1. ON THE TRACK

2. This page intentionally left blank. 3. ON THE TRACKA GUIDE TO CONTEMPORARY FILM SCORING Second EditionFred Karlin and Rayburn WrightRevised by Fred KarlinForeword by John WilliamsNew music examples engraved by Doug LeBow Routledge New York London 4. Published in 2004 by Routledge29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.comPublished in Great Britain by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www.routledge.co.ukCopyright 2004, 1990 by Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright. Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis orRoutledges collection of thousands of eBooks please go towww.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, includingphotocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Karlin, Fred. On the track: a guide to contemporary film scoring/Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright; revised by Fred Karlin; foreword by John Williams. 2nd ed.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.ISBN 0-415-94135-0 (alk. paper)ISBN 0-415-94136-9 (pbk.: alk.paper)1. Motion picture musicInstruction and study. 2. Composition (Music) I. Wright, Rayburn. II. Title. MT64.M65K3 2003781.54213dc21 2003011579 ISBN 0-203-64390-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-68122-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-94136-9 (Print Edition) 5. To Doris, my wife and fellow artist RWTo my wife, Megan, who brings so much vision and insight to everything I do FK 6. This page intentionally left blank. 7. CONTENTS Foreword xvii by John Williams Preface to the First Editionxix Preface to the Second Edition xxi Acknowledgments for the First Editionxxiii Acknowledgments for the Second Edition xxiii Introduction3 How to Use This Book 10I PRELIMINARIESII CONCEPTUALIZINGIII TIMINGSIV COMPOSINGV RECORDINGVI ELECTRONIC AND CONTEMPORARY SCORINGVII SONGSVIII THE BUSINESS Epilogue: On the Track 730 The Interviewees and Authors 734 Appendix A. Study Assignments755 Appendix B. Footage/Timing Conversions 763 Appendix C. Calculator Method for Timings766 Appendix D. Drop-Frame 769 Glossary 772 End Notes781 Bibliography 787 8. Web Sites791Music Excerpts 794Index802 9. This page intentionally left blank. 10. FOREWORDI am often asked by young composers how they might gain entry into the world of filmmusic. The answer, of course, cannot be simple. While there is no magic formula, goodtraining, patience, and a large measure of assistance from lady luck will be indispensable. To begin with, knowledge of the great films and awareness of current trends in thefield are solid prerequisites. After that, experience will be the best teacher. Becausepractical experience is difficult to come by, the next best thing would be the aid of top-caliber professionals willing to share ideas and techniques that have been gleaned fromyears of experience. On the Track does just that. It sums up the experience of theseprofessionals and offers the reader the opportunity to learn about film composing fromtheir inside point of view. In the past, most composers approached the world of film music from a variety ofbackgrounds. They began by studying concert music or playing jazz, rock or pop music,orchestrating for other composers, writing arrangements for vocalists and big bands,working on theater productions, creating and producing television commercials, and ingeneral, exploring all styles of music. They also studied the great film scores that led theway for all of us. The broad experience gained from this eclectic background was, and is,probably the best preparation for a film composer. Today, as new composers begin theircareers in film, they have access to extremely sophisticated synthesizers and computertechnology, but they may find that their background is more limited in scope than theirpredecessors. To offset this, these musicians will undoubtedly work in areas other thanfilm in order to gain a wide range of useful experience. Although the study of music will be ongoing throughout a composers career, he willneed the information contained in this book to understand the usage and function of filmmusic as it exists today. Writing, conducting, and playing music while learning aboutdrama through the study of great literature, theater, and films are all essential in preparingfor the challenge of scoring films. Karlin and Wright encourage the reader to apply his or her knowledge by practicingscoring film segments from available videotapes. Because their book is organized bytopic, it is easy to use as a reference manual or textbook, yet can be read chapter bychapter if you wish. The many musical examples and references to specific moments in avariety of films make the book a tremendously valuable source of study. One final note. In the past weve noticed that many of our best musical minds were notinterested in film scoring. This was probably the result of the fact that these composersfound too many restrictions and technical problems in the film medium, and for some, thepractice was simply too low brow. I do, however, think that in the future we will seemore and more serious young composers willing to devote some of their energies tofilm music. If this happens, and I think it will, the resultant music may have an effect,hopefully beneficial, on the development of the art of music itself. Media music is here to 11. stay. It is part of our musical future for better or worse, and this book can help to make itbetter. For these and other reasons, I celebrate the publication of On the Track. I wish this book had been available when I started in the film industry in the 1950s. Itcollects and presents so much painfully acquired knowledge that it is a signal advance inthe study of our field. Finally, I wish all students and readers of this book great joy and much success as theyenter what is a universe of sight and sound that we are all just beginning to explore.JOHN WILLIAMS 12. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITIONThis book has been written to fill a gap on the film music bookshelf. Rayburn Wright hadnot been able to find a text for his film scoring courses at the Eastman School of Music.He wanted a book that discussed traditional film-scoring methods and also the currentcontemporary practices in the new era of computers, synthesizers, MIDI, and song scores.Coincidentally, Fred Karlin had started a book on film scoring in answer to manyrequests for information explaining how films were scored in contemporary Hollywood.As two longtime friends and colleagues, we decided a collaboration would be ideal. Our aim has been to create a comprehensive and practical manual detailing theprevailing techniques in the art and craft of contemporary film scoring as practiced bytodays leading composers and lyricists. To achieve this goal we have interviewed forty-one composers and lyricists. In addition, because we sought to offer a well-roundedpicture of what it is really like to be a professional composer or lyricist in the film world,we have interviewed thirty-six talented professionals from other aspects of the workingenvironment: producers, directors, writers, film editors, music editors, music executivesand supervisors, network executives, recording engineers, dubbing mixers, musicians,music contractors, copyists, and composers agents. Network and music executives titlesare given as they were at the time of their interviews. To make these candid interviews most useful, quotes have been integrated into our textby topic; for example, quotes about dubbing by composers, directors, and dubbing mixerswill be found in Chapter 19. We have of necessity edited the tape-recorded comments(with permission) for purposes of clarity and readability. We do not mean to slight in anyway those of our colleagues who did not participate in these interviews; any suchomissions are due solely to space limitations or, in some cases, scheduling difficulties. We have limited our discussion and score excerpts to approximately 150 films, most ofwhich are currently available on videocassette. We have not necessarily selected ourfavorite films and scores (although all the films and scores included herein have much torecommend them). Rather, we have chosen a well-rounded cross-section of works thathave yielded invaluable film-music examples. We have placed soaring symphonic scoresand funky contemporary scoring solutions side by side, believing that musical style is thelanguage through which the score speaks, and that each film score should find its ownappropriate and sometimes even unique musical language. We have made few distinctions between composing for motion pictures and television.We have pointed out those differences that affect the composer, but the process ofscoring a film is basically the same in either medium. To provide a historical frame of reference, release dates are indicated parentheticallyfor all motion pictures and television films the first time they are mentioned in eachchapter. This book is addressed to women and men alike. To make this clear we started writing 13. he/she and himself/herself before reluctantly recognizing that this procedure wasboth cumbersome and unreadable. Until a nongenderized pronoun comes into usage weare using the generic he and him to include all people. More and more women arenow becoming active in all phases of film production, and we hope the informationwithin this book will encourage women to compete in a field which historically has beenheavily dominated by men. Although our primary goal has been to create a textbook by and for film composersand lyricists, it is our hope that all those involved in or interested in filmmaking and theprocess of scoring films will find this book helpful in developing a deeper understandingof the art and craft of film scoring and of the men and women who dedicate their lives tothis highly demanding profession. 14. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITIONThe function of music in films has changed somewhat from the forties, the sixties, oreven the eighties. Different generations of filmgoers bring to the movie-going experiencedifferent levels of awareness, emotional needs, and expectations of what that experiencemight be. An emotional moment that would have been emphasized in a film made in1948 would not necessarily be played with the same emotion in 2003. This is to a considerable degree due to the differences in the films as much as theaudience. When films are made that reflect the emotional values of past generations, themusic is invariably in tune with those values. The Harry Potter series and the Lord of theRings trilogy are clear and convincing examples of this, and there are many others. Thatis not to say that the music is dated, which it isnt by any definition, nor are the films. Infact, those films use every technical advancement possible to tell their stories. But when afilmmaker takes a different point of view, creating a film that speaks to the audience in adifferent way emotionally, then the music must come from the film and do the same.American Beauty (1999) is one such film, and the music Thomas Newman created for itis completely appropriate to its story and method of storytelling. With its abstract malletand percussion sounds and emotional understatement, it is perfectly suited for the filmwritten by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes. High tech films, fast cutting, digital imagery used for style as well as contenttheseelements can signal the creation of films demanding like-minded musical sounds andapproaches. Scores inspired by these films may well have been difficult or impossible tocreate twenty years ago, just as the technology didnt exist to make the films. In thisregard there have been changes and developments in the scores created at the turn of thetwenty-first century. By and large, however, the values inherent in a fine film score remain constant: astrong concept, a deep connection with the film and its emotional core, the appropriateexpression of those emotions (whether understated or played full out), and an organicempathy with the films characters and story. In this revision of On the Track, I havedeleted some, but not many, references to films from the seventies and eighties; thelessons these scores and excerpts teach are timeless. To offer the best overview of filmscoring in 2003 I have supplemented these resources with many excerpts from thenineties through 2002. In updating this second edition it has been necessary to omit Alex Brinkmans clickbook. Although still useful, especially in learning the craft of film music timing(s),almost everyone writing music for any sort of film or video project today uses a computeras a timing aid, relying on various sequencers or the Auricle program to do so. In a bookthat is still over 500 pages, it just isnt practical to include it. I have also deleted materialabout television commercials and other special applications of music with images (and Ihave not added a section on music for computer games, a growing business). This is not 15. to imply that these fields are unimportant; in fact, there are film composers who havelearned a great deal about scoring films by writing music for commercials. Spacelimitations have precluded a discussion of these subjects, but the reader will find that thetechniques and philosophies discussed here will prepare you well for work in those otherrelated fields. Scoring for television, on the other hand, has its own new chapter (Chapter22). I have done a moderate amount of reorganization, giving ethnic and genre music aseparate chapter (Chapter 11), for instance, and adding a great deal of material on thecreation of electronic mockups. The two chapters on electronic music have beencompletely rewritten, now being represented by Using Electronic Music. TheFilmography has been replaced with a section listing Music Excerpts, which containsall the excerpts included in this text accompanied by their Figure numbers. Filmsmentioned within the text now can be found in the Index. This text was never intended to be a survey of film scores. My choice of films todiscuss and to illustrate with musical excerpts should be taken strictly as examples thatillustrate points and techniques discussed within the text. A section entitled Scores forStudy will be found at the end of some of the chapters, and these, too, should in no waybe considered an all-inclusive survey, but rather, as the title suggests, a guide tocontemporary film scoring. On the Track does not offer a tutorial on writing melodies, nor will you learn fromstudying it how to create effective harmony, rhythms, or orchestration. These are allrequisite skills requiring study and analysis. If you need help with the latest electronichardware and software, you will need to study the available monthly journals (see theBibliography), enroll in a course for this purpose, or learn with the help of a friend. Thesame is true of the arts of composing or conducting. Our purpose is to help you to learnhow you can best use all these musical elements in motion pictures and television. If youcan do so, we will have fulfilled our goal. Fred Karlin 16. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE FIRST EDITIONWe wish to extend special thanks and gratitude to our seventyseven colleagues whoshared their experiences with us so candidly. Their generous comments during our tapedinterviews have made it possible for the reader to benefit enormously from theirprofessional experience and know-how. Many music copyright owners, administrators, and print licensers have generouslypermitted us to reprint many excerpts from their motion picture and television musiccatalogs. In most cases these musical examples are not available through any othersource, and permission to reprint them here has allowed us to integrate these invaluableeducational reference materials into our text. Our thanks to ABC-TV, Almo Publications,Brooksfilms Music, Buttermilk Sky Associates, Inc., Chrysalis Music Group, ColumbiaPictures, Columbia Pictures Publications, Famous Music Corporation, The Guber-PetersCompany, Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation, Hemdale Film Corporation ITC Films,Inc., Lorimar Telepictures Music Group, MCA Music, MTM, New CenturyEntertainment, The Richmond Organization, Screen Gems-EMI, and Warner Bros.Music. Our thanks to Ruby Armstrong and Harry Lojewski at MGM/UA, Bob Bornstein andEldridge Walker at Paramount Pictures, Julian Brataluvitch at Universal Studios, HarrietCrawford at Columbia Pictures, Danny and Joel Franklin at Warner Bros., and JoAnnKane at Twentieth-Century Fox for the formidable effort of finding, duplicating, andassembling these manuscripts for inclusion in this text. Especially helpful were the talented composers who assisted us in researchingtelevision commercial writing and television theme writing: Keith Foley, Bernard Hoffer,Michael Karp, John La Barbera, Rod Levitt, Manny Mendelson, and William Waranoff.We wish to thank Douglas Newton, art director of Holland & Callaway Advertising Inc.,for permission to reproduce the sample storyboard. Our thanks to photographer Gay Wallin, who provided us with all the photographsillustrating the equipment and work environment that is so much a part of the scoringprocess. Special thanks to Alexander Brinkman, who programmed and printed the click bookpages reproduced herein, and to Marc Gebauer, whose Click-Calc chart of digital delaytimings we adapted for our Appendix C. Our thanks also to Electronic Musician (Berkeley, CA), Keyboard Magazine(Cupertino, CA), Mix Magazine (Berkeley, CA), and Elmer Bernstein (Film MusicNotebooks) for permission to include several excerpts from previously published 17. interviews. April Rhodes and Ken Warnick were of great help in transcribing some of our lengthyinterviews, and Ed Suchow of Captain Video in Montecito, CA, assisted us in makingavailable many of the hundreds of films on videotape that we studied. Our special thanks to our friends and colleagues who read our completed manuscript.Williams Russos and David Wrights many fine suggestions have been incorporated intothe final text. Doris Wright and Megan Karlin functioned superbly as overview readers;several readers, including Norman Gimbel, Harry Lojewski, John Richards, and Alan andMarilyn Bergman, read one or more chapters and were most helpful. Especially, in thatcategory, we wish to thank Clark Spangler, whose advice helped shape Chapter 19. Andfinally, our deepest gratitude to John Milligan, whose editorial insight and suggestionsregarding organization, style, and clarity have been incorporated throughout this book,and contribute greatly to its overall readability. We wish to extend our appreciation to Schirmer Books; Maribeth Anderson Payne,editor-in-chief; Robert J. Axelrod, associate editor; Michael Sander, managing editor; andJulia Palmore, copy editor, for their editorial contributions and invaluable assistance.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE SECOND EDITIONI have again relied upon the shared experiences of my professional colleagues, addingmore than fifty new interviews to those already integrated into this text, and I am verygrateful to them. Their contribution to this project is enormous. You will find themrepresented with a small sampling of credits in the section entitled Interviewees nearthe back of the book. Without the cooperation of the many music copyright owners, administrators, and printlicensers represented in this second edition, there would be no way to illustrate this textwith relevant and updated musical examples. Very little film and television music isavailable for study, which makes their enthusiastic support of this project all the moresignificant. My thanks to Cherry Lane (Rebecca Quigley) Dream Works MusicPublishing LLC (Todd Homme and Jennifer Schiller), Hal Leonard PublishingCorporation (Chrissy Swearingen), StudioCanal Image (Barbara DiNallo at StudioCanalU.S.), Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (Joel C.High), MCA Music Publishing, MiramaxFilms (Joe Rengel), MGM/UA (Jonathan Watkins, Chad Greer, Julie Wadley), New LineCinema (Lori Silfen, Jessica Dolinger), Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Fox Music, Inc.(Ted Spellman and Mary Jo Mennella), Universal Television Network LLC (BrigitteUrbina), Spyglass Entertainment (Paul Neinstein), Walt Disney Music Publishing(Jonathan Heely), Warner Bros. Music (Jay Morgenstern), and Warner Bros. Publications(David C.Olsen). It is no easy task to locate and retrieve scores from studio and copying servicearchives, or from the composers private libraries. It is only through the thoughtful careand preservation of these valuable resources that they are available to students andprofessionals to study, and I am very appreciative of the assistance given to me by so 18. many of my friends and colleagues in this regard: JoAnn Kane and the JoAnn KaneMusic Service (and especially Jim Hoffman and Bonnie Cook), Todd Homme and CindiSmith at Dream Works, Ridge Walker and Bob Bornstein at Paramount Pictures, DannyGould at Warner Bros., Joanna Beck and Darren Otero at the Sony Pictures MusicLibrary. Many composers were also very helpful in fulfilling my requests for particularcues from their scores: Elmer Bernstein (and Lisa Edmondson), Brad Dechter, AnneDudley, James Newton Howard (and Kira Lewis), Laura Karpman (and Ray Odell),Mark McKenzie, Mike Post (and Colleen Lightfoot), Donna and Lalo Schifrin (and NikiDuwick), Howard Shore (and Chris Rinaman), Scott Smalley, and Christopher Young(and Samantha Barker). In addition to providing the original scores, several composers and their associateshelped to recreate MIDI information so that the resultant score reductions could become amore complete and accurate study reference. This required considerable time and effortfor which I am very grateful: Jeff Poyne at Edward Shearmurs studio, Trevor Morris andAdam Howell at Hans Zimmers Media Ventures, and Kira Lewis and Jim Hill at JamesNewton Howards studio. My thanks to Doug LeBow. After I reduced all the new music examples to short score,he did an elegant job of music engraving, creating the perfect text font and makingadjustments as necessary to be certain that the music was as clear and easy to read aspossible. Thanks also to Tony DeGeorge, associate production manager at Routledge, forhis invaluable assistance. My thanks also to Daniel Allan Carlin and Segue Music for providing the spotting andtiming notes and the dubbing log that serve as real-life examples in this edition. Carlinand his associates at Segue Music also provided a great deal of research material on thesubject of music editing in 2002. Richard and Ron Grant were also very helpful inproviding technical information. And Louise P.Danton at the Academy of Television Arts& Sciences generously consolidated all the necessary documentation regarding Emmynominations and awards. John La Barbera gave me input about the academic community. I have integrated some first-person quotes from interviews published in the three majorfilm music journals, and wish to thank these fine resources for their permission to do so:Film Score Monthly (Lukas Kendall), Music from the Movies (Paul Place), andSoundtrack (Luc Van de Ven). The authors of these articles include Rudy Koppl, RandallD.Larson, and Jeff Bond. Thanks to Keyboard Magazine (Greg Rule) for permission toquote James Newton Howards comments about sampled orchestras (in an article by JohnKrogh). These journals do an outstanding job of bringing to life the world of film music.All citations from these journals in this second edition are attributed in my End Notes. Without the empathetic efforts of those who coordinate the schedules and publicityefforts of some of these artists, it would be impossible to interview them, and I thankthem very much for their assistance in this regard: Bill Bernstein, Margo Campillo (FoxMusic), Ronni Chasen, Meri Gavin, Cathy Kerr, Patrick Leader, Mo Nakamoto, JuliaQuinn, Jamie Richardson (and Christine Lusey), Francesca Robison, Monique Ward, GiaRusso, and Jeff Sanderson at Chasen & Company, and Helen Stotler (Gang, Tyre, Ramer& Brown). The business of film and television scoring is always complex and evolving, and I wishto give a special thanks to contractor David Low; RMA president Phil Ayling (and Marc 19. Sazer and Ximena Marin); Chief Executive Officer/Administrator of the Film MusiciansSecondary Market Fund Dennis Dreith; Diana Szyszkiewicz (ASCAP), and agents JohnTempereau and Michael Horner of Soundtrack Music Associates for bringing theirexperience to this difficult subject. And thanks to JoAnn Kane and Mark Graham fortheir input regarding music preparation. I found virtually every DVD and videocassette I needed for my research (many threeor four times over the course of a year) at A Video Store Named Desire in Los Angeles,and throughout all that time Elvis Le, Michael Tonai, and Sue Chae were patient, helpful,and interested in my research. I always hope for a few readers who will bring a fresh reaction to my manuscript whenI am finished with the draft, and I especially wish to thank my friend and colleague BillBoston, whose practical and artistic editorial suggestions throughout were very helpful inbringing additional clarity and readability to this second edition. He also corrected manyother details such as dates of film releases and nominations/awards credits, although Itake full responsibility for any such errors that I might have let slip by in spite of our bestefforts. Megan Karlin contributed many fine editorial suggestions. Thanks also to RebeccaCondit, who did the copy editing for Routledge and Henry Bashwiner for shepherdingthis manuscript through production. I am truly pleased to be working with Richard Carlin, executive editor of music anddance at Routledge. We met when he joined Schirmer Publishing just before my bookListening to Movies was published in 1994, and from that time on he has continued totake an active and enthusiastic interest in this project. He is a real friend of all those whoconsider film music a subject worthy of greater understanding and appreciation. 20. INTRODUCTION If youre going to go for it, you better have the goods the day somebody knocks on your door and says, Can you show up tomorrow with a cue?Robert Kraft, President, Fox Music If guys really want to be successful, the single biggest factor is being able to work well with people and having people like you. It is not a matter of what you know about music as much as it is how well you work with people. Mark McKenzie, Composer/OrchestratorWhat does it take to be a film composer? First and foremost, a film composer shouldhave a natural musical talent and an inherent dramatic sense. A well-rounded technicalbackground is a necessity, but to be successful, a film composers technical skills must besupported by emotional and psychological disciplines. Technique isnt enough. Thecomposer training to work in films must also be prepared for high levels of stress. Thereare time pressures, commercial pressures and artistic pressures, and the effectiveness withwhich the composer deals with these realities will determine to a considerable extent hisartistic and professional achievements in the world of motion pictures and television. Flexibility is essential. There will always be more than one way to score a film.Finding the right way will depend in part on the tastes and vision of the director, theproducer, and possibly other decision makers involved with the film. If the directorbelieves that a symphonic score is right for his film and the composer cannot demonstratethat there is a better way to score it, the music for that film will probably be a score thatuses a symphonic orchestra. This doesnt preclude creativityit just defines the medium.The composer must be flexible enough to compose within superimposed (and sometimesarbitrary) guidelines. Filmmaking evolves, usually through a series of changes; changes in the script,changes while on location, changes in the editing room, and, of course, changes in thescore before, during and after recording. There will be changes until the film is ready forrelease, and some of these changes may affect the music in unexpected ways. Preservingthe artistic integrity of a :30 cue when the editor has just trimmed :07.4 from the scenerequires a flexible approach to the art and craft of film composing. Education andexperience are useful only if the composer can accept these changes as part of thefilmmaking process. Rarely will the composer feel he has enough time to compose, and there are many 21. situations which require writing a great amount of composed and orchestrated music in avery few days. A dramatic one-hour television series episode may be ready for thecomposer to score a week prior to dubbing, but there are times when there may be as littleas three days to score an episode. On many projects, features even more so thantelevision, ongoing film editing changes can add further time pressures to an alreadydifficult schedule. The filmmakers or studios desire for a chart-busting single or soundtrack album canexert a great influence on film music decisions, even before a composer is selected toscore a film. If the composer is asked to create one or more songs, the marketplace is anever-present pressure from the time the composer begins a project, influencing everycreative discussion and decision. Another force at work, the pressure to conform to adirectors prescribed vision of what the score should be, can be difficult to accommodateartistically. In general, film composers must work with the constant push and pullbetween the artistic and collaborative elements of the motion picture and televisionindustriesthats how it is. Nevertheless, there are many times when the film composerwill be working with producers and directors who really expect and hope for a scorerepresenting the highest artistic standards. It is not wise to rely too much on the filmmaker for artistic validation. Sometimes thefilmmaker may not be aware of the potential contribution of a great score, and thereforemay settle for much less. They say, It works, says Ira Newborn. And its true, itworkfive percent. As long as it works five percent, they think it works. Its like thepass/fail system. They dont have the appreciation, because theyre not into it like wearethey dont realize that something can work ninety-five percent, something canreally work, almost as perfectly as it possibly can, and squeeze the juice and magnify thescene, or bring something new to the scene that really makes it intense. They dont quiteunderstand that. Brendon Cahill, former Universal Television Vice President, Television and HomeVideo, believes composers should strive for excellence whenever possible, and take thechances sometimes necessary to achieve that excellence. The composer who comes intoday and bases his foundation on the traditional great masters compositions has to beversatile enough to take a chance. The custom and practice for the composer during thelast fifty years has been that if you stay with the tried and true you cant go too far wrong.But it doesnt have to be that way. It all goes back to the director and producer; you hopetheyll say to you, Looktake a chance. Instead of playing the flute, lets play a clarinet.Instead of putting a string pattern there, lets put a synthesizer there. Or try to look atthings differently. Heres the piano and the mic is normally above the piano; lets turn themic upside down under the piano and lets see if that creates a different sound. Maybe theknock of the hammer on the string gets a different sound from the string itself. Take thechance? This is good advice. Robert Kraft, President of Fox Music, recognizes that it is not easy to get started in thefield. If you want it, if its in the pit of your stomach and you cant sleep unless youvegot to have it, then youre going to go for it. And you better also be prepared to wipe out.I mean, if there was an easy trail of bread crumbs, heres how you make a million dollarsa picture as a film composer, you know the line would be all the way out to PicoBoulevard. Theres no secret, youve just got to keep hammering away and hope to God 22. youre lucky. Get the shot and when you get the shot you have the goods. Kraft urges aspiring film composers to be prepared. At this point, I think there areenough film music programs that theres no reason not to learn your craft there. I mean,there are a lot of guys from the rock world who show up and say, Hey, man, can I jumpaboard this film scoring thing? My record careers in the toilet. I say, Oh, you know, itsa real skill to score a film. Its not just being a songwriter. But, if I hear that a guy wentto Berklee or went to the University of Miami or USC, it puts them one yard ahead of thecompetition because you see hes been serious, hes studied, hes maybe been anapprentice or hes been on a student film. I think it helps. The film composers currently working in motion pictures and television come to filmscoring with a variety of backgrounds. Some may have gone to conservatory, some comefrom film music schools like those at Berklee College of Music and the USC one-yearpostgraduate program, while others are more or less self trained, yet they all have paidtheir dues one way or another. But how? Some have a theatrical background (John Morris, William Goldstein, ArthurB.Rubinstein, David Shire); many have jazz backgrounds, including Johnny Mandel,Jerry Fielding and Patrick Williams (and many others, like Bill Conti and Shire, wereperforming jazz musicians as well); Jerry Goldsmith, got his early training at the end ofthe golden age of radio and the beginnings of television; still others came to films fromrock and roll and contemporary music (Anne Dudley, Trevor Rabin, Graeme Revell, LisaGerrard, Pieter Bourke, Mike Post), records (James Newton Howard) or commercials(John Powell, Peter Nashel); performing in symphony orchestras provided solidgrounding for Gerald Fried and Rubinstein; like some, Elmer Bernstein and BruceBroughton developed their abilities as classical pianists; and some are conservatory-trained as well. No matter how artistically and technically prepared the composer is, he cannot expectto know everything hell need to know when he begins his first film scoring assignment.The fact is that most composers learn most of what they know about film scoring on thejob. The successful film composers know what they need to learn when the time comes,and have excellent dramatic instincts which carry them through as they are learning. It is instructive to learn how some of the established film composers got into the field.Alan Silvestris first experience with scoring a film was on Romancing the Stone (1984).I got a call one night from the music editor, Tom Carlin, who said they had been lookingfor a composer, and listening to tapes for a long time and were still not happy withanything they had heard. And I mean, they had everybodys tapes on the floor when I gotover there. So he said Look why dont you try something. So I said, Fine. And he putBob Zemeckis on the phone and Bob said, Ive got this one scene with this guy and thisgirl and theyre running through a jungle and theyre swinging away with machetes atbamboo and the bad guys are shooting at them. Can you put together three minutes ofthat and be here for lunch tomorrow? I said, What the hell do I have to lose? So I didthis little demo. It was real makeshift with a LinnDrum and a DX7 and I didnt even haveany facilities at my house. I literally had the LinnDrum and I had an 8-track machine, butno board, no echonothing. And I put together a three minute Latin-flavored rhythmtrack. And I went in the next day to see the guys and that was it. They loved it! Theysigned me to do the picture the next day. 23. In this story Silvestri illustrates the ability to do whatever is necessary to become asuccessful film composer. He was willing to try to put something together for the directorovernight, with inadequate equipment. The director must have sensed his selfconfidence. Its no surprise that most film composers have been interested in music most of theirlives, whether rock and roll, classical music, jazz, or an eclectic mix. Howard Shorebecame interested in all kinds of music, and also the manipulation of sound, at an earlyage. I grew up in the fifties, and it was the period of Hi Fidelity and stereo. Taperecorders were accessible to almost everybody. They didnt cost that much. And I had a library near me that had a wonderful collection of classical and popularmusic, and so as a kid, 10 or 11, I would go into this library and I would just pull outrecordings of artists I didnt know. Because I was just interested in music. And I had thiswonderful source material right there. And they had everything categorized. And I startedpulling out records of Takemitsu and Cage and David Tudor, and Stockhausen, and Iwould tape them cause I had my tape recorder and I would make my own edited versionsof their stuff, and then I started to make my own tapes, to try to emulate them. When Iwas 12, 13, I was using a razor blade and quarter-inch tape. And then I started recording my own pieces. I got two microphones and a stereo and Istarted playing my instruments and recording stuff and recording other pieces. Therecorder had overdubbing, you know, sound on sound they called it back then, and I didthat for years and years. So Id actually built up a real early catalogue of samples andrecordings. Naked Lunch was done in 1990, but theres a recording that I made on mytape recorder in 1963 thats in the film, part of a piece that I wrote. And Ive actuallybeen doing that for years. I mean, even in movies like The Cell, I would take a piece ofmusic (and I did this very much also for Naked Lunch)and its basically an electronictechnique) I would overdub something else onto it. Sometimes the most efficient way to prepare to be a pro is to study privately. DuringCraig Safans early days as a film composer, composer Fred Steiner led him to studyconducting with Hans Beer. I studied conducting with him for half a year. When Idconduct I had very bad postureI used to bend way over when Id conduct. I wassupposed to stand up straight. He would put me against the wall and say, Now conductin four, and I would still bend over. So he went to his file cabinet and took out a ten-inchbayoneta real bayonetput it up against my chest, and said, Now you vill conduct!He was actually a perfect teacher for meI can keep the orchestra together and hit all thestreamers, and slow down and speed up and get everybody started at the right time. Safan is largely self-taught, but he was an indefatigable student of motion picturemusic. Early in my career I just haunted all the stores. I used to buy every score. I had ahuge collection of soundtrack albums, and Id study everythingevery score. Like most film composers, Bill Conti has a very diversified background. He has abachelors degree, two masters degrees, and a doctorate in music. But his studies andmusical activities cover a wide range of interests and skills. For my bachelors degree, Iwas on scholarship, but it was a bassoon scholarship. And was a keyboard andcomposition major. I went to Louisiana State, and then I went to Juilliard. At Juilliard Ihad to switch to composition. While I was getting all these degrees, I was workingplaying jazz at night, for about 15 years. So, the music turned me on in both areas [jazzand classical]. It was a background in all kinds of music. 24. This background helped prepared Conti for film composition, but it was no guaranteedentrie into the business. Often it is the unexpected twist of fate that gets you started. InVenice, Italy, I was the Italian music supervisor when they were shooting Blume in Love[1973]. So, I end up coming back to the States and staying with this still photographerfrom the film. So Im sleeping on his couch and he is going off on a one day shoot forHarry and Tonto [1974]. He says, Why dont you give me a piece of music to bring tothe cutter. I know the cutter; maybe hell slip it in during the dailies. I said, But I donteven have the script. What do you need to know, its about an old man and a cat?Well, man, Im supposed to know more than that Anyway, that day, as he wasleaving, he forced me to improvise at the piano, just so he could bring a tape. He said,You know, make it mellow, theres an old man, theres a cat, therere no chases. So Idid something mellow. Now, maybe six months later, I get the job. I actually get the job based on that tape.When the director [Paul Mazursky] asked, What is this piano stuff, where did it comefrom? the editor said, This guy So, I told the director, Well, look, I can really doyou a great Main Title, I can really and he said, No, no, I like the piano. I said, But,no, no, I understand, this is big time, this is motion pictures. He said, Look, I like thepiano. So I did a take-down of the piano, and I replayed the piano [for the soundtrack],and he said, Yea, but I like the way it was. And I said, But that was an old cassette on afunky recorder. He said, Yea, but I cut my main title to it. And it feels so good. So myfirst shot, in terms of Hollywood, was this scratchy thinI never heard of the movie,never read the script, the guys leaving for the plane in an hour, and I improvised aboutthree or four minutes, and thats what comes on the screen. There are several other disciplines other than scoring for television and motion picturesthat can provide excellent experience and training. John Powell started his career writingmusic for commercials, and stresses how helpful that experience was for him. One of thethings I enjoyed about doing jingles and the reason I would always recommend it tocomposers is that you get very varied requests. Today I might need to do something thatsa William Orbit style track and then tomorrow, Can you do Greek? And you have highpressure deadlines. It is very different, you know. Coming out of doing 30 second, oneminute tracks to doing Face/Off and doing two hours of music that had to link up in someway and have some kind of construction to it, its a terrible shock. You then have to sortof apply all these different muscles that are about, just being able to keep going. Stamina.And you suddenly realize how tough it is. I dont know when, if ever, Ill ever feel itsnot an exhausting process. I did that from 1990 till 95, till I came out to Los Angeles, and I still did it a little bitwhile I was here, with ISDN lines. They used to send me the film as a Quick Time movieand Id score it in a day. I think it develops lots of good technique thats really going to help you, everythingfrom being with difficult clients to understanding what Could it sound more like anavocado? means. The more you get into the difficulties of language and personalities anddealing with clients who are stressed and dont really know quite what they want fromthe music and time pressures being put on that, budgetary issues, quick changes. Andobviously things like failure and being cast over, having things being thrown out. Its alla very good education. Theres obviously lots of stuff its not going to teach you, but how 25. else do you get that information? Im sure some people are born just understanding thenature of film and how music should work with it. But I think for me it was a greattraining ground.Mark Mancina found himself scoring trailers. You know that was really, really goodschool work because what would happen is theyd give you a four minute big movietrailer, and within that four minutes youd have to have themes and youd have todevelop your themes, youd have to really run the scope of an entire score. I used to thinkthat when Id finish a trailer I only wished I was going to do that score because theamount of work that would go into all the thematic writingthats the work in doing ascore. I would write my own themes and all my themes were original themes for myselffor every trailer, and then, of course, somebody else would score it. I did some reallysuccessful trailers, and I got noticed from them, because people would want to know,What is Oh, its not from a movie, its a piece Mark Mancina wrote for this trailer andtheyd go, Youre kidding. One of the ones I did was Geronimo [1993]. The music forthat trailer was really powerful, and I got so much work from that. It really kind oflaunched me. Then I did a movie called Monkey Trouble, which was a childrens movie,that Ridley Scott produced, and then right after that the director from Speed came to visitme and he had heard some of my work and wanted to take a chance on me doing hismovie. On the trailers I didnt have any orchestraall synth on almost all of them. Oncein a while we would go in and supplement if I had a choir or if I had string players, butnot often. And of course I learned to do quite good mockups at that point.When I look back on it, I hated doing trailers when I would get hired for one becauseit was like doing an entire movie in four or five days, and working sixteen hours a daytrying to get it done. But I realized then when I went on to big feature films thats howyou work. You dont put in three hours a day. You work your butt off and thats the wayit is. So it was really, really good teaching.Sean Callerys pathway to scoring was far from predictable. He studied compositionand graduated from the New England Conservatory with a major in piano performance. Iwas at a trade show in 1987 wearing my alma pin, when the president of a companycalled New England Digital saw me, and he said, Are you a keyboard player? I said,Yes, I am. Well, we need a product specialist in Los Angeles. And it was just one ofthose moments where you just know it had to happen even though youre afraid ofmoving. So I lobbied very heavily for the position and I got it. And for the first six yearsin Los Angeles I learned the Synclavier Digital Audio Workstation, one of the very fewdevices in the late eighties that provided two things: it provided polyphonic samplingonly two products were doing that at the time, Fairlight and Synclavier. And it was alsothe first product to make available to the consumer hard disc recording, although it wasprohibitively expensive. And to make that even more enticing, the sequencer and the harddisc recorder worked together.So my job was basically to train, once a sale was made, people from all aspects of theindustry, whether they were musicians like Chick Corea, or giving tech support to peoplelike Stevie Wonder (one time). Then it became very clear in the late eighties that thisproduct was also a very powerful sound effects tool. And eventually a dialogue editingtool. So the hard disc recorder and the sound effects part became a very large part of thecompanys business. As a result I helped Mark Snow one day get sounds together for a 26. show that he was doing, and then I would fly up to Skywalker Sound and help train themon sound effects design, on the very same box. Callery learned a lot about scoring films by being around these composers, andeventually got a job as a sound effects editor on Star Trek. I sound-effects edited forabout two and a half years, and I was basically working on a show that people likeDennis McCarthy and Jay Chataway were scoring, and so I got to sit on the mixing stageand I loved studying their work. I also learned very much about how the effects and themusic worked together on the mixing stage. That led me to Mark Snow, who neededsome arranging help with some sound design and I met him and I did some stuff for himand he saw that I had some ability and we became friends, and he became a mentor tome. And I was his apprentice. When I connected with Mark I was able to put down thesound effects work and exclusively focus on the writing. My first writing job was onethat he helped me get which was for La Femme Nikita on the USA Network. And thatshow ran for 4 1/2 seasons. And there I really cut my teeth on an hour long action serieswhere schedules were very tight and I progressed from there into other projects. In 2001Callery began scoring the Fox series 24. Just how the composer goes about scoring motion picture and television projects willbe the focus of this text. When scoring any film, the composer has a responsibility tohimself and to the filmmakers to provide the finest, most creative and artisticallysatisfying musical solution for the film. This requires a very fine balance between theclients taste, the needs of the film, and the composers personal vision as a creativeartist. Although personal experience will prove to be the best teacher in learning toachieve this goal, it is our hope that the reader will benefit from the combined experienceof many of his colleagues and other members of the film community before he faces hisfirst (or his next) scoring assignment. 27. HOW TO USE THIS BOOKWe have tried to make this book as practical, realistic, and upto-date as possible. Here aresome suggestions for using it as a powerful learning tool:Use the DVDs and VideocassettesIn the text when we or those we are interviewing discuss specific film music, we arespeaking about the way the music sounds in conjunction with the film. The text offersimportant information about the music and the film, but the reader needs to experiencethe cinematic effectiveness of the music to understand and feel its dramatic usage andfunction. If you are interested enough in film scoring to read this book, you will morethan likely already be studying film music on video, in theaters, and on CDs. Mostsignificantly in a study program, you cannot learn about film music without watchingfilms to experience and understand the interaction of music and film. You will find a supplementary resource at the end of some chapters, Scores forStudy. Some of these cited illustrations are discussed in the body of the chapter, whileothers are additional referrals for your study. They are not a survey of examples, butrather a representative sampling cited to illustrate specific aspects of film scoring.Study the Films and Music ExamplesWe recommend that you study the films and music examples along with this text. Screentwo or three of the recommended titles at a time. The cues referred to are notrecommended as the only possible musical solutions for each scene. They represent therelease-print score, and as such they are valuable reference materials. Dont ignore cuesand scores (or films) you dont like; there is a great deal to be learned from a cue that youbelieve doesnt work, and every cue you study is an opportunity to observe your reactionto the specific techniques and dramatic attitudes discussed in the text. With that in mind,take notes on the relative effectiveness of each cue, and analyze your value judgments.Then look up the chapter references and reread those passages in the book, studying thespecific music cues in the films. Continue taking notes, as this will help you identify andunderstand your reactions. Most of the musical examples have been reduced from full score to short score orsketch format. All score reductions are in concert pitch, with as much informationindicated as is practical. Although in some cases orchestrational touches (includingelectronic textures) have been omitted, all musical material is given that a composerwould be most likely to include on his sketch. Most electronic elements are never written 28. down, and become very difficult to notate accurately after the score has been recordedand dubbed. When studying the score excerpts with picture, listen for electronic lines andcolors not indicated on the score reductions provided here. Pages from full scoresreprinted in the text are all in transposed pitch unless otherwise indicated on the score.Add Your Own MusicIf you have a stereo VCR with two discrete inputs, you can add your own music to thesecond track of a film or television episode you have taped off the air. You will not beable to play dialogue and effects on the other track if a section of the film you wish to addmusic to is already scored, but you can add music to scenes that are not scored, or addmusic to a scene and play back for study without the original soundtrack.Listen to the Soundtrack AlbumsSoundtrack albums are an unrealistic reference as a primary resource for studying filmscoring because music in films is very nearly always competing with sound effects anddialogue; nonetheless there is great value in studying an album after studying the score asit plays in its film context, especially to appreciate the musical subtleties that may not beaudible on the film soundtrack. This is the study of film music. Music included on thesoundtrack album may not even be in the film, is sometimes abridged, or may beinaudible under sound effects or dialogue.Read Other BooksThe bibliography includes a short list of selected books and periodicals. Reading thelatest periodicals and trade papers is essential in order to keep informed of currentdevelopments, especially in electronic and contemporary scoring. Use the GlossaryAll words set in boldface type can be located in the Glossary at the back of the book.Practice the MathA guaranteed way to be clear about timing problems and film math is to work through thebooks practice problems in Chapters 8 and 9. A guaranteed way to be confused in thisarea is to skim those chapters without doing the problems. It takes practice to get a realunderstanding of the math, and handling these numbers can be confusing at first.Computer programs also need to be practiced. 29. Listen to Those Who KnowThe value of anyones opinions depends on his credibility. The 123 professionalsinterviewed for this book are among the outstanding experts in Hollywood filmmaking.All work successfully in the field, and all have a self-evident, deep interest in films (seethe list of interviewees, with their photos and selected credits, beginning on page 473).Their quotes and the musical examples provided should be an immense help in revealingthe techniques and aesthetics of fine film scoring. 30. Preliminaries 1IPRELIMINARIES 31. On the track 2This page intentionally left blank. 32. Preliminaries 3 1THE FILMMAKING TEAM If I were a composer I would always deal with the directorthe man who has the vision. Paul Wendkos, Director How did the director and I get together and solve our differences? We got together in the following waysince I owned the film, thats the way it went. Gerald Isenberg, Television Producer If you listen to the wrong guy and walk onto the scoring stage, and the guy who really is going to call the shots says, Whats that? I didnt tell you to do that, youre in a lot of trouble.Allyn FergusonANY COMPOSER WHO SERIOUSLY wants to compose for films, and is intent onpreparing himself for that work, needs to understand just how film scoring is done, frombeginning to end. By the time he feels ready he should not only have studied composition and be ableto write in a large variety of styles, but also have studied the best examples of filmscoring and should have a background of practical local/regional studio work: albums,singles, commercials, concerts, and orchestration projects. He should know as much aspossible about how the film industry works. To understand what it is like to work in thisfield and to know what is expected of him, he first needs to look at the actual process thata composer goes through in scoring a film, and to understand with whom he will beworking on film projects. In presenting a comprehensive guide to film scoring in this book, we begin with thechronological steps that a composer takes in a typical scoring project: Meeting filmmakers, reading script, screening the film Spotting the film Planning budgets and recording schedules Conceptualizing Considering timings/synchronization Composing Orchestrating 33. On the track 4 Recording DubbingThen we go into the special areas of using electronic and contemporary music, television,working with songs in films, prerecording (lip-sync) techniques, and details of thebusiness. MEETING THE FILMMAKERSThe first step in film composing is usually a meeting with one or more of the filmmakers,although you may have been sent a script to read prior to this meeting. Filmmaking is ateam effort, and the team includes many experts: actors, cameramen, designers,costumers, writers, recording technicians, dialect coaches, dancing coaches, special-effects persons, sound-effects people, and many more. But the two who have the greatestinfluence on the musical style, tone, and attitude of the filmcrucial factors of concern tothe composerare the director and the producer. Others who may directly influence thescores outcome are the writer, the film editor, the music supervisor, the music executive,and the music editor. The first substantial talks about the films music will probably be with the director, atwhich time he may give the composer the script, screen an early cut of the film (formerlycalled a rough cut but typically referred to as a first cut), and/or discuss his ideas aboutthe film and its musical needs. In the course of developing the score, the composer willencounter varying perceptions of what music is right for the film. These different ideasmay come from the different people on the team or, surprisingly, from the same person,as his thoughts about the music change in the course of the composers work. You mustknow who has the overall authority as well as the authority during each phase of yourwork. Be observant and tune in to the reality of the situation. Here are the possibilities:1. The producer.2. The director.3. The executive producer. This person may not play a major role in the day-by-day genesis of the score, but may actually turn out to be the final arbiter.4. The film editor. The editor may at some point in postproduction be given relatively great authority to supervise dubbing and/or other related tasks. Almost invariably, however, final approval will come from someone else.5. The music supervisor or music executive. Their roles depend on their background, abilities, and responsibilities; the specific production companys situation; and whether the music supervisor is employed by the production company on a freelance basis or is a salaried executive.Determine the AuthorityDont assume that all executive producers are the final authority. Most will defer to thedirector of a motion picture on most issues. The director of a television miniseries or made-for-television film will normally make 34. Preliminaries 5most of the post-production decisions. Some executive producers may not even come tothe scoring session, but will exercise final approval over all aspects of dubbing includingfinal music volume levels, placement of a cue (or score) in the film, the relationshipbetween music and sound effects, and other creative details. Like every other aspect of the filmmaking process, it is not always easy to determinewho is in charge because there are no absolute rules. Astonishing as it may seem, thepower structure sometimes changes over the course of the project, and the composer hasto rely on his powers of observation to determine what each persons function on aproject truly is.THE DIRECTOR What the director is hearing and feeling is to be respected at all costs.Bill Conti Ive learned never to say things like I hear a music box. I wouldnt dream of telling any distinguished composer exactly how to do his work. John Erman, DirectorThe director is responsible for envisioning and/or approving all creative decisions andoverseeing all creative activities on a film, relegating duties to specialists in charge ofeach area (including composing, editing, sound effects, dialogue looping, and remixing),but these trained professionals are functioning as the directors representatives, fulfillinghis wishes and realizing his vision. The decisions made by the director are not necessarilyunilateral, as he often works very closely with the producer, editor, and the other creativeartists. In a television series, the producer may be responsible for many of the creativedecisions; in these cases, the producer is really functioning as a codirector, so the follow-ing points relate to the television producer as well.What the Director Expects from the MusicDirectors want the score to reflect and emotionally enhance their idea of what the film isabout. The director wants the score to reflect the values, texture, and central idea of thefilm as he sees it. Maurice Jarre defines this as the distinction between concert music andfilm scoring: I must say, my philosophy is really the philosophy of the director. And theonly thing you have to do, you have to use your imagination and your talent or yourtechnique to satisfy his ideas. When you are doing music for a film, you have tounderstand its just a part of the film, and you are not going to write the masterpiece ofyour life; if its a masterpiece you are lucky, because you are part of a masterpiece whichhas been made basically by the director. Like many directors, Oliver Stone (who directed Nixon [1995] and JFK [1991]) looks 35. On the track 6for a dramatic theme (that is, a literary concept). A films dramatic theme can be definedby describing what it is really about. The theme may not be obvious to the composer onfirst viewing, so it is always a good idea to encourage a discussion about this significantissue. As Stone says, Writing music is much like writing a movieyou wrestle with thetheme. You have to convey to the composer what it is you wanted to say. In Platoon[1986] I really wanted to hit on the youth themethe passage of innocence. The Scores FunctionDetermining the function of music in a film is the single most important decision orgroup of decisions the composer will make, because these decisions affect the very natureof the score; its style, musical idiom, and harmonic language, as well as the outer limitsof conservatism or creative freedom. On the surface, determining the scores functionmay seem easy, but understanding what the director wants and what the film needs can bedifficult. The directors insight is crucial. Paul Wendkos explains his point of view as a director:The sounds of the score deepen the experience that you are already witnessing on thescreento deepen it, to reinforce it, and not necessarily to comment on it externally. Youare trying to get inside the scene. So the music becomes a part of it, not an addition to it. Idont like music to be outside; I dont like doing the score externals. I dont like the scorewalking or crying or scoring car chases. Thats boring. Id rather get down into thevisceral essence of what the chase is about and capture that element, capture the heartbeatof the chase, capture the life and death aspects of the chase. There are all these emotionalcolors that music can express so well, rather than just the visual excitement of a lot oftires screeching and car crashes, which can become so melodramatic. I like films wherethe score is very definitely pushed inside, capturing the dark corners, the landscape of themind. I think thats where the director and composer have a very intimate relationship, indefining that and translating it into musical terms.The Director/Composer RelationshipSome directors are screamers; others are soft-spoken and understated; still others havemore variable personalities, and you never know what their response will be to aparticular situation. The ideal atmosphere is one in which communication is open,reflecting mutual respect and thoughtfulness. The late Alex North, when describing hislongtime relationship with director John Huston, recognized that the director who inspiresa composers confidence creates a mutually beneficial partnership: Huston was a verymusical and all-around creative guy, who gave the composer trust in attempting a certainunorthodox approach and concept to a score. Director John Erman consciously strives to create this comfortable atmosphere,knowing that this is his best chance to get the greatest contribution from his composer:Im a believer in what they call in psychological terms Validation. And I think theworst thing you can possibly do to a composer is say, Well, thats all wrong. Because itisnt all wrong. Its just not what you had in your head. But its what he had in his headand maybe you hadnt communicated what you had in your head. So what I try to do is 36. Preliminaries 7first say all the good things I feel about the cue. And then say, In these ways, I dont feelthe cue fulfills my notion of what this scene is about. That way, the composer doesntget his feelings hurt, doesnt feel let down or put down, because the moment you feel putdown, it just stifles your creative impulses. And particularly when the poor composer hasto redo his cue right there, because generally thats what happens when we do thesetelevision movies. There isnt time to say, Go away, and two weeks from now well getall these musicians back. Usually I will just say things like I feel youre overstating themusic; the scene doesnt need that much. Or, in contrast, I have often said, I didntaccomplish everything I wanted in this scene. What can you do to help me give thischaracter a little more heart? Or whatever. And Im always thrilled at the way acomposer reacts to that. Thats just human nature. In general, the connection between director and composer described by North andErman is ideal, and will invariably serve the film well. Danny Elfman presents a similarideal from the composers viewpoint: If they want to get a really good score, they haveto allow me to stretch out. If theyre really nervous about everything all the time, Imgoing to have to contain myself and they are not going to get my best workSometimes Directors Dont Want What They Say They WantDavid Raksin tells this story: The new director turned out to be an amiable roughneck,about my own age, bright and shrewd, talented, and still New Yorkish enough to need tolet me know that he was not about to have any of that Hollywood music in his picture.What he wanted was something different, really powerfullike Wozzeck. To hear themagic name of Alban Bergs operatic masterpiece correctly pronounced was to doubt theevidence of my ears; here was a nonmusician who was not only aware that Wozzeckexisted but actually thought of his film as one for which so highly expressive a musicalstyle might be appropriate. So there we were in my living room, with drinks in hand, the phonograph playing,and the conversation taking its time to get under way. I remember thinking that this wasthe way things ought to be: I liked his script, I admired him, and I couldnt wait to hearwhat he had to say and to get working on musical material for the score. Suddenlyirritable, he said, Whats that crap youre playing? That crap, I replied, is Wozzeck Many Times They Do Want What They Say They WantThis is true not only with regard to the overall concept, style, and dramatic approach ofthe score, but often with very specific details as well. Just how a particular dramaticmoment is to be played can be a great concern to a director. Even orchestrational details may come into play. As Christophe Beck has discovered,Directors can have their favorite and least favorite instruments. On a movie I recentlydid the director came over about once a week to hear cues, and there were a couple ofcues with flute and by the time he heard the second cue with flute and he said he didntlike the flute, it was like, You know, I think I pretty much dont like flute. And I said,Okay. So noted. Mockups give the director the opportunity to respond specifically toorchestrational detail prior to scoring, which is helpful. 37. On the track8 As an orchestrator, Mark McKenzie also has experienced directors reactions to aspecific instrument. Tim Burton has become much more finely tuned as to what hesasking for. For example, on Planet of the Apes [2001], he just said, I dont liketrumpets. So the note was, Were not using trumpets. And you think, Well, he doesntreally know what hes saying, but actually he does. It is bizarre, you know, but onSleepless in Seattle [1993] with Marc Shaiman, Nora Ephron didnt want harp glisses. Itwas very specific and it was a very romantic film and it was like, What do you mean youdont want harp and harp glisses? But there is no absolute definition of romantic music for films. If twelve composerseach write a romantic cue for twelve different films, youre going to get a lot of differenttakes on the meaning of romantic: everything from Randy Edelmans music for two dogsin Beethovens 2nd (1993) to Shaimans score for The American President (1995) to JohnBarrys music accompanying the exploits of James Bond. InsecuritiesThe director often suffers from some amount of anxiety during the weeks when thecomposer is writing the score. Historically speaking, no aspect of the movie-makingphase can cause more anxiety for the filmmakers, because in the past they couldntbecome very involved in the process of creating the score itself. And so they waited,hoping it would turn out all right. Harry Lojewski, former vice president of MotionPicture and Television Music, MGM/UA, stresses this concern: Directors are veryinsecure. And also, music is the last element thats added to the film, and it could bedisastrous. It is important that the director feel confident that the composer he hasselected is someone that is artistic, and is sensitive to the emotional content of his film,and that he is going to be as creative with his score as the director has been in shootingthe film. Now, with synth mockups of the score being commonplace, most of this anxiety is athing of the past. Nonetheless, the composer must be aware of the directors need forreassurance. Communication is essential, and this will be discussed further as we look atthe process of scoring a film. The directors visionand confidence in itcan help the composer handle thisdifficult period. Considering his relationship with M.Night Shyamalan when they workedtogether on The Sixth Sense (1999), James Newton Howard learned that the directortrusted his film. He made a very quiet picture. And it allowed me to write very quietmusic for woodwind ensemble, for instance, that I never could have done in a typicalthriller movie. And something that is enormously valuable to a composer is to have aconfident director. This is what I like, heres the space that I need you to occupy, and hesticks with that. And that really helped enormously with The Sixth Sense.COMMUNICATING WITH THE DIRECTOR Often the directors are really at a disadvantage if they cant verbalize what they want. 38. Preliminaries 9Burt Bacharach If a director says, Oh, that temp music sounds perfect, and you have a better ideawell, you d better blow him out of the saddle if hes already happy with something. Bill ContiWords used to describe music have different meanings for different people. Thats whycomposers and filmmakers so frequently communicate by referencing music and playingmockups; how they do this is the subject of Chapter 3. In most cases, though, meetingsand discussions precede the music. Sometimes the director can be very specific about his wishes. When youre using musicto communicate, you can get very definitive responses from the director. But when thetalk turns technical, dont assume the director has mastered the language of music, nomatter how basic. Maurice Jarre tells this cautionary tale: One day a director said, Youknow, Maurice, I would like to have the clarinet playing that. So I said, Fine. I can givethe clarinet that melody. When we went to the recording session he said, But I thoughtyou told me you were going to do this theme here with the clarinet. I said, Yes, itsplayed by the clarinet. No, no, its not the clarinet, its not the sound of a clarinet. Isaid, Look, its a clarinet player. And after that he didnt say anything. And so then theoboe played, and he said, Thats it, thats the clarinet. If such specific words can fail us, how can we possibly hope to discuss the moresignificant, elusive issues of concept and design? Mark Mancina expresses the frustrationof many composers who try to discuss their ideas with the filmmakers. Its always theold clich, that the composer can say to the director, What do you want to feel? How doyou want to feel? What do you want from the music here? But when you ask a directorthat, theres only a limited amount of words that they generally will sayMomentum,or Emotion, or Drive,and what do those things mean? They can mean differentthings. You can drive with the cello. You can drive with percussion. You can drive with asynth. It can be difficult, but there are ways to communicate more accurately. Nevertheless, even with the best of intentions, complete miscommunication is possible.Music editor Johnny Caruso has seen it both ways. Ive seen directors and composers sitthere and both be really clear that there was an emotion that they were looking for that afilm conveyed. And then its wonderful. And Ive also been in places where you can seetwo people talking and you know that theres going to be trouble down the line. Andsometimes [as a music editor] you can do something about it and sometimes you cant.Directors Communicate Their Dramatic VisionSome of the most effective directors communicate most successfully with composers interms of the drama. What does the film mean to them? What does the scene mean tothem? Through describing their vision of the film and the drama, they hope to conveytheir vision of the score and its role in their film. 39. On the track 10 Elmer Bernsteins description of his experience with director John Sturges whilescoring The Magnificent Seven (1960) shows how effective a communication tooldramatic references can be. He would tell you the story of the film before you ever sawthe script, just tell you the story. But the telling had such enthusiasm and such love andsuch excitement that it was terrifically stimulating. By what he was telling you and theway he told you, he was defining the character of the film, and to a large extent thedelineation of the main characters in the film. You would not be in doubt as to what hewas looking for, what the dramatic content of the film was. Individual scenes can be discussed in much the same way. Director Richard Michaelsdescribes his work method: I communicate with a composer pretty much the same way Ido with actors. And that is in the sense of the feeling of the scene. Rarely, if ever, do Igive actors instruction on how to read the line. Usually, I find the way to reach them is totell them what the scene feels like, what it is about. I try to do the same thing withcomposers. Its a feeling that I want to come out of a scene. If hes ever musicallydescriptive, thats my way of saying what the sense of the scene should be and what itshould communicate to the audience. He doesnt mean to be taken literally if he says, Itkind of feels like a lonely piano here. Directors Communicate Their Musical VisionSometimes the director has already decided on a musical approach to scoring his film.More often than not the films temp track will reflect many of the directors musicalwishes (see Chapter 3). Sometimes the directors musical visions can be confusing, as Mark Mancinadiscovered while working on Training Day (2001). During the big chase sequence, oneof the things that Antoine [Fuqua] kept saying to me was he really wanted to do it like aBernard Herrmann score. And I wrote a really interesting thing that I think was great.And he didnt like it at all, because he didnt really want that. He just didnt know that hedidnt want that. You know, in his head, I love that Hitchcock thing, but when you givehim that Hitchcock thing hes, No, I dont really like that, thats too dissonant and itdoesnt have any theme. Well, yeah. So, that didnt work and we ended up doingsomething else that was really pretty interesting, pretty edgy and had a lot of tension toit. In this case, it was music that led them both to a successful musical solution for thescene. The Composer Describes His Musical VisionThe composer can contribute to a greater extent creatively if he brings his own unique,fresh point of view to a project. Hans Zimmer states this very firmly. I think thecomposers job on a film is you have to come in with a point of view. It cant be thedirectors point of view, because you cant do a direct secretarial job of the directorspoint of view. They have to morph into each other. With temp tracks and mockups onalmost every film, this is an extremely important consideration. Time and again thecomposer will find himself in a situation in which he will be asked by the director to docertain things musically. These may relate to specific moments in a film or may be more 40. Preliminaries 11general in character, including adopting a specific musical approach or style for the entirefilm. You must satisfy the director, but there may be other, sometimes even better waysto accomplish the directors goals. Zimmer continues: With Ridley Scott [with whomZimmer has worked on a number of films, including Gladiator (2000) and Thelma andLouise (1991)], he never tells me what to do. Which is I think a very European thing. Heexpects me to come to the movie with what I think I should be doing. In other words, Itake on the directors job at that point. Hes not going to go and muck around in my stuffbecause he wants something that he cant imagine.SUPPORT AND GUIDANCE I have been ready to abandon ideas when a director will step up and say, No, dont be so quick to move away from that. Theres something really good there.James Newton HowardThere are times throughout scoring a film when the composer doesnt yet have theanswer to particular creative questions. At those times, working with a sympatheticdirector can be particularly helpful. Harry Gregson-Williams describes how Tony Scottencouraged and inspired him when he was scoring Spy Game (2001): If ones playing acue back for the first time to him, its a ten minute action thing, or something that goesthrough a lot of moods and perhaps Ive spent several days and nights working on it soits really a critical moment to play this back and judge his reaction, he would always say,Great, H., fantas-tic! You know, hed always be encouraging first and foremost. Thatsfantastic! Now, listen. Lets go back here, its a little dark here, and then wed get into it.He always made me feel like he was encouraging me. Sometimes the directors willingness to share the composers anguish as he thrashesout a creative problem can provide the impetus to get passed a major creative impasse.David Shire discovered this when working with Alan Pakula on All the Presidents Men(1976), a docudrama that was difficult to score. When Pakula came over to Shires studioand listened to his piano improvisations it jump-started Shires creative process and gavehim the breakthrough he needed to come up with the right material. Robert Mulligan gave James Newton Howard a different kind of support on The Manin the Moon (1991). One of the best things a director can do for a composer is recognizewhen its right. You know, sometimes when a composer doesnt. And Ive had thatexperience happen many times on films. This kind of guidance can help shape a scoreand bring it to a new level. Many composers have experienced this, including JerryGoldsmith when he was working with Paul Verhoeven on Basic Instinct (1992). On thatfilm, the director was able to single out a moment Goldsmith considered relativelyunimportant in his score and identify it as the music he had written that summed up thefilm. It became the main theme, first heard over the main titles (see Figure 14.4). 41. On the track 12 TWO-WAY DIALOGUE BETWEEN DIRECTOR AND COMPOSERThe director and composer communicate on various levels, depending on thecircumstances. Here are some possibilities:1. The director and composer work togetherWe have already seen how well this works. There can be a real exchange of ideasbetween the director and the composer, creating a fruitful relationship. This works bestwhen everybody involved is able to sacrifice his own ego to the higher benefit of theproject, and less successfully when the composer worries about whether an ideaoriginates with him or the director. I view Jerry Goldsmith as the director of the music and when it comes to the musiches co-directing the film with me, says Rod Lurie, who directed The Last Castle(2001). I tell him what Im looking for and he tells me how to do it. I come up with thestrategy, he comes up with the tactics. Its essential and that communication is essential. 2. The director and composer disagreeSometimes the director worries about the score being too big or too small, too loud or toosoft, too contemporary or too traditional. Bill Contis experience on The Right Stuff(1983) is not uncommon. Director Philip Kaufman wanted his film to project the feelingof the people and their personal stories. But the story was the epic story of the Americanspace race. It had scope to it, says Conti. And I saw rockets taking off. So the directorand I did not see eye to eye. He felt the personal story would be hurt if the music was big.I agreed with him, but I didnt know how to play rockets going off and circling the moonwith just a guitar. So I went for big, and then sometimes he said, I think the music ismaking it too big. And I kept saying, But its the history of the American spaceprogram. Your people are real, youve made a great film, but I dont know how to handlethe big moments in a small way. I think it would take away from the film. So weddisagree. And he admitted he was intimidated by music. He said that. And brass madehim think of the military. So I tried to change the score and tried to make it smaller andsmaller. It was a struggle. It is much more common to have the big/small problem with a film lacking the hugescope and epic size of The Right Stuff. Thomas Newman and director Sam Mendeslooked for just the right size score for Road to Perdition (2002). One of the talks wasabout the very opening bike ride, says Newman, and I think when Sam had startedthinking about it, he always wanted it to be propulsive. And then he went back on that.No, no, it wants to be orchestral, because it wants to give a sense of the size of themovie. And [music editor] Bill Bernstein and I both disagreed with that because wethought it was one of the few moments in the movie where you could justifiably havepace and tempo. And ultimately I think he agreed with that, but late in the game I hadwritten this piece, the piece that you hear, although there was a B section and he said,You know what? I dont like it and I wish there could be more orchestra somehow in 42. Preliminaries 13those sections. So I remember, as he comes over the hill on his bike we had put some string chords inabove a kind of guitar ambience and we broke into the Uilleann pipes theme, and then inthe B section I rewrote and went to a much larger scale. And I had to agree it was a betterpiece, and I thought he was utterly right in terms of establishing the yin and the yang ofyour sense of scale. That heres propulsion and intimacy on the one hand and heres alarger palette on the other. For the A and B sections. And I ended up liking it much betterthan the piece that I had written originally. It convinced me that Mendes was ingenious inthe way he crystallizes in his process. The closer he gets to completion the more he seemsto know what his movie is. In any case, the best time to deal with these concerns is before scoring, not during orafter. This is the time during which more can be communicated than simply themes andideas. I think the directors and producers, a lot of them are very good in seeing throughhow much you feel about something, says Trevor Rabin. So I think honesty is such animportant element of it. Because Ive seen that missing, and having spoken to people,there is a tendency for some people just to say, Oh, Ill do something else, I dont care,and I never look at it like that. Every movie to me is like doing a Yes album, which wasalways the most important thing I was doing at the time.3. The composer adapts the directors ideaJames Newton Howard has found that working with M. Night Shyamalan (The SixthSense [1999], Unbreakable [2000] and Signs [2002]) is always stimulating. The directordoesnt want a particular style but rather a uniqueness. The simpler the idea the happier Ithink Night would be, so there was a lot of writing, sending demos, rewriting, No, thatsnot quite right, I kind of like this, you still havent found the Sixth Sense theme. Hefinally sent me an e-mail something to the extent of, Think of the Sixth Sense theme assomething living, some feral energy that sort of moves unnoticed invisibly from room toroom. The director still didnt feel they had discovered the main theme for the movie whenthe two of them met at Howards studio and listened to the cue for the scene when Coleexits the church after meeting Malcolm (Bruce Willis). He looked at me and he said,You know, thats it. Ive been hearing it and youre just sort of blowing right by it. Thisis what I love, can you do something more with this? And so I took that, and that, infact, became the Sixth Sense theme. That has happened virtually every time weveworked together, where he will recognize something in what Ive written that I dont, andrequest that I pursue an area that I really quite frankly dont believe in. In two of the threecases I ended up thinking he was completely right about that, serving the picture well. The composer might also use the directors ideas in a different way than originallysuggested. When the late John Addison scored Sleuth (1972), director JosephMankiewicz had the idea that the character played by Lawrence Olivier had beenintellectually trapped in the thirties. He was living in the past in his country house in theworld of those Agatha Christie detective stories. He therefore thought that the musicshould have a very strong thirties flavor. And that was something I had to discuss withhim a lot, because, in fact, that was going to limit me. The theme for Michael Caines 43. On the track 14character, and other music Addison was thinking about for the film, was not at all thirtiesin flavor, and he didnt feel it should be. But he kept the directors idea in mind, andeventually realized that the authentic pop tunes of the thirties would be a perfectaccompaniment to the long sequence in the middle of the film that functioned as theequivalent of the act break in the original play. It worked very, very well there, becauseit was scored with source music coming from his phonograph. And it was completelydifferent from the rest of the score, so it made a wonderful contrast at that point. 4. The director edits the film to suit the musicOccasionally, the director is moved and influenced by the music and makes adjustmentsto the film to accommodate it. Ridley Scott edited segments of the fighting sequences inGladiator (2000) to Hans Zimmers music. When Isaac Hayes was scoring Shaft (1971),Gordon Parks received tapes of the cues as he went along: The more I heard, the moreexcited I got. I sometimes cut something to fit his music. There were times when I wishedI had done something different in the film to go along with the music. And there weretimes when I said, Wow, I wish I had something here to fit this inhow can we usethis? 5. The composer asks questionsThe composer should ask the director questions to probe the emotional meaning of thefilm and of the individual sequences being scored. Avoid asking too many specifictechnical or musical questions. What attitude do you see the music taking in this scene?is a question most directors will be comfortable discussing; Should I write the theme inmajor or minor? is not. On the other hand, with some directors, you cant go too far wrong as long as you talkabout the drama. Director John Erman recalls his collaboration with Marvin Hamlisch onthe 1984 television film of Streetcar Named Desire: He was the most inquisitivecomposer Ive ever worked with. He would literally call me up and say, What exactly doyou intend this scene to mean? What is the entire emotional through line of this scene?And he would make me talk and talk and talk. And finally hed say, Ive got it. Andthen he would work on it and then he would call me up almost every day while he waswriting the score. And he would always play me themes, and he would say, Is thisexactly what you have in your head? And if I said, No, then, Well, how does it differfrom what you want? Or what you hear? Or from what you envision? Some composers are concerned about working too closely with the director, fearingthat it will be a time-consuming and fragmented process. Others feel they will end up inthe uncomfortable position of depending on the musical insight of someone who mayhave no (or very limited) musical background and possibly unsophisticated musicalinstincts. Often, composers are protective of their creative independence, and are leery ofbecom 44. Preliminaries 15James Horner, Harve Bennett, Leonard Nimoy (foreground) during thescoring of Star Trek III (1984). Mixer Dan Wallin, far left; music editor BobBadami, far right. In booth at Record Plant Scoring Stage M.ing solely a mirror image of the directors wishes; they worry that it may limit theircreative input. All of these concerns are genuine and should be considered. In general, though, eachcomposer must ultimately rely on his own good taste and dramatic sense to