if you literally keep it going at one level, without telling a musical story, it can have the opposite effect. It's basically going to make it a passive experience for the audience. So the trick to keeping all that music in the movie and making it interesting for the audience, is to really concentrate on telling a musical story as much as we can, and not just rely on putting your finger on a drone sound and calling it a day. Because even though that might work for the moment, collectively it's going to bring the film down. So, even in these long dialog sequences, where the music is playing for five or six solid minutes under a scene, it's really got to be telling a story.

That's really difficult to do with an orchestra. It's easy to do with a synthesizer pad, but when you use the orchestra playing quadruple pianissimo, it can be really a very tender, difficult thing to do. So, I guess that was one of the biggest challenges.

You've been scoring so may of these blockbusters and hero flicks with these really strong themes, and they're attached to characters. With this large cast of characters already in this film, and a very intricate but kind of straightforward plot, did you have to hold yourself back? Did you approach writing the music differently?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, had this been a superhero film, the music would often be more overt and maybe have more succinct themes and so forth. This is an ensemble piece and so you can't have every little character have a theme. It's very much like Usual Suspects, where there's basically one overriding theme that is reflected in all the characters in the movie with the exception of a few other motifs. In Valkyrie, it's sort of the same thing. I mean, there's a motif for when they are plotting. You always hear this low altos on the strings. Whenever they're talking about the plot or when things are unraveling you'll hear that. So, there are some things that I tried to design to bring things together in terms of having the score be the thread.

Because it's not a superhero film, and it's more gritty reality, sometimes the score had to be a little more invisible and by doing so be a little less melodic. It's probably one of the least melodic scores I've done with the exception of where it ends up heading.That was the other challenge, to make that ultimate evolution from suspense score to tragedy. The scores both serendipitously become more emotional as it goes along.

So, there's then something that is not as theme driven then, for the casual listener, what would you hope they would take away from this score? Are there any particular pieces you're extremely proud of?

I don't know. I hope a listener would recognize the detail that can be incorporated in a seemingly simple score. Having said that, actual restraint is what a composer has to make himself do.I think it's often a very simple score. There's a lot of repeating lines, and again it's just something that happened to work for the movie. Film music is a really interesting animal, especially, the album versus the movie, because on the film, you do what you have to do to make the film work. I found by being very simple, this time around, did way more for the film than had I been more complicated with the score. Now, when you take that and put it on a album, then sometimes it's not the most interesting listen, so I'm hoping despite that, people still enjoy the album.

Imean, even though I had set out to make this a really modern score, I originally thought, "Oh, this is going to be 80% synthesizer. It's really going to be just a drone." But as I started writing it, I started just infusing what I normally do, and it became a lot more orchestral, and again 70s driven music, than I had anticipated, which actually made it more fun and rewarding for me in the end. So, I'm happy with what I was able to push music-wise.

I heard a lot more use of the really heavy brass than you've been using in the past. You've cut a lot of gentle, subdued scores, even the superhero ones. You had Superman's theme, but it wasn't as ostentatious as something strong can be. When do you finally realize the power from an instrument, then people just stick to that, you know?

Well, it's also that the power of the instrument when's the music is more simple. It's amazing. This is again, it's a simpler score. So, when the brass actually kicks in, it's got this fused power to it because the music that I wrote on this is just very simple orchestrationally.

What was probably your most enjoyable experience?

My most enjoyable experience? That was probably on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It's this little movie that no one saw, of course. Those are normally sometimes your favorite experiences. It's always depressing when no one actually sees the film. I had a very good time on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and it's one of those experiences where I can't even recall any drama. I just wrote the score. There was no temp to contend with. I just sort of just did my thing, and it was a "lovefest" from day one, we all had a good time. I had a blast writing that score, because there was no sort of darkness over me at all. It's one of those movies where you see it again, and it's even better every time.

Shane did a good job.

Yeah, he really did. He was a really great guy to work with, because he just was easygoing, trustful, and there was no psychosis or fits. It was so nice to be in that environment.

Do you have any upcoming feature projects you can let us know about?

No, I have nothing right now. It's funny, after being through such hell for a year and half. I got a call the other day from Richard Kraft about a potential gig. My first reaction was dread and anger. It's like "wait a minute. Why am I reacting this way? I should be relieved and happy there's potential for another movie." That tells me something... that I just need to, physically and mentally, relax for just a few weeks.

But, of course, you know what'll happen. It's a typical freelance situation. Once I start relaxing, I'll start freaking out that I'm not working on something. So, hopefully something will come up pretty soon, but there's nothing lined up yet.

So you've got a lot more experience now, and you've worked in just about every genre when it comes to films. What would be your dream project to work on?

I'm still waiting on that Dances with Wolves movie. Big vistas, long notes. That's my dream film. I'm speaking for probably many film composers, but it's that whole Barry-esque, kind of Out of Africa kind of movie that I?d love to do.

Thanks to Costa Communications and John Ottman for their time and assistance with this interview.

INTERVIEW: Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard

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It is a very rare film project that sees a collaborative effort between two of Hollywood's top composers. In fact it has happened only once in recent history, and that was for Batman Begins in 2005. Otherwise, you'd have to go back to Newman and Herrmann's The Egyptian in 1950. Hans Zimmer (Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean) and James Newton Howard (The Village, Michael Clayton) return for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight to continue exploring his Batman universe with their music. SoundtrackNet had the opportunity to sit down with the composers and discuss the score's journey into darker terrain and their ideas behind the concepts for the score.

What makes The Dark Knight musically different than Batman Begins?

HZ: You heard the Joker Suite? I don't think anybody has done anything to match this in a Hollywood blockbuster. Look, the whole point was to be as provocative as possible. Everybody calls their movies "dark" these days. I think one of the differences with this, it's not dark through more violence - it's dark because it has interesting ideas - it has dark grown up ideas.

JNH: It feels real, it feels relevant to our times.

In what way?

JNH: The disintegration of society...

HZ: Discourse between different philosophies, anarchy versus old fashioned values. The character of the Joker is completely fearless and I felt that part had to be completely fearless. And then you have the character of Harvey Dent who is truly a white knight, and truly a good person and truly elegant. Being able, between the two of us, to create that type of incredible contrast, where the light is brighter and the black is blacker.

Did you split that up at all?

HZ: Not really.

JNH: Very little actually.

HZ: Because the world you live in, which is the world of fans and the semi-informed, after a while you start believing that stuff. Nobody will ever know who wrote what tune and what piece.

JNH: Including us!

HZ: Including us. We were doing it on this one, listening to something from the first one, going is that your tune or is that my tune?

JNH: Really true, we just don't know anymore.

HZ: The other thing we set out to do is the Joker thing, which is a singular issue. We had to split apart. The important thing of the Joker as a character is that it is a singular philosophy. Only he could be that fearless. It had to come from one guy.

JNH: And I'm too nice to work on the Joker.

HZ: Not entirely. You're not that nice!

So if you did the Joker, did you do Harvey Dent?

HZ: Yes. But one of the devices I used on [the Joker] was to make it very electronic because that turns it into a singular vision. People always think it's really easy, a cop out to use electronics. It's quite the opposite because you have to create and craft every note. It's not just thinking about the note, you actually have to make the note from scratch! And the other peculiar thing about that is that it is much more acoustic than a lot of the other things. A lot of the stuff is Michael Levine playing violin.

JNH: Fantastic, by the way.

HZ: A lot of it is the attitude, what I did with it, how I chopped it up, the editing. It's pretty out there. I talked with these guys for three, four months, because it was all about the performance.

So the final result, you would say is more electronic?

HZ: No, it's more complete. The usual way you go about scoring a movie, is you get your orchestra or guitar and you do the music. You're just a small portion of that world. What we do is the whole canvas. We are on the very bottom of the left corner of the screen and the very top of right corner of the screen. We create a sonic world, a whole environment, for this movie to live in. There's probably more orchestra in this score than in a lot of scores we've done recently, but you may not know it.

JNH: You'll know it sometimes.

HZ: It becomes very pure. Then things sound very electronic, like Harvey Dent's other side of things. I was listening to James work and it's about using - one of the ideas was to go and only use brass instruments. It's really interesting how modern that texture sounds. And how electronic that texture sounds.

The first film, you mentioned setting the palette for the world. How did that evolve for the second film?

HZ: They evolved just the way the world has evolved... if you want to think of them as the "cheerful version" last time and "hopeful version"....

JNH: This one's not as happy.

HZ: Not as carefree.

You wrote a theme for the first one that had never been used, that you said in an interview you saved for sequel. Did you get to use it this time?

HZ: It's in, twice.

JNH: Do your theme speech. Because I think it's really good.

HZ: It's something that occurred to me. I have a feeling that out there in the world, there are people waiting for James and me to "come to our senses" and stop this dark nonsense with the iconic two-note thing and write a happy jolly theme like the old Batman. You know, like the Danny Elfman one. It ain't gonna happen. Because this is not the world we're in. This is not the character we're doing. It's not the movies we're doing. They just need to get over that. For our Batman, it would just be wrong.

JNH: It would give you too much information about this character, which is not true. It would be misinformation. When you assign a heroic theme to something, some kind of a tune, you're giving away a lot of information that may or may not be true about this guy. We still don't really know who Batman is yet. Very complex, he's constantly evolving that character. He doesn't know who he is. We feel that it's much stronger to say less, musically, about him and let his character sort of speak for himself.

In London, on the first film, you worked in very close proximity. Here you're still pretty close, but there's a little more separation.

HZ: Five blocks.

Did that make a difference this time?

HZ: I don't think it was so much about that. As I said, the Joker had to be done by one guy. And then the Harvey Dent thing became very much a one guy operation as well. On the other stuff we collaborated. Plus, it's not like we didn't communicate, it's not like we didn't sit in the room together, like we haven't talked about this thing incessantly for a year. I started on the Joker last July -? which has its own set of problems, just now when I was trying to find all the mixes again. A lot of digits have gone on and off that hard drive in that time!

Have you set up anything for a potential third film, musically hinting at something that would come later?

HZ: No. No, because we don't know what the third film is! One of the things I think is really interesting about this movie is that it feels a bit like the place the world is at currently.

JNH: It really does.

HZ: And we don't know which way it's going to turn!

JNH: Who knows where it's going to be in three year, or two years or one year for that matter.

And with Harvey Dent, fans of Batman know that eventually he goes down a darker path. In your themes for Dent, are you hinting at what could happen?

JNH: It does happen. Maybe. I can't remember actually.

What were your gut reactions after seeing the film for the first time?

JNH: Scared. Amazing movie. Just like, "Wow!"

HZ: This film hasn't changed much since its very first cut. It was always solid. The writing is really solid. That's why I like working with Chris [Nolan]. When you talk to him, you know what the movie is going to be like.

You said "scared". In terms of what you may have to compose?

JNH: Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm alwasy scared when I see something that needs two and a half hours of music - and that is really phenomenal. And where you can tell that this director had raised the bar. Now it's our turn. Now we're up. He's been working on it for two years or whatever, and we're going to go through everything we go through, which is very difficult and painful sometimes. But I think we done good.

HZ: I think so. You've never heard me say this. And this is the first time you will hear me say this. James and I think this is one of the best movies we have ever worked on. And part of it might be the experience. When you spend a long time on something, you have to love it, otherwise it's impossible to get through. But this one, I'm still excited about on a daily basis. I'm having some separation anxiety.

JNH: What [Hans] did on the Joker is so great. I was very jealous when I heard it and I thought that is as good a conceptualization of an idea I've ever heard in my life.

HZ: I just thought it was enough of playing it safe. I think if this is not provocative, if we aren't fiercely provocative in this here summer blockbuster, we might as well not start.

JNH: Right. That's what got us doing it together in the first place. We were getting to places where how many car chases can you do?

HZ: Yeah. We both know how to write heroic things, do all that conventional stuff. This movie, from everybody's point of view, there was a great intensity.

Very last question. Did your composing roles as "Batman" and "Robin" stick or did you switch it up this time?

JNH: [laughs] No. Nothing sticks. Hans is my captain.

HZ: I'm what?

JNH: My captain...

HZ: Oh no, I'm Catwoman. Wanna see my claws babe?

JNH: Hey, what happened to Robin anyway?

Special thanks to Allie Lee at Chasen & Co., and Dan Goldwasser for making the interview happen.